Crowthorne - Broadmoor Warning Siren (geograph 2076019)

The Broadmoor Sirens are a series of thirteen warning

sirens Siren or sirens may refer to: Common meanings * Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies * Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology Places * Siren (town), Wisconsin * Siren, Wisco ...

based in towns and villages surrounding

Broadmoor Hospital Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. It is the oldest of the three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England, the other two being Ashworth Hospital near Liverpool and Rampton Secure ...

Crowthorne Crowthorne is a large village and civil parish in the Bracknell Forest district of south-eastern Berkshire, England. It had a population of 6,711 at the 2001 census, which rose to 6,902 at the 2011 census. A 2020 estimate put it at 7,808. Cr ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

, England. They were first installed in 1952 and are based on

air raid sirens A civil defense siren, also known as an air-raid siren or tornado siren, is a siren used to provide an emergency population warning to the general population of approaching danger. It is sometimes sounded again to indicate the danger has pas ...

with the intention of warning residents living near the high-security psychiatric hospital of an escaped patient.

History

The Broadmoor Sirens were installed in 1952 after

John Straffen John Thomas Straffen (27 February 1930 – 19 November 2007) was a British serial killer who was the longest-serving prisoner in British history. After killing two young girls in the summer of 1951, he was found unfit to plead at trial and commi ...

escaped from Broadmoor and murdered a child in

Farley Hill, Berkshire Farley Hill is a village in the county of Berkshire, England. For local government purposes, the village is within the civil parish of Swallowfield, which in turn is within the unitary authority of Wokingham. Notable buildings The village has t ...

. They are similar to air-raid sirens but employ shutters to produce an alternating "high - low" warning tone. More sirens were added in the 1960s after discussions in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

raised the issue that the sirens' radius was insufficient for nearby towns such as

Camberley Camberley is a town in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England, approximately south-west of Central London. The town is in the far west of the county, close to the borders of Hampshire and Berkshire. Once part of Windsor Forest, Cambe ...

and

Wokingham Wokingham is a market town in Berkshire, England, west of London, southeast of Reading, north of Camberley and west of Bracknell. History Wokingham means 'Wocca's people's home'. Wocca was apparently a Saxon chieftain who may als ...

. The thirteen sirens were created with the intention of warning residents in surrounding towns and villages to remain in their homes and keep their children supervised following the escape of a Broadmoor patient. The sirens are activated as a test at 10am every Monday to ensure they are working. The sirens are susceptible to electrical interference. In 2014, the Bracknell siren was activated accidentally during an electrical storm. In 2019, the sirens were also accidentally activated due to a technical fault. The thirteen satellite sirens were due to be decommissioned during 2018, with one siren remaining in the hospital grounds. The 1978 hit song "Sound of the Suburbs" by Camberley group the

Members Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

refers to the regular testing of the sirens.

Future

The last time the Broadmoor Sirens were activated because of an escape was in 1991, although they were activated in 1993 because of an attack at the hospital. In 2014, there were plans to remove seven of the thirteen sirens. This was because Broadmoor had added a second security fence around the hospital and intended to upgrade the remainder of the sirens so they had a radius to improve on the two-mile radius of the 1952 sirens. Local residents objected to this on safety grounds due to there being sixteen

primary schools A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ed ...

within the radius of the sirens. It was reported on 2 June 2016 that the hospital planned to have twelve (possibly all thirteen) sirens scrapped by 2018 in favour of escape alerts via the

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and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

.{{Cite news, url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/02/broadmoors-plans-to-replace-warning-sirens-with-twitter-alerts-n/, title = Broadmoor plans to axe escaped prisoner warning siren and rely on TV and Twitter alerts by 2018, newspaper = The Telegraph, date = 2 June 2016, last1 = Willgress, first1 = Lydia As of 2020, most of the original sirens have been removed from their locations, with the rest remaining idle.

References

Sirens Alarms Warning systems