Page 32 - West Country View

Rampisham is Down
Iconic World Service site looking for a new owner
An historic, but unique local landmark is currently the cause for much conversation in the Yeovil office. A former BBC radio transmission station, Rampisham Down, (a vital communications tool in the Second World War) is on the market for £2.5M.
So what makes this site so special and just a little bit exciting? The BBC World Service site at Rampisham Down in West Dorset was once the location of one of the main transmission stations for the BBC World Service in Europe. Decommissioned in 2011, it was built in 1939 in response
to war communication demands and maintained critical diplomatic and military communication links across the globe.
It played a vital role transmitting both propaganda and coded messages to spies (something which continued throughout the Cold War) and was considered such an important communications asset that the German Luftwaffe frequently tried to destroy the steel transmitter pylons. Eyewitnesses described aerial dogfights between the two sides occurring almost daily.
It was updated in the 1980s, becoming a state-of-the-art shortwave transmission station, but now the 187-acre site, which has over 66,000 sq. ft. of floor space is empty and all but one of the original transmission masts have been removed and the ground returned to grazing land.
With the sale at the forefront of local residents' minds, we caught up with Esther Jeanes, a Dorset-based artist and once local resident, to find out what the site means to her and why she felt drawn to paint the iconic masts.
“While I have spent the last few decades living in cities around the UK, around five years ago I decided to return home to start a family. I no longer live in Rampisham, (although I haven’t travelled too far away), but I will never forget those iconic towers. As a child, brought up under such impressive structures, it felt like the local landscape was dominated by gentle giants, guiding us back like homing beacons. I never really imagined a landscape without them.
Esther smiles wryly and the conversation turns to her art: “I’ve always wanted to paint, but until I moved back home I hadn’t considered that I would be brave enough to give up the nine to five and turn my hand to it. I’m so glad I have
as I can’t imagine doing anything else now. Apart from the
32