Since 1953, Palmer Street was the London HQ for the government's cyber security listening post GCHQ but it was secret.
For the last 66 years, millions of people will have walked past an unremarkable building in central London, unaware that it was a secret home to one of the UK's intelligence agencies.
Palmer Street enabled GCHQ officers and analysts to brief ministers in Westminster all the while remaining a closely guarded secret for more than half a century. "Then, as now, it's a history defined by the belief that with the right mix of minds, anything is possible."GCHQ, or the Government Code & Cypher School as it was known at the time, was established on 1 November 1919 as a peacetime cryptanalytic unit made up from staff from the Admiralty's Room 40 and the War Office's MI1.
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