Monument record MBC44977 - A Second World War secret military installation at Poundon House, part of Station 53b Receiver site.

A Second World War secret military installation at Poundon House, part of Station 53b Receiver site, is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located within the grounds of Poundon House and centred at SP 64552 25178, the home of the Heywood-Lonsdale family was requisitioned by HM Government at the outbreak of the Second World War, initially to accommodate London evacuees, but from 1942 as a base for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Within Poundon House’s gardens and grounds, 17 variously sized rectangular military buildings and huts were constructed for training and communications, as well as accommodation for military personnel serving at nearby Station 53b Receiver, the SOE’s first purpose-built Home Station and Station 53c Receiver, which was constructed by SOE on behalf of the United States of America’s military intelligence Office of Strategic Service (OSS). The camp also included pathways, an emergency water supply tank and sewage disposal site about 150 metres to the SE of Poundon House. Some of the buildings were demolished between 1947 and 1961, but others remained extant as the site continued to be used post WWII by the 39th Signals Brigade and by the intelligence services until the late 1970s. Still visible on aerial photographs taken in 1973, all of the remaining wartime buildings appear to have been demolished by 2003 (1-9).