Lewin of Greenwich Naval History & Forum

HMS Mercury was the home of the Royal Navy Signals School and was commissioned at the 128 acre Peel family estate at Leydene House in August 1941. Leydene House was located at East Meon, near Petersfield in Hampshire.
It later housed the Royal Navy's Communications and Navigations faculties of the Maritime Operations and operated until 1993 until the base was decommissioned. The Communication Branch is now part of the Warfare Branch and specialist training is now undertaken at HMS Collingwood.
If you served at HMS Mercury and have any photos or information from your time there, you are welcome to add them to this thread.

Leydene House



Mercury aerial view

Leydene House had a very unique staircase in the entrance hall leading to the upper floor which only the Captain and Commander were allowed to use . There was one other and that was at Dryad House , which was a twin building to Leydene.

Mercury was also the only Naval Establishment which had a public road running through the middle of it and in the photo what looks like council houses are the Accommodation Blocks with the public road just below them .

The photo of Leydene House shows a delightful lake in front of the house , this was at some early stage filled in and that area became the Parade Ground.

Known to Communicators as the College of Knowledge I never , thank goodness , spent much time there - just the occasional Course or Refresher.

Happy Days.

it must have been very grand before it was butchered Dave , was it restored after it was decommissioned pray tell

I believe it was Ivor but someone else can probably elaborate on that . The last time I was there was around 1967 .

ivorthediver wrote: ↑Sun Aug 12, 2018 5:06 pm it must have been very grand before it was butchered Dave , was it restored after it was decommissioned pray tell

Ivor, according to this article (at the foot of the page) it was converted into ten dwellings:
http://www.eastmeonhistory.net/leydene-house/

Jim

Is nothing sacred these days Jim ..... everything seems to end of on the Sacrificial Altar of Developers Greed.

Aint that the Truth Dave , and such a crime , sadly they have friends in high places who have their collective hands outstretched