History
Located at roughly the mid-point of the 1951 Manchester to Kirk o'Shotts television link, the BT site at Pontop Pike is close to the television transmitter which entered service in 1953. An article in the April 1951 Post Office Electrical Engineers' Journal confirms the expectation that the BBC would require provision to a transmitter serving the Newcastle area. The route via Hopealone followed in the late 1950s to feed the BBC station at Sandale and provide an onward connection to Belfast via Carlisle.
Special provision was made at Pontop Pike in view of possible risks from (mining) subsidence - the tower was mounted on a concrete base which could be adjusted to maintain the correct positioning of the tower. It's unclear whether similar precautions were taken for subsequent structures at the site. A 1961 OS plan at 1:2500 scale shows two buildings and a square object labelled "platform" which appears to be the base of the 1951 tower. The whole site is labelled both "W T Station" and "Telephone Repeater Station".
By 1967 there were three separate structures at the Post Office station and the main role had changed to telephony - the television routing to Scotland was then from Manchester to Carlisle, with Pontop Pike linked as a branch via Hopealone. The use of multiple towers allowed several antennas to be installed. One of the towers was equipped with the necessary "step" to accommodate horn antennas however it appears only one was ever installed, facing Arncliffe Wood. A fourth tower was added subsequently and the 1951 tower and building removed - however the concrete base remains.
The "Backbone" scheme ran via Arncliffe Wood and Corbys Crags but one of the principles was to avoid centres of population, therefore certain traffic was routed via Muggleswick, but it is now clear this was never a major route. In the 1980s Trident Television was provided with direct links between Leeds and Newcastle but the majority of television traffic continued to be routed to and from Carlisle.
The "Backbone" scheme ran via Arncliffe Wood and Corbys Crags but one of the principles was to avoid centres of population, therefore certain traffic was routed via Muggleswick, but it is now clear this was never a major route. In the 1980s Trident Television was provided with direct links between Leeds and Newcastle but the majority of television traffic continued to be routed to and from Carlisle.
The available information suggests links between Pontop Pike and the television studios in Newcastle were via cable, with the ITV Burnhope transmitter feed continued via cable from Pontop Pike. UHF television transmissions from Pontop Pike started in 1966 with BBC2; BBC1 and ITV were added in 1970 but network diagrams from the late 1970s and mid-1980s suggest the new feeds were also provided by cable. In the 1980s, however, a one-way link from the Tyne Tees studio at Middlesborough and a feed to the Bilsdale transmitter were added.
