Poundon Listening Station

During the war, a communication station was set up in Grendon Underwood by the SOE, the forerunner of MI6, in 1946. This was one of several listening stations in the area and was designed to enable European Resistance workers to have access to modern communications technology back to the SOE in the UK.

The sites were set up as a receiver and a transmitter, some distance apart for protection in case of bombing attacks. The Grendon Underwood site was listed as Station 53a with its transmitter at Charndon, Poundon village as Station 53b with its transmitter at Godington and Poundon Hill as Station 53c with its transmitter at Portway Farm, Twyford. Poundon Hill wireless station is just outside the village of Poundon and about 1.5 miles from Twyford, very near the Oxfordshire border.

There is still evidence of some of the brick and concrete buildings in the area with their distinctive cable holes through the wall.

The SOE was officially dissolved and the site was subsequently taken over by GCHQ but continued in its design purpose of a listening station. The site closed permanently in 1998 when it was taken into private ownership and is now a business park. During the war, the staff for the station were either housed on the site or at Poundon House.