Site of 1920s Marconi Radio Station, Lowford Lane (EHER 15937)

Site of 1920s Marconi Radio Station, the site was cleared during the 1980s and is covered by an apartment building. This was the site of the first regular public radio entertainment broadcasts.

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import. Wriffle, Lowford Lane (TL 68150640), in 1919 Marconi established a small experimental station at Writtle to investigate the use of radios in aircraft. The exact plan form of the early station is unknown, although the third edition of the Ordnance Survey map was published in 1921, it was surveyed in 1919 probably prior to the construction of the station (OS Essex LIV.14). In the early 1920s it was developed as a radio station, and from 14 February 1922 the first regular public entertainment broadcasts were made from a timber hut on this site, with the call sign 2MT, these continued until January 1923. The site was then used for research, including during the Second World War the development of radar navigation for bombers. In 1947, the site was depicted with a central T-shaped block with surrounding sheds (OS Essex LIV. 14). In 1960 the hut, from where the first public broadcasts were made, was moved to King's Road School, Chelmsford, it has subsequently been acquired by Chelmsford Museums Service and has been re-erected at Sandford Mill. The site has been entirely cleared and is now covered by Melbs Court, apartment building. The only trace of the former wireless station is a section of wire mesh fencing supported by concrete posts along its N perimeter. <1> - <4>