April 2025

AES Perranporth seen in 1959

One of the short passages in my second novel ‘A Place And A Name’ that arouses much curiosity is the brief description of the Major’s visit to Perranporth (see pages 143-146). The Major inspects a top-secret facility on the cliffs above the beach at Droskyn Point. Few outside of Naval Intelligence and Research or outside the village of Perranporth are aware of the existence of the Admiralty Experimental Station known as AES Perranporth during the war (or from 1969 as ARLE Perranporth – Admiralty Research Laboratory Extension). The fact that the facility was in operation until 1980 means that few ever talked about it and it’s only recently become the subject of interest at Perranzubuloe Museum and among local historians, though often receives a brief mention in technical papers of the Cold War era for the research conducted there.

AES Perranporth

The Admiralty Experimental Station was set up in 1915 to research submarine detection methods. It was expanded after the war when it moved to Teddington in Middlesex. With the outbreak of the Second World War its work stepped up rapidly and several outposts were created in rural parts of the country. One of those was on the north Cornish coast at Perranporth. The Station was controlled by D Group the ARL’s Acoustic Group.

AES Perranporth main building

Its main focus in 1940 was on acoustic and magnetic mines and this was done in conjunction with its outpost at Porthcurnick House on the south coast just east of Portscatho, which came under the auspices of HMS Forte, the naval base at Falmouth. By 1941 attention at Perranporth had shifted to work on ASDIC – anti-submarine detection. At Perranporth a small hut was created partway down the cliff from which cables were fed out down the cliff and into the sea. These cables were connected to hydrophones some distance out from the shore and were used to detect both submarine and surface vessel approaches. The research was designed to improve the detection of enemy craft and help with the noise reduction on British craft. Perranporth became the main site in the UK for underwater acoustic experiments such as underwater acoustic propagation and transducer investigations. It maintained this status from 1944 to 1972.

Remains of cable below Droskyn Point seen in 2012

Admiralty View of articulated piping on cliff face at Padstow. 12 Oct 1942. Photo by Lt L Pelman

During the series of storms that seemed to plague the Cornish coast between 2012 and 2014 resulting in shifting sand levels on many Cornish beaches the old wartime cables were exposed below Droskyn Point. Experiments in articulated piping for cables and hoses were conducted in Cornwall in October 1942 using a 1940 pillbox on a small cliff on the Camel estuary near Padstow. The wartime photograph of the experiments taken on 12th October 1942 by Lt L Pelman confirms the cables revealed at Droskyn Point were exactly the same type.

The Station at Perranporth utilised a mixture of naval personnel and civilian ‘boffins’ to further its research. The most famous of those was Francis Crick whose PhD was interrupted by the war. He came to serve at Perranporth as part of his work for the Admiralty Research Laboratory in Teddington. His research work on magnetic mines where his practical and theoretical ability made a great impression on his superiors, particularly Harrie Massey, a very successful physicist and mathematician. Crick was remembered as a strong, self-confident personality who often produced original and fruitful ideas. His wartime work would assist in the development of a new British mine that would outfox German minesweepers. After the war Crick moved from physics into molecular biology and with his colleague Jim Watson revealed the double helix structure of DNA, an achievement that won both men the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962.

Perranporth anti tank wall

Apart from a guard on the gate on the approach lane the Station did not have any defences other than the sheer Cornish cliffs. Perranporth itself was well defended with a large anti-tank wall across the beach on the eastern side of the stream, a barricade of scaffolding ran across the western side of the beach from the Promenade Hotel steps to the flat rocks at Cotty’s Point where there was a Type 24 pillbox by the Wheal Mary adit. Barbed wire stretched across the Promenade where the ramp down to the beach was blocked by another anti-tank wall. There was a pillbox by the Hotel steps at beach level and a second atop the small cliff in front of Ponsmere House. In the summer of 1940 work also began on the old Cligga mineworkings and land that stretched across the clifftops to Trevellas on RAF Perranporth, a satellite airfield for RAF Portreath. Thus the staff at AES Perranporth felt they would have ample time to destroy equipment and records in the event of a raid or invasion, standard naval procedure for any vessel that was in danger of being captured or sunk.

AES Perranporth as Youth Hostel in 1982

The Station became a Youth Hostel after it closed and I can recall hiring it for a weekend for a church youth group in the 1990s. Its commanding view across the miles of golden sand of Perranporth is very impressive. Sadly the Youth Hostel Association have relinquished the property and it has been obtained by the Watering Hole – the pub on the beach – who say they will continue to use it as accommodation for visitors. One hopes they will help keep the story of Perranporth’s top-secret contribution to the war effort alive.