Caroone House

Caroone House was an office block at 14 Farringdon Street, London EC4, which was built in 1972 on the site of the Congregational Memorial Hall which had been demolished in 1968.[1]

Caroone House
Labour Party Plaque at the entrance to Caroone House (2004)
General information
Type	Telephone exchange
Location	14 Farringdon Street, London, EC4 United Kingdom
Coordinates	51.5156°N 0.1041°W
Completed	1972
Demolished	2004
Owner	Post Office Telecommunications
Technical details
Floor count	7

History of Site

The Memorial Hall and Caroone House were built on the site of the old Fleet Prison. The prison was burnt down during the Great Fire of London and while the prison was being rebuilt, the prisoners were relocated to Caron House, South Lambeth, a large mansion house which had been built by Noel de Caron the Netherlands ambassador to England in the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.[2] In 1685 Caron House was demolished but the name survived and in the 19th century there was a "Carroun House" on the estate - which has been known as Vauxhall Park since 1890.[3] As a consequence of this rich history, "Caroone House" was adopted as an appropriate name for the new building in Farringdon Street.

A Greater London Council plaque commemorating the foundation of the Labour Party at the Memorial Hall in 1900 was displayed at the main entrance to Caroone House.

BT

The building was used by Post Office Telecommunications - from 1981 British Telecom (BT) - as the headquarters for its Post Office International Telephones division (designated as ITp) for operating their international business and for telephone tapping. Among other things it was the HQ for managing the operation of ITps International Control Centres (ICCs) in London, Brighton and Glasgow. It was also HQ for what was, at the time, the world's largest international telecoms exchange located on the site of the old Stag Lane Aerodrome in Edgware.[4] The Stag Lane exchange was later superseded by BTs new international switching centre (ISC) at Mondial House.[5]

Closure

In 2001 Caroone House was purchased by The British Land Company plc for £24.5 million. The building was demolished in 2004 to be replaced by the Ludgate West development. British Land commenced construction in 2005 with completion in 2007 and today 5 Fleet Place stands on the site. The Labour Party plaque has been reinstated on the wall of the redevelopment.[6]

References

1. Clyde Binfield (2002), "Memory enstructured The case of Memorial Hall", Memory and Memorials, 1789-1914: Literary and Cultural Perspectives, Routledge, pp. 160–174, ISBN 9781134583003
2. British History Online. Accessed 12 October 2016
3. http://www.vauxhallpark.org.uk/history
4. Patrick Fitzgerald, Mark Leopold (1987), Stranger on the Line: the secret history of phone tapping, pp. 98–99
5. BT History 1976
6. Emporis entry on 5 Fleet Place. Accessed 3 March 2016