Any newcomer to CSOS Bude is told that snow is a sort of English disease which would never dare to cross the Tamar and invade Cornwall, and it is true that Bude does enjoy its own peculiar climate. Whether anyone else enjoys it is a moot point – it is particularly subject to high winds
GCHQ: Watcher of the Skies
PK Porthcurno, Museum of Global Communications has partnered with intelligence, cyber and security agency GCHQ for a new exhibition called ‘Watcher of the Skies’ which tells the fascinating story of a secret communications site on an exposed Cornish headland.
Oral Histories on PKOC
The archive at PK holds histories collected from those connected with C&W available to listen to online through the PK Online Collection.
PKOC World Map – Explore the Global History of Communications
The collections held at the Museum of Global Communications contain archive material and objects from around the world, reflecting the global nature of the industry. The PK Online Collection (PKOC) provides a World Map that allows users to explore the items we have connected with a particular place.
PK Online Collection
The PK Online Collection project moves closer to its scheduled launch date of December 2021.
What is a cableship?
Discover the history of cableships from the early ships repurposed to lay the first telegraph cables across the Atlantic, to the development of purpose built cableships that lay and repair fibre optic cables today.
The Lady and the Wolfpack
Our cableship blog series continues with this account from the Second World War. In 1943, cable repair ship, Lady Denison-Pender, is escorted on hazardous duties by an armed convoy, in what is to be a very close call with a U-boat wolf-pack near the Spanish Sahara.
The End of the Grappler
Duncan Mackenzie explores the fateful story of the cableship Grappler which got caught in the pyroclastic flow of the Mont Pelée volcano eruption of 1902. Part of our cableship blog series.
Colonia vs the U.S. Navy
Duncan Mackenzie continues his cableship blog series with a story about the British cableship Colonia being fired upon by the US Navy in 1920!
Recovering the Titanic’s Dead: the Mackay-Bennett
Our Digital Collections Officer, Duncan Mackenzie, looks at the cable ship the Mackay-Bennett and it’s role in recovering the deceased from the Titanic.
Five (-ish) Cableships called Retriever
Our Digital Collections Officer, Duncan Mackenzie, explores the history of five cableships, each named Retriever.
The Great Eastern
Duncan Mackenzie, our Digital Collections Officer, explores the history of Isambard Brunel’s SS Great Eastern. The SS Great Eastern was a formidable but flawed iron ship that laid the first successful transatlantic cable in 1866.