Building record MDO44090 - Telegraph Cottage, Churchill Drove, Cranborne

Telegraph Cottage has been suggested as the site of the Admiralty Semaphore Telegraph Station sited at 'Rushmore', part of the semaphore system from London to Portsmouth which commenced operation in 1824.

Telegraph Cottage, in a prominent position on Jordan Hill, probably occupies the site named Rushmore, proposed as a station for the Admiralty Semaphore Telegraph to Plymouth. "Rushmore Farm" lies 650 metres to the east at SU 082128.

The semaphore system from London to Portsmouth commenced operation in 1824, but the extension to Plymouth was never completed, and Woodfield Green near Redlynch, Hants (the next station to the east), appears to have been the last one to have been built. Wilson does not locate Rushmore, but believed it lay about 2 miles north east of Cranborne.

(The nearby telegraph station at Pistle Hill, SU 01 SE 24 was a station on the earlier shutter system to Plymouth). <2>

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

SU 07581303) Telegraph Cottage (NAT)

<2> Wilson, G, 1976, The Old Telegraphs, 40-44 and map 46 (Monograph). SWX8165.

<3> National Record of the Historic Environment, 213716 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Aug 19 2022 1:45PM