A Node is currently under threat..... node 10





here is the line of sight to Node 11.

Good luck to those who defender her.

Node 15. Portsmouth High Street (though not the High Street anymore but the place where the ‘Mary Rose’ rests.)



The famed ‘Semaphore Tower’.

You knew me as a ‘Nerd’ on introduction at the time of my potential trespass.

Thanks for your kindness and time.

JS

Node 14. Eastney.



As confirmed by the ‘Royal Marines Museum’ next door. This is the last of ‘Lumps Fort’. There is more left of World War II today.



The ‘give away’ to something older is round the back. The remains of deep fireplaces either side of what is now a rain shelter.

Node 13. Portsdown Hill.



Eyeing down on Eastney. Eastney or ‘Lumps Fort’ was only used, I gather, as a ‘make sure’ in case of smog to the final node. (Nice to prove my hunches correct… the nodes are closer together approaching the smog of London and Portsmouth). A Triangulation point cemented there now. Its better seen here then Node 8. You just about make out where the round foundations were.



When this Fort was built, next to the node tower, they had to knock the node down so as not to compromise the defences.

Node 12. Compton. (the most inviting of all the nodes from this biker’s point of view).



First we must look back on Node 11.

The only pure vista I offer you here. When there is a view from a node it is fantastic but the neighbouring node here is so clear and near. The Marden papers said the nodes were on average 5 miles apart accept for the approaches to London and Portsmouth. Compression due to smog from old fires and also here from fog, which the locals still complain about



Again, with this node, I felt good about the developer.



OK, change, but does the extended roof configuration tell you of respect?



Do you recognise it? The left half is original.



The Developer’s boys really got into the Quest. Here looking for the date on one of the out buildings but sadly too much into the 1800s to be original. This chap also found thick unshielded solid copper cable when clearing a neighbouring field for a farmer. A left over, perhaps, of when the semaphore nodes where used for electric telegraph that followed.



Below this iron lid, the boys tell me, is a stone water store , which is still used as such.

Node 11. Marden

Off the B2141 is informally signed ‘Telegraph House’. A friendly place. Red trees line the mile long drive which is also gated. The nearest pub will advise you how best to approach.



Sadly the wooden tower here has gone but respectfully replaced by something thought near to original in its honour.



A node twice here as you will have seen from before and here is an unpublished study of this Semaphore Chain. I call them the ‘Marden papers’. I’m a real cultureless nerd but some famous actor or writer lived here also.

Node 10. Woolbeding.



The name has been changed but when I saw it (and it was hard to find up a by way) I knew what it was and I was warm with feeling. The emotional high of this Quest.



The easiest way to it is from King Edward's hospital on the A286…. But you’ll need directions from a ‘local’ to Telegraph Hill……. It is behind the more famous ‘Old Hill’ and the two can only be joined directly by foot or hoof or ‘two wheels’. So four wheels needs to go round away from Woolbeding.





I took this from a concrete stand in the Garden, which could have been the water store. Focus now on the configuration of the roof. This, in my opinion, is the most untouched node through time.

The Semaphore Chain

In 1795 the navy decided to construct an optical telegraph system using a chain of signalling stations to enable the Admiralty in Whitehall to communicate with the naval base at Portsmouth on the south coast. At first a shutter technique devised by Sir George Murray was used but in 1822 the link was upgraded by Captain Sir Home Riggs Popham who chose semaphore instead.

Messages could be sent over the 108km path in about 15 minutes. The information superhighway of its age was in operation until about 1847 when the electric telegraph superseded it. The only surviving station now open to the public is at Chatley Heath in Surrey.

There were 15 nodes:

1. Admiralty
2. Chelsea
3. Putney Heath
4. Coombe Warren
5. Esher
6. Chatley Heath
7. Guildford
8. Witley
9. Haslemere
10. Woolbeding
11. Marden
12. Compton
13. Portsdown Hill
14. Eastney
15. Portsmouth High St.

This is what started ‘the mini quest’. (http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/R.Clarke/sema4/).

I had posted a quiz on my bikers web site a picture of the highest point in the southeast…. Leith hill. Someone said it was part of the ‘Semaphore line’. Well, it is a folly of course….:o)

But then I had time on my hands and the notion of seeing what had happened to the nodes occurred. I was to track them down with the aid of my motorcycle and take pictures. Then later came the notion some nodes should get a copy.

So here goes on July 2005

Node 1. The Admiralty.

Best suggestions points to the ‘Old Admiralty’ buildings next to Admiralty Arch. I’ll do this when the Terrorist Threat has gone.

Node 2. Chelsea.

Best suggestion points to ‘The Chelsea Pensioners Hospital’. Ditto when the threat has gone. I would not be helping roaming around taking pictures of government buildings at this time.

Node 3. Putney Heath.



The Telegraph Pub at the end of Telegraph Road (near the better known ‘Green man’ pub). The ‘Nodes’ the Admiralty came to realise had a water supply problem. So they ordered the construction of huge ‘stone’ underground water storages to keep the winter wet. It may remain here still as part of the cellar the Landlord led me to believe.



This is the oldest part of the building.



As confirmed by this picture of when the Node first became a Pub. It is being sold by the ‘Sprit Group’ as I type.

Node 4. Coombe Warren. (no such place on the map).



The node is gone ‘they said’. It is now built over by a walled compound of 4 luxury houses. This is the guard house which handed me the following.



Nothing about this picture said this was the original node.



This sign is at the entrance of this long private road.

Node 5. Esher.



What is now Claygate. At the end of Telegraph Road, which turns into a track before the top of Telegraph hill. If you like Greek food there is a treat at the bottom…. the famed ‘Greek Vine’.



Dad was out but I was kindly given permission to look around.





See the Iron slab? It was described to me as the ‘new’ sewage store. Me thinks not. It was the water store.

A great oasis here of ‘green’ in a built up area…. just like Node 3 Putney Heath. And as with most nodes it has lost its sightings due to the new tree line.

Node 6. Chatley Heath. (at the junction of the A3 and M25)



This one is fully restored and open to the public on weekends. This is the one near to my home and where I visited before the restoration years ago. It is on beautiful, but motorway noisy, common land.



This was the best built of all the ‘intermediate nodes’ and you will get a clue as to why later. Note the restored semaphore mast and the bricked up windows probably due to window tax.

Only the mast is visible above the tree line and only from the M25 today. Motorists probably think it is a cell phone Ariel.



The boarded entrance to the water store.

Node 7. Guildford



At the corner of Pewley hill (Rd) and Semaphore road. There is a 50s underground water store round the back which now is the water authority.





When I first saw this tower I thought the top two stories of it had been knocked off. But as this one is so like Node 5… maybe not.

Node 8. Witley



The Haslemere museum books mentioned ‘barnacle’ in several forms. Thus a new unfriendly property thankfully proved a distraction. The hazard of this quest is trespass … most of the nodes were built on rented land and so they surly returned back into ‘private’ when not needed….. but that is safer then military ownership…:o)



Knock on this friendly door and the owner will show you this…



The round foundations are clearly visible from the air, I understand, and I could just see them from where I stood as a depression. The owner here believed the site to be originally stone with a wooden tower (which figures). But no sign of the water store.

Great views from back at the cottage. And as I found with the ‘Nodes’. They are not on summits but on high ground with lines of sight to the next.

Node 9. Haslemere.

Complexity was realised here.



This is what it should have looked like as per Haslemere museum. Also below…. And note the lack of consistency with the mast.



Here there were 2 possible targets as in ‘Semaphore’ and ‘Telegraph’ map references.



Look at the blue underlined.



But what was this?

If you have a mind go here http://www.royal-signals.org.uk/telegraph.php and also here http://www.portsdown-tunnels.org.uk/ancient_sites/telegraph_p2.html ….. hehe.

‘Haste Hill’ is now better known as ‘Lythe Hill’.



Still the same name as on the old map. This semaphore node demolished by Irish Lord Sligo who built a hotel to enjoy the great view round the back. Then flats, recently, were built over the said site with bits of the old hotel incorporated.



But thanks to a great developer names live on.

Now, for more of the ‘Complexity’. In searching for the nearby ‘Telegraph Cottage’ we found a neighbour with a book that showed us this.



Can you see the chain we follow? Can you see the branching of the semaphore chain at Chatley heath? The branch was not completed to Plymouth this book says. Two semaphore Chains to the Admiralty indeed. Well another to the east for Chatham and Kent also.

So what is this?



Another Telegraph Chain and this time the Shutter based system of the 1700s which the Semaphore chain took over from. For Blackdown read Haslemere. For ‘Beacon Hill’ read ‘Node 11 Marden’.

So, now we have to agree definitions of the word ‘Telegraph’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph).

And here is the said ‘Telegraph Cottage’ at Barfield under the Beacon.



Great views one way only left here. But note the better quality of the foundations and the Octy design with what is thought to have been a wooden structure on top.