Capenhurst Articles about
Capenhurst
 

Information About

Capenhurst




  official Name Capenhurst
  map Type Cheshire
  latitude 532589
  longitude -29506
  population
  shire District Chester
  shire County Cheshire
  region North West England
  constituency Westminster City Of Chester
  post Town CHESTER
  postcode District CH1
  postcode Area CH
  dial Code 0151
  os Grid Reference SJ366739


Capenhurst is a village and Civil Parish in Chester District , Cheshire , England and located on the Wirral Peninsula .

It is home to a Uranium Enrichment plant owned by Urenco Group . It has its own Railway Station served by Merseyrail .


HISTORY

Capenhurst was a Township in Shotwick Parish of the Wirral Hundred and included parts of the hamlets of Dunkirk and '''Two Mills'''. The population was 147 in 1801, 148 in 1851, 159 in 1901 and 253 in 1951. Retrieved 23 August 2007


CAPENHURST TOWER

In 1999 Channel 4 and Duncan Campbell revealed that a fifty metre high tower on the premises of the uranium enrichment plant had been used to intercept telephone calls transmitted by Microwave between the British Telecom towers at Gwaenysgor, Clwyd, and Pale Heights, near Chester. The tower was built during 1989 and 1990 to intercept phone calls between the Republic Of Ireland and the United Kingdom . (A temporary listening post was placed on the roof of the plant during 1988 .) The main route for phone calls between Ireland and the UK was via the submarine Fibre Optic cable UK-Ireland 1 which reached the UK at Holyhead , Anglesey . From there the signals were transmitted by Microwave .

Phone calls were monitored by GCHQ until 1998 when the Irish telecomunication system was changed.

The tower was demolished in 2004 because the government could not find a buyer.


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