GCHQ’S secret London base revealed ... after it moves out

THE unremarkable, red brick building barely raised a glance from the thousands strolling past its anonymous wooden doors every day.

But GCHQ has finally revealed that the nondescript office block on Palmer Street, opposite St James’s Park Tube station in Westminster, has been its London base for more than 65 years.

Hidden behind its bland facade, some of the UK’S finest minds have secretly been working to protect national security for decades.

The organisation, long known as Britain’s listening post, has only confirmed the location, code-named station UKC1000, after moving out of the base, which has been sold.

Jeremy Fleming, its director, said: “As we depart our Palmer Street site after 66 years, we look back on a history full of amazing intelligence, worldleading innovation, and the ingenious people who passed through those secret doors. Then, as now, it’s a history defined by the belief that with the right mix of minds, anything is possible.”

The office is in a prime location, just a stone’s throw from the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office, Scotland Yard and the Houses of Parliament.

The agency said: “The Palmer Street hub played its part in significant events over the years, such as the 2012 London Olympics, working with our partners, MI6, MI5 and the Met Police to counter terrorist activities and serious and organised crime whilst keeping ministers up to date with security briefings.”

GCHQ was established in 1919 as a peacetime “cryptanalytic” unit. During the Second World War, its personnel moved to Bletchley Park to decrypt German messages. In the early Fifites its headquarters moved from the London suburb of Eastcote to Cheltenham, meaning a suitable location was needed in the centre of the capital for the handling of secret paperwork and as a regular base for its director.

GCHQ will maintain a London presence on a different site.