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Cullercoats Coastal Radio Station played a vital, although secret, role in World War One.

It intercepted radio messages sent to and from German ships and U-boats. The messages were passed to Admiralty Headquarters in London.

Although they were encrypted, a number of German codebooks had been seized during the war, allowing many messages to be interpreted.

The Station was built in 1908 and used by the inventor, Guglielmo Marconi to send test signals to a station in Denmark.

Outside the two World Wars, it operated throughout the 20th Century as a maritime radio receiving station, listening for maritime distress signals on the 500 kHz Morse Code band.

It was closed in 1998, along with other similar stations, after the Coastguard Agency no longer required maritime radio services to maintain 500 kHz distress watch.

Location: Cullercoats Radio Station, North Tyneside NE26 2PB
Image courtesy of Roy McCallum