The 'Eavesdroppers' at Wireless Point

The map marks 'Wireless Point' as 'Pedn-men-an-mere', and this rugged cliff, half a mile west of Porthcurno and south of the Exiles Sports Field, is now the property of the National Trust. All summer the visitors trail along the Cornish Coast Path, and stop to gaze out to sea from the headland. Many of them notice a curious structure of great iron hoops crowning the highest point like some fearsome mediaeval instrument of torture.

This is the base of a wooden mast (1) which was erected in July 1902 in connection with what might be termed a mild case of industrial espionage. Only a few months previously Marconi had managed to span the Atlantic by radio and now his station at Poldhu on the Lizard peninsular was engaged in further experiments. The undoubted success of this new mode of transmission sent a wave of apprehension throughout the ranks of the great submarine cable Companies who saw their monopoly in long distance communications being threatened by a system they knew little about.

The exact nature of the experiments at Poldhu was not always easy to ascertain, and the Eastern Telegraph Company decided that they of all people should know something of the successes and limitations of the new science. On a clear day one could almost see the wireless masts at Poldhu across Mounts Bay, and the simplest way of gaining the coveted information seemed to be by eavesdropping on Marconi's signals. Accordingly a tall wooden mast was erected and the aerial wire led into a small wooden shed housing the receiving equipment. How much the Company actually learnt from these activities is not recorded but the site was still in intermittent use until the outbreak of World War I when the equipment was impounded for 'security reasons'.

After the war the expected rivalry between cable and radio telegraphy was eventually quenched by the various mergers and arrangements which resulted in Cable and Wireless Ltd. in the role of international operators of radio services, and the Marconi Company concentrating on manufacture of equipment. Thus the Company was able to integrate its radio and cable systems into the unified network which exists today, and the only traces of their early concern for the new brain-child are the base and anchor blocks of the old mast.

(1) The mast was made by Messrs N. Holman & Sons of Penzance. Its three pitchpine spars, the longest of which was a great trunk 70ft long, proved an unwieldy burden on the narrow roads to Porthcurno.

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