Most people walking along the riverside walk in Greenwich won’t give the strange structure outside the Enderby House pub a second thought. But it was vital in enabling the first transatlantic phone calls — and a technology journalist is trying to get it listed so it is protected from developers.

The winding gear that sits on a jetty at Enderby Wharf was used to load cable straight from the Standard Telephones and Cables (STC) factory onto ships that laid the TAT-1 cable, which went into service in 1956 between Oban, in the west of Scotland, and Newfoundland.

“This was the first time that ordinary people on either side of the Atlantic had been able to make phone calls to family, friends and business associates,” said Alan Burkitt-Gray, who has asked Historic England to recommend the structure is listed.

“Today, we can use WhatsApp, Facebook, Skype and other apps to talk to people and message them around the world without a thought, but this, 68 years ago, was revolutionary.”

The cable industry had already been in Greenwich for more than a century, helping lay the seeds for today’s internet, with the first cross-Channel and transatlantic telegraph cables made there in the 1850s. Enderby House, which was the Telcon factory’s old headquarters, is Grade II listed and reopened as a pub in 2021.

Much of the STC site has been redeveloped for housing but the factory still exists and is now owned by Alcatel Submarine Networks.

The winding gear was last used in 1978, although the jetty was refurbished in 2000. 

“With a history of 170 years, this site, more than anywhere else in this country, is responsible for our present-day connected world,” said Burkitt-Gray, who is a committee member of the Greenwich Industrial History Society.

He said that Enderby House, the winding gear and the launch site of the SS Great Eastern – which is still in place across the Thames on the Isle of Dogs – formed a trio of nearby structures that were vitally important in forming today’s connected world, but only the winding gear was not listed.

The Great Eastern was originally designed as a passenger  shop by Isambard Kingdom Brunel but was later converted to lay cables that had been made at the Greenwich factory.

“These three locations show the importance of this part of the River Thames to the development of international telecommunications – something that is not replicated anywhere in England or anywhere else in the world,” Burkitt-Gray said.

If Historic England agrees with him, it can recommend to the culture secretary, Lucy Frazer, that the winding gear is listed, which would make it harder for developers to demolish the structure.

He is asking supporters to contact Historic England by emailing applicationsSouth[at]historicengland.org.uk to say that they support his application for the listing or scheduling of the submarine telecoms winding gear in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, quoting reference 1489480.