# Lyndon Green PR1 Protected Repeater Station, Feb 2018



## Angelus (Feb 4, 2018)

*What it was*

Known to BT as Lyndon Green TRS (telephone repeater station) or Birmingham/G, this building is one of the handful of protected repeater stations constructed during the Cold War period. Its life as a functioning BT building having almost ended, the company allowed a visit for study and photography purposes. Lyndon Green was known technically as a PR1 (protected repeater station, type 1), comprising a two-level bunker with heavy blast doors. It is semi-sunken, with the main distribution frame and active equipment on the ground floor and power plant and ventilation system in the basement below ground.

Repeater stations were locations where the signals on telephone cables were amplified to counteract the electrical losses that tend to make speech fainter. The majority of repeater stations were located at intermediate places between telephone exchanges. Lyndon Green is on one of the main trunk telephone (and television) cable routes between London and Birmingham, having a number of important circuits passing through it. It was constructed at a time when all repeaters (amplifiers) used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes), which required far more electrical power than the solid-state amplifiers of today. Accordingly the repeater station had a substantial power plant, with its own electricity substation, a large generator (removed some years ago) and storage batteries. The station had equipment stores, a test desk, repair workshop and eating/recreation facilities.

*History*

The facility was opened in 1953 and on account of its strategic importance it had a low profile.

Its nondescript appearance gave no clue to what lay behind the locked gate, although passers-by could have deduced its telecomms connections from the sign on the wall or the vehicles parked in the yard. Few people could have known that this building had been built at great expense to maintain communications through Birmingham in the event of atomic war.

Lyndon Green was one of a number of repeater stations built between 1951 and 1956 as a result of a Treasury paper entitled United Kingdom Telecommunications in War
Published in 1949.


Carved stonework by the main entrance confirms the year of construction as the Coronation year of 1953.
This recommended that some £2¾ million be spent over five to six years on a scheme for strengthening the telecomms facilities needed for defending the country. One element of the Post Office defence programme (as this become known) was the so-called Birmingham ring main, comprising "protected installations of transmission equipment on about a 5-mile radius with interconnected cabling to enable permanently through communications to bypass the city centre". Protected in this context means that the buildings and other features would be sufficiently robust to remain intact if a single atomic bomb fell on the centre of Birmingham.

Lyndon Green opened in 1953, a year before the Post Office first published the List of Repeater Stations (A1008). Its entry here is recorded under its alternative name of Birmingham Sheldon (BM/G).
Construction of this ring main scheme appears to have been patchy, with hardened or 'protected' repeater stations erected in Birmingham at Lyndon Green (south-east) and to the north-west, at Queslett (but not elsewhere). Both of these were Type 1 stations (Type 2 was larger). The total number of PR1 and PR2 stations constructed around Britain is usually given as eight but it is becoming clear that a greater number were in fact built (details will be given in a subsequent article).

How Lyndon Green and the rest of the telephone network was intended to function under atomic war conditions is a matter for speculation, since the Post Office war instructions of the time are not available for inspection. One might imagine that the network would eventually shrink down to the switchboards of the emergency manual switching system (EMSS) and the small number of 'Trunk Sub' subscribers connected to them (and to the normal manual switchboards above ground). Once electricity from the grid was lost, exchanges would keep going for a while using their batteries and emergency generators. The bulk of the public telephone network would have been disconnected altogether previously and it is possible that the automatic trunk exchanges would provide connection between EMSS locations. This, however, is only speculation.
*
Visit*

Went with two urbex mates. Bought some waders for this place after being told it was flooded in the basement. Was bone dry. Anyway stripped fully. Nothing to see here. Even the urinals and toilets have gone. Glad I got to see it though.
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Pictures
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## The_Derp_Lane (Feb 4, 2018)

Nice, looks cool


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## krela (Feb 4, 2018)

Shame it's so stripped but an interestingly historical site.


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## oldscrote (Feb 4, 2018)

Here's some pictures from Sub Brit of the interior prior to the kit being stripped out

Subterranea Britannica: Research Study Group: Sites: Lyndon Green PR1 Protected Repeater Station


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## Electric (Feb 4, 2018)

Thanks for the Report Angleus.
I was hoping to see it again one day, now I've discovered LED lamps and can actually see where I'm clumsily going now.
Such a shame. Where's everything gone? - the lights, ceilings, GPO equipment? Perhaps they’re getting ready to sell off the site and asbestos strip it.


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## urbexdevil (Feb 5, 2018)

Great report, im surprised the basement isn't flooded now! That must have been pumped out at some stage... here's when I went in 2015.


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## UrbanPrincess14 (Feb 5, 2018)

Awesome pics  we visited a good few years back with urbexdevil and couldn’t get down due to the depth of the water back then. As he states above it looks as if it’s been pumped out with how dry it is.


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## Tigershark (Feb 6, 2018)

Awesome pics, i used to drive past here quite a lot but there was allways BT vans parked outside and it looked like it was still in use. If you carry on down the A45 towards the airport just before the turn to Landrover on the right there is an large square airaid shelter in the woods you can see it from the road


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## fluffy5518 (Feb 8, 2018)

Even stripped out you still managed some good pics, definitely worth the visit !


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## Potter (Feb 11, 2018)

Real shame it's stripped. I'm wondering if it's going to be used for storage, as I know that's been done with them and similar cold war facilities. I really hope those old manual switchboards are now in a museum.


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## Angelus (Feb 12, 2018)

Yeah it was a shame its so stripped out but certainly worth a quick look even for the history behind it. I suspect it could be very easily turned into something. I think the water might be a concern though if it flooded again. But as it has been said. Its clearly had water pumped out.


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## Dirus_Strictus (Feb 12, 2018)

Angelus;351209 But as it has been said. Its clearly had water pumped out.[/QUOTE said:


> The water table in this area is very variable, which evidently caused problems in the early days. I suspect that the dryness photographed is down to a lowered water table in the area, unless there are deep drainage works in the immediate vicinity.


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