The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) confirmed that the equipment will become a Scheduled Monument from October 10, 2025, following a recommendation from Historic England. The designation gives the structure the same level of legal protection as some of the country’s most important heritage assets, including Stonehenge and the Norman castles.

Alan Burkitt-Gray, the former Capacity Media editor who proposed the move to Historic England said: “We take instant global communications, text messages, pictures and voice, for granted in 2025, but this place in Greenwich is where it all started, way back in the middle of the 19th century.”

The machinery forms part of the former Submarine Cables Ltd factory, which manufactured and loaded undersea cables for global deployment. It is closely associated with TAT-1, the first transatlantic telephone cable system, laid between 1955 and 1956, connecting the UK and North America.

Enderby Wharf’s telecommunications heritage stretches back to the 1850s, when the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company (Telcon) operated from nearby Enderby House. Telcon produced and laid the first successful transatlantic telegraph cables in the 1860s, enabling near-instant communication between Europe and the Americas.

The scheduling adds to a cluster of sites in the Greenwich and Isle of Dogs area linked to the origins of global connectivity. Across the Thames, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Eastern, the world’s largest ship when launched in 1858, was later repurposed to lay the first successful transatlantic cables and much of the UK–India route.

Enderby House, now a riverside pub, was rescued from dereliction two decades ago by local campaigners from the Enderby Group. The group said the new designation recognises Greenwich’s enduring contribution to the evolution of international communications infrastructure.

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