Telephone Exchanges – Wigan

Posted on by modernmoocher

Wandering around Wigan left and then left out of Wigan Wallgate ending up on the corner of Dorning Street, there’s a big red brick building.

1882

Where all this went on in 1946.

BT Archives

And all this went on too!

I only worked there very briefly in 1965, to do my Test Desk Training. It was a pleasant, if too hot, place to work: I remember being taken out for lunch at the Grand on my first day – very nice!

One peculiarity, which always stuck in my mind, was the canteen, upstairs, where the men all clung to one side, and the women to the other, never saw that anywhere else.

I was a telephonist 1961 -1968, I married a telephone engineer, you are right about the canteen or kitchen upstairs. When I first started after I’d finished my training I was sent down to the test desk for a long stand. Being a naive little thing I did as I was told, then sent out for some sky hooks and hen party hens, the girls I worked with were a great bunch we had ball best working years of my life, still friends with some of the telephonists I worked with – happy days.

Walking down Dorning Street one day going back to work and on the pavement outside the Grand there was a half crown. Tried to pick it up to howls of laughter. The lads in the telephone exchange opposite had welded a nail to it and pushed it in the ground between the paving flags. Very funny, and no I didn’t get it out.

Wigan World

hen you notice that there’s a Sixties’ neighbour.

With narrow windows and inset light and dark tan tiles.

Prior to the exchange of telecommunications’ messages, the site was preoccupied by the exchange of partisan residents with a predilection for particular political persuasions.

Let’s back track along Dorning Street and follow the aroma of Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls – to the Santus Works and beyond.

There stands a concrete behemoth.

Which has of late been beset with particular problems of its own.

Minefield of lager cans near Wigan school sparks worry Wigan councillors.

They are on a mission to stop the grounds of a derelict building, which lies just yards away from a school, being used as a drinking den.

Wigan Today

Though in fairness I was witness to neither a minefield or drinking den – just a telephone exchange.

BT Building – Stoke on Trent

Posted on by modernmoocher

Lytton Street Stoke on Trent Staffordshire

Almost not quite in the shadow of nearby neighbour the Hanley Tower, this little gem sits tucked away by the side of Queensway, minding its very own business.

The business of telecommunications.

Just a short walk from the railway station let’s take a look.

Hadrian TSC – BT Newcastle upon Tyne

Posted on by modernmoocher

Melboune Street

Land was acquired for this site in 1929 for the then General Post Office.

The first buildings are constructed in 1932 as General Stores, a Workshop and Garages.

BT Digital Archives

These were demolished in 1966 to make way for the present development.

The current building was phase one of eleven, which was to include a further twenty two storey building with a planned capacity of twenty four thousand people by 1980.

Building construction started in 1969 and was completed in 1972.

Final cost was £1,218,401.

My thanks to Sonna Lawrence BT employee, for his time and information.

There is little by way of background information online, save for this thread.

It’s officially The Hadrian Trunk Switching Centre and it is indeed owned by BT. It’s just a telephone exchange with a handful of staff. I only know this as I used to work for BT 150 customer service when ISDN was being rolled out 20 years ago and when there was a fault in the Newcastle area it was usually something going wrong in this building.

I’ve heard that it goes down as far as it goes up.

Someone has mentioned the basement which is legendary amongst the people who work there. Some say it’s a nuclear bunker, some say there’s a tunnel that goes to the other BT building in Carliol Square, others say there’s nothing down there.

The rumour always was that the central core was nuclear bomb proof so people in power could still make phonecalls and there is also a service tunnel going across to the CTE on the other side of the central motorway.

One online source suggests it may have been designed by the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works.

Mainstream Modern informs us that the design team was:

Thomas F Winterburn – Senior Architect MoPBW.

W Freeman – Senior Civil Engineer.

E.W. Hutchinson – Project Engineer.

Working as an architectural assistant in Colchester Borough Engineer’s Office in 1935, Winterburn was with the Ministry from the at least the mid-1950s, he is recorded as the Senior Architect for Norwich’s Post Office Sorting Office in 1955. He was also responsible for the now demolished Milburngate House in Durham that housed the Passport Office.

All that aside I took a look around outside, come along circumnavigate along with me.