A structure next to the Thames in east Greenwich that helped enable the first transatlantic telephone call could receive the same protection as Stonehenge and the Tower of London.

Historic England is considering recommending that the winding gear at Enderby Wharf is made a scheduled monument – a nationally-important archeological or historical site. 

If Historic England supports the idea, the final decision will be in the hands of Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary.

Last year the technology journalist Alan Burkitt-Gray had asked Historic England to consider listing the structure, but it has opted to look at making it a scheduled monument instead. 

The winding gear 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.

The TAT-1 cable meant ordinary people on both sides of the Atlantic could place phone calls across the ocean for the first time. 

The cable industry had already been in Greenwich for more than a century, with the first cross-Channel and transatlantic telegraph cables made at Enderby Wharf in the 1850s, laying the foundations for today’s internet. 

Much of the STC site has been redeveloped for housing but the factory still exists and is now owned by Alcatel Submarine Networks. Plans for a 33-storey tower and two 24-storey blocks on another part of the site were approved by Greenwich councillors in September last year.

The winding gear was last used in 1978. It is next to the Grade II-listed Enderby House, once the headquarters of the cable factory. It is now a pub after a local campaign to save the building from demolition.

Enderby House with fencing around it
Enderby House – pictured shortly before it opened as a pub in 2021 – was the factory’s headquarters. Image: The Greenwich Wire

Scheduled monuments are usually ancient or historic sites rather than individual buildings: the remains of Greenwich Palace, in the Old Royal Naval College, form a historic monument. Eltham Palace is also a scheduled monument, as are fortifications by the Rotunda in Woolwich Barracks. 

But more recent structures have also become scheduled monuments, including the slipway on the Isle of Dogs where the SS Great Eastern was launched. The Great Eastern was originally designed as a passenger ship by Isambard Kingdom Brunel but was later converted to lay cables that had been made at the Greenwich factory.

Burkitt-Gray told The Greenwich Wire last year that Enderby House,  the winding gear and the launch site of the Great Eastern formed a trio of nearby structures that were vitally important in forming today’s connected world, but only the winding gear was not protected.

He said this week: “If Lisa Nandy agrees with the proposal, it will mean Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs between them have the world’s most significant concentration of relics of the transformation of society thanks to telecoms technology. 

“Before the subsea telegraph, the fastest way of getting information across the ocean was at the speed of a ship. Suddenly, thanks to Greenwich, it was possible to get messages and news around the world in seconds, for people to stay in touch with their family members, in good times and bad.

“Scheduling the winding gear will protect it for all time, so that people living in and visiting Greenwich will know what difference Greenwich has made for the world. Greenwich has allowed people to remain connected, even if they are far away across the sea.” 

Full details of the proposed listing are on the Historic England website.

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