Reading: BBC puts Caversham Park monitoring station site up for sale

The BBC has appointed Lambert Smith Hampton to bring back to market for sale Caversham Park, near Reading, the 93-acre historic home of BBC Monitoring, for redevelopment.

The site includes a circa 115,000 sq ft Grade II listed manor house in the heart of Caversham in Berkshire.

Philip Hunter, director at Lambert Smith Hampton, said: “We are delighted to be advising the BBC on the disposal of Caversham Park, the former home of BBC Monitoring and Radio Berkshire. The Grade II listed manor house is set within 93 acres of formal gardens and parkland, with stunning views across the Thames Valley, yet is remarkably only two miles from the centre of Reading. It offers a truly unique opportunity, with potential for a number of alternative uses (subject to planning) including; residential, retirement, hotel, education and healthcare.

“The impressive former Manor House is a sprawling 115,000 sq ft, dating back to the 1850s, with its last residents being the BBC who occupied the site between 1943 and 2018. The historic monitoring centre transcribed over 240 broadcasts into an 80,000-word document called the daily digest during the war and was the first place in the world to hear the news of the German surrender.”

Monitoring has relocated to London while Radio Berkshire is relocating as the BBC continues the modernisation of its estate. The park is being marketed for redevelopment as residential or commercial use.

The Victorian stately home had been the base for BBC Monitoring, which summarises news from 150 countries in 100 different languages for the BBC.

The service has been in operation since the start of the Cold War and played a key role in tapping communications from Nazi Germany during World War Two, and in diffusing the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

LSH is advising on the sale of the park.

Source: CoStar