Purpose of this building?

Hey All,

Was out mountain biking West of Kendal, in the Lakes this weekend, and stumbled upon this odd looking building in what felt like the middle of no-where, and looked Fibre related given the number of manholes. Any one have an idea?

Streetview link:
https://www.google.com/maps/@54.3233849,-2.7054987,3...

Unlikely to be fibre related as it was there back in 2009 too.

It was originally a British Gas related telecoms facility, but these assets were sold to Three in the early 2000s.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service....

Edited by ft247 (Sun 09-Jan-22 02:15:12)

I can’t think what Three could be using it for. What did British Gas do with it?

In reply to a post by _Icaras_:

I can’t think what Three could be using it for. What did British Gas do with it?

Might have been some sort of regional telemetry hub for their pipeline transco

The old AHU’s suggest whatever kit was in their needed some hefty cooling.

In reply to a post by _Icaras_:

I can’t think what Three could be using it for.

If it has comms links and power it could be a really useful location to support remote mobile masts.

It appears to be a good find of the usually hidden world of fibre backhaul.

Whilst I can't vouch for its history, the overall compound appears to be owned by Three but also hosts two Zayo fibre buildings and is shown on the Zayo network maps for their northern UK network. Theres also a cable landing station just to the south on the west coast so could also be part of that route.

The planning system gives up it's secrets a little -
https://applications.southlakeland.gov.uk/fastweb/de...

Seems quiet Paddy Lane is quite the backhaul route!

In reply to a post by rupert999:

It appears to be a good find of the usually hidden world of fibre backhaul.

Whilst I can't vouch for its history, the overall compound appears to be owned by Three but also hosts two Zayo fibre buildings and is shown on the Zayo network maps for their northern UK network. Theres also a cable landing station just to the south on the west coast so could also be part of that route.

The planning system gives up it's secrets a little -
https://applications.southlakeland.gov.uk/fastweb/de...

Seems quiet Paddy Lane is quite the backhaul route!

Thanks for digging this out - It appears from plans, Zayo have 2/3 buildings but the legacy one and what appears to be still very much active is Three's building. I wonder if this is a link to some more rural mobile masts / just part of their fibre backhaul to scotland.

Here's what Colt think about it

https://i.imgur.com/8LyLDcf.png

Theres a lot of history here - most of which comes from National Grid Transco, which was highlighted earlier.

From what I can piece together - Transco back in 01 was owned by Lattice Group who also had a subdivision called '186k' (indeed you can still see this on some manhole covers). 186k deployed fibre alongside Transco gas pipelines.

(If you map the National Grid gas backbone and Zayos network, they match pretty much 1-4-1 on the routes taken)

Fast forward through telecom boom and bust -
- 186k signed up Three as a backbone fibre provider
- Lattice also had a second company called SST providing 'telecom tower services' (probably also used by Three)
- Transco went to merge with National Grid, but it appears they had to divest itself of 186k
- A company called 'Geo Networks' brought 186k (Geo being Hutchinson, aka Three)
- Geo Networks eventually struggled and was brought out by Zayo

TL;DR -
- 186k laid the initial fibre
- Three were a customer of 186k
- Geo (Three) brought out 186k
- Zayo brought out Geo (Three)

Are they using it for tower backhaul, probably, but only someone from Three/Zayo could answer the exact function(s) of the building(s)