Military use in the 18th & 19th centuries The house was designed by
James Wyatt and built between 1789 and 1793 in Plymouth
limestone. The house was then used as the home of the General Officer Commanding Wessex Area until 1934.
Naval use in the 20th & 21st centuries The naval
Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, who had previously been based next door at
Hamoaze House, moved into the property in 1934 and it was renamed
Admiralty House. At the same time Hamoaze House, was handed over to the Major-General commanding the Royal Marines. The Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill, visited the house and the combined headquarters in 1941. The headquarters were expanded during
World War II by a series of tunnels, known as Plymouth Underground Extension (PUE), which formed a sizeable bomb-proof bunker complex under the garden of Admiralty House; it could be accessed from Richmond Walk, Blagdon's boatyard and Hamoaze House as well as from the headquarters building itself. PUE was closed in the 1950s but the headquarters block continued in use.
Post-war After the war the combined headquarters (renamed Maritime Headquarters) remained in use as headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, and as such provided command facilities for NATO operations in the
Eastern Atlantic, together with local co-ordination of
RN,
RAF and
Civil Defence capabilities, and assorted intelligence and maritime surveillance facilities. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s the facility was comprehensively upgraded. ==References==