Lizard Wireless Station Including Base Of Aerial Mast To North [Formerly Known As Marconi Bungalow]

The Lizard Wireless Station, including the base of an aerial mast to the north, was built in 1901. Originally known as the Marconi Bungalow, it is now a Marconi museum. The building is a weatherboarded timber-frame structure with a felt-clad roof, featuring gabled ends and small wooden finials. It consists of two detached huts: a radio hut to the east and an accommodation hut to the west.

Around 1920, the huts were converted into a holiday house and by 1934 they had been extended, joined together, and a kitchen and garage added to the rear of the wireless hut. Restoration work was carried out in 1999-2000, involving the addition of an outshut to the rear of the accommodation hut. The radio hut was subsequently refitted with radio equipment by the Trevithick Trust.

The radio hut has a two-window south front with small four-pane windows, an outshut at the left end, and a plank door in the centre of the rear (north) elevation. The accommodation hut has a three-window south front with a combination of one-, two- and four-light mullion-transom casements. A circa 2000 outshut is located at the rear, with a porch canopy set in the angle.

The interior walls and ceilings are lined with matchboarding. The radio hut has been re-equipped with radio transmitters and receivers to recreate its original state.

The Lizard Wireless Station was one of several coastal stations established by Guglielmo Marconi for ship-to-shore radio communications. A significant event occurred on 23rd January 1901, when the station successfully received a radio signal from Niton, Isle of Wight, a distance of 190 miles. This achievement demonstrated the possibility of wireless telegraphy over the horizon, despite the Earth's curvature, and played a key role in the subsequent trans-Atlantic wireless transmission from Poldhu to St Johns, Newfoundland.