HMS Forest Moor was a

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

land base located in Nidderdale in the borough of

Harrogate Harrogate ( ) is a spa town and the administrative centre of the Borough of Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the town is a tourist destination and its visitor at ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

History

The establishment was first used as one of the Second World War intelligence units, or Y-stations. In 1960 it became the Royal Navy's major

high frequency High frequency (HF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) between 3 and 30 megahertz (MHz). It is also known as the decameter band or decameter wave as its wavelengths range from one to ten ...

(HF) receiver station, its primary function was to route HF signals from locations abroad to military bases and command centres in the UK. The base was manned by a small group of Royal Naval radio operators and electricians (approximately six to a shift). This centre provided HF comms receiver links to bases in the Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, Canada and a RATT ship/shore receiver link to warships at sea. Transmitters were located at HMS Inskip in Lancashire. It also had a small ships company (including an RPO, a PO Caterer and chefs) for the day-to-day running of the establishment, including three civilian drivers. HMS Forest Moor was also the setting of a short-lived YTV comedy ''Thundercloud'' starring James Cosmo on a stone frigate which the Royal Navy confuse with an actual ship. In 2003 it was transferred to

VT Communications VT Communications was a part of VT Group plc. VT Communications was essentially the company formed from the privatisation of the BBC World Service transmitter sites. It was initially named Merlin Communications, then, after acquisition by VT, V ...

(now Babcock International) under a PPP contract to provide HF communications to the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

via the

Defence Communication Services Agency The Defence Communication Services Agency (DCSA) was an agency of the United Kingdom Ministry of Defence responsible for the procurement and delivery of Communications and Information Services (CIS) to the defence community and related public and ...

. It is now operated by civilian personnel, from a site on Meagill Lane adjacent to the old Forest Moor site. In 2010, the site was disposed of by Defence Estates to North Yorkshire County Council for £47 million. The site has been converted to a school for children with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties.

References

External links

Royal Navy press release about the end of its service
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forest Moor 1960 establishments in England History of telecommunications in the United Kingdom Military history of North Yorkshire Nidderdale Organisations based in North Yorkshire Forest Moor Science and technology in North Yorkshire United Kingdom nuclear command and control Y service