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The Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill
Dollis Hill

Dollis Hill is an area of north-west London. It lies close to Willesden, in the London Borough of Brent. As a result, Dollis Hill is sometimes referred as being part of Willesden, especially by the national press....
, London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, was first established in 1921 and opened by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald

James Ramsay MacDonald was a British politician and twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He rose from humble origins to become the first Labour Party Prime Minister in 1924....
 in 1933.

In 1943, the world's first programmable electronic computer, Colossus
Colossus computer

The Colossus machines were electronics computing devices used by British Cryptanalysis to read encrypted Nazi Germany messages during World War II....
 Mark 1 was built by Tommy Flowers
Tommy Flowers

Thomas Harold Flowers, Order of the British Empire was an England engineer. During World War II, Flowers designed Colossus computer, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help solve encrypted German messages....
 and his team, followed in 1944 by nine Colossus Mark 2s.

In 1957, ERNIE
Ernie

Ernie is a fictional character, a The Muppets on the Public Broadcasting Service's long-running children's television show, Sesame Street. He and his roommate Bert form a Bert and Ernie that is one of the program's centerpieces, with Ernie acting the role of the na?ve troublemaker and Bert the world-weary foil ....
 (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment) was built for the government's Premium Bond
Premium Bond

A Premium Bond is like a Lottery Bond issued by the United Kingdom government's National Savings and Investments scheme. The government promises to buy back the bond, on request, for its original price....
 lottery, by Sidney Broadhurst's team.

In 1971, Samuel Fedida conceived of Viewdata
Viewdata

Viewdata is a Videotex implementation. It is a type of information retrieval service in which a subscriber can access a remote database via a common carrier channel , request data and receive requested data on a video display over a separate channel....
 and the Prestel
Prestel

Prestel , the brand name for the UK Post Office UK's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979....
 service was launched in 1979.

In 1968, it was announced that the station would be relocated to a new centre to be built at Martlesham Heath
Martlesham Heath

Martlesham Heath village is situated 6 miles east of Ipswich, in Suffolk, England. This was an ancient area of heathland and latterly the site of Martlesham Heath Airfield....
.






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The Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill
Dollis Hill

Dollis Hill is an area of north-west London. It lies close to Willesden, in the London Borough of Brent. As a result, Dollis Hill is sometimes referred as being part of Willesden, especially by the national press....
, London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
, was first established in 1921 and opened by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald

James Ramsay MacDonald was a British politician and twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He rose from humble origins to become the first Labour Party Prime Minister in 1924....
 in 1933.

In 1943, the world's first programmable electronic computer, Colossus
Colossus computer

The Colossus machines were electronics computing devices used by British Cryptanalysis to read encrypted Nazi Germany messages during World War II....
 Mark 1 was built by Tommy Flowers
Tommy Flowers

Thomas Harold Flowers, Order of the British Empire was an England engineer. During World War II, Flowers designed Colossus computer, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help solve encrypted German messages....
 and his team, followed in 1944 by nine Colossus Mark 2s.

In 1957, ERNIE
Ernie

Ernie is a fictional character, a The Muppets on the Public Broadcasting Service's long-running children's television show, Sesame Street. He and his roommate Bert form a Bert and Ernie that is one of the program's centerpieces, with Ernie acting the role of the na?ve troublemaker and Bert the world-weary foil ....
 (Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment) was built for the government's Premium Bond
Premium Bond

A Premium Bond is like a Lottery Bond issued by the United Kingdom government's National Savings and Investments scheme. The government promises to buy back the bond, on request, for its original price....
 lottery, by Sidney Broadhurst's team.

In 1971, Samuel Fedida conceived of Viewdata
Viewdata

Viewdata is a Videotex implementation. It is a type of information retrieval service in which a subscriber can access a remote database via a common carrier channel , request data and receive requested data on a video display over a separate channel....
 and the Prestel
Prestel

Prestel , the brand name for the UK Post Office UK's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979....
 service was launched in 1979.

In 1968, it was announced that the station would be relocated to a new centre to be built at Martlesham Heath
Martlesham Heath

Martlesham Heath village is situated 6 miles east of Ipswich, in Suffolk, England. This was an ancient area of heathland and latterly the site of Martlesham Heath Airfield....
. It was formally opened on 21 November 1975 by Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the queen regnant of sixteen independent states known as the Commonwealth realms: Monarchy of the United Kingdom, Monarchy of Canada, Monarchy of Australia, Monarchy of New Zealand, Monarchy of Jamaica, Monarchy of Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Monarchy of the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Sain...
 and is today known as Adastral Park
Adastral Park

Adastral Park is a science campus based at Martlesham Heath near Ipswich in the England county of Suffolk.The site was once named BT Research Laboratories or BT Labs and the name change to Adastral Park reflects an expansion in the organisations and activities co-located with BT Labs at the campus....
. The old site was released for housing and named Flowers Close, in honour of Tommy Flowers.

Paddock
Paddock (war rooms)

Paddock is the codeword for an alternate Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms bunker for Winston Churchill World War II government. Located in Dollis Hill, North London, it was constructed in 1939 but only rarely used during the war, with only two meetings of the War Cabinet being held there....
, a two story World War II concrete citadel was built underneath the Dollis Hill site.

Notable staff

  • John Bray
    John Bray (communications engineer)

    William John Bray Order of the British Empire , was a communications engineer and Director of Research at the Post Office Research Station, between 1966 and 1975....
  • Sidney Broadhurst
  • William W. Chandler
  • Allen Coombs
    Allen Coombs

    Allen William Mark Coombs was a British electronics engineer at the Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill. He was one of the principal designers of the Mark II or production version of the Colossus computer used at Bletchley Park for codebreaking in WWII, and took over leadership of the project when Tommy Flowers moved on to other proje...
  • Dick Dyott
  • James H. Ellis
    James H. Ellis

    James H. Ellis was an engineer and mathematician. In 1970, while working at GCHQ he conceived of the possibility of "non-secret encryption", more commonly termed public-key cryptography....
  • Samuel Fedida
  • Tommy Flowers
    Tommy Flowers

    Thomas Harold Flowers, Order of the British Empire was an England engineer. During World War II, Flowers designed Colossus computer, the world's first programmable electronic computer, to help solve encrypted German messages....
  • Arnold Lynch
    Arnold Lynch

    Arnold Lynch was an English engineer, known for his work on an optical tape reader which was used in the construction of the Colossus computer, an early electronic computer....
  • Frank Morrell
  • Gordon Radley
  • Eric Speight