Erection date: 14/2/2019
1919 - 1921, the first home of GCHQ, the UK's intelligence, security and cyber agency, known then as GC&CS, formed from the Admiralty's room 40 and the War Office's M11 (b).
City of Westminster
GCHQ centenary 1919 - 2019
{On the plaque below:}
Unveiled by Her Majesty the Queen on 14th February 2019 to mark the Centenary of GCHQ.
We've put 14 February as the erection date, but actually that was only the date the queen unveiled the plaque. It is becoming quite common for unveilings to take place with the plaque mounted at eye-level on an easel, in this case a rather fancy easel, as shown on the Evening Standard's report. The physical erection takes place quietly at some later, unpublicised, date. Since we do not always know that an unveiling has been of this type we have decided that our "erection date" should be the date that the appearance of a memorial is celebrated, even if it is not in its final location at the time.
More interestingly, this plaque has two knowing winks to the activities undertaken by the GCHQ. Can you decode them? Solutions available on the web, of course. Try searching with: gchq plaque code answer.
Site: GCHQ - WC2 (1 memorial)
WC2, York Buildings, Watergate House
We thank our colleague Alan Patient for providing these photos.
