Millbrook Vehicle Proving Ground, Bedfordshire

In the mid 1960s Vauxhall Motors and Bedford decided that whilst the new and almost deserted M1 motorway close to Luton presented some good testing opportunities a better policy for future vehicle development was to build a dedicated Proving Ground.

A task force scoured the UK for a suitable site with the pre-requisite of being both flat and hilly thus ruling out many former airfields. The Millbrook site was located and a clone of the North American General Motors Proving Grounds was designed and built in Bedforshire.

Half Day Off Road

Ferry Cross the Mersey

The River Mersey is internationally famous thanks to the music of the 1960s known as Merseybeat and its strong association with Liverpool, which produced songs such as "Ferry Across The Mersey".

Mersey Beat

GCHQ, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation which reports to the Foreign Secretary and works closely with the UK's other intelligence agencies (commonly known as MI5 and MI6).

GCHQ moved to Cheltenham in 1952. The local residents referred to it as 'the Foreign Office' for many years and were discreet about the secret organisation in their midst which was still largely unheard of outside Whitehall and the Cotswolds.

GCHQ made a major breakthrough in the field of secure communications in 1973 when it developed what is now known as public-key encryption.

A Conflict of Loyalties: GCHQ 1984-1991