0n Saturday 26 September 1931, less than a decade after its creation, the BBC began the eight-month-long task of packing its bags and moving from the cramped rabbit warren of Savoy Hill to a gleaming purpose-built headquarters building in Portland Place. When the first programmes were broadcast from this new home the following May, the occasion did not just mark a more comfortable working life for staff - it announced the BBC's arrival as a grand institution at the heart of the nation. The BBC had described Savoy Hill as the place where it had “spent its childhood and grew up to man's estate”. Now it had reached adulthood.
The building, north of Oxford Circus, was called Broadcasting House. Some 43,000 tonnes of London clay had been excavated to create three basement floors descending 12 metres below street level. Above ground were nine floors, 500 windows, balconies planted with bay trees, and a clock tower topped with a vast turtle-back roof. The edifice consisted of 2,630,000 blocks of shimmering white stone arranged in the gently curved shape of an ocean liner.
Inside, a state-of-the-art “sound factory had been created. Twenty-two studios, numerous cloakrooms, green rooms and a large concert hall, each decorated with art deco flourishes and equipped with the latest radio technology, were stacked in a central tower insulated from exterior noise by a 1.2metre-thick wall and hundreds of offices around the building's outer edges. The entrance hall, reached through an imposing set of bronze front doors, was clad in cool marble, creating an aura of sophisticated modernity. The BBC's new home, proclaimed the Daily Express, was nothing less than the “brain centre of modern civilisation”.
Denne historien er fra February 2022-utgaven av BBC History Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra February 2022-utgaven av BBC History Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
The King They Couldn't Kill -Want to know why Henry VII is remembered as an intensely suspicious king, wracked by paranoia? The answer, writes Nathen Amin, lies in his death-defying rise to power
Henry’s wary nature is typically attributed to his shaky claim to the throne. The first Tudor monarch was unable to escape the taunt that he was a usurper with no right to call himself king. In fact, his renowned paranoia was the inevitable consequence of a traumatic youth – a trait ingrained long before he harboured ambitions to wear a crown. If we delve deeper into Henry’s background, we can draw a fuller picture of one of our most circumspect of monarchs – one that might elicit sympathy for a long misunderstood king.
The Spy Who Hoodwinked Hitler - Dummy tanks at El Alamein. Bogus generals in Algiers. Sham armies on D-Day. All were ruses masterminded by Dudley Clarke. Robert Hutton tells the story of the British soldier who made an art form of duping the Nazis
Examining the reconnaissance photos, Behrendt was convinced that the Allies weren’t in any hurry. They were constructing some kind of pipeline towards the southern end of their line, probably to carry water, which was barely halfway completed. There were supply dumps appearing in the south as well – always a telltale clue about where an attack would come. True, a large number of trucks were parked at the northern end of the line, about 25 miles back from the front, but they hadn’t moved for weeks.
"People have achieved all kinds of crazy things at the age of 18″
ALICE LOXTON talks to Danny Bird about her book on 18 individuals who left an indelible mark on British history before they were out of their teens
Parthian chicken
ELEANOR BARNETT recreates an ancient Roman dish that borrowed flavours from a rival neighbouring empire in the Middle East
"We need a meaningful story for the new generation - our composite union"
WHAT A SUMMER IT’S BEEN SO FAR, WITH AN astonishing election result.
A Pole apart
ROGER MOORHOUSE is absorbed by a little-known but politically significant Polish princess whose life encompassed the major events of the later 18th and 19th centuries
Medieval England's p olitical miracle
From Magna Carta to parliament, taxation to the law courts, the 13th and 14th centuries laid the foundations for the modern British state
EASTERN PROMISES
Lured by rich trading prospects, from the 17th to the 19th centuries Britain attempted to cultivate relations with China sometimes successfully, but often disastrously. Kerry Brown explores the troubled but ultimately vital links between two ambitious realms
THE GENIUS IN THE SHADOWS
Æthelstan is one of the greatest of all Anglo-Saxon monarchs. So why, asks Michael Wood, does the first king of the English remain so fiendishly elusive?
The long road back The election was tough for the Conservatives - but the past holds clues on how parties can return from the brink
It’s election night 1997, and Jeremy Paxman is grilling Tory grandee Cecil Parkinson.
