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81 Newgate Street
Former names	BT Centre
Alternative names	Panorama St Paul’s
General information
Location	London, England, UK
Coordinates	51°30′56″N 0°05′52″W / 51.5156°N 0.0978°W / 51.5156; -0.0978
Opened	1985
Renovated	2022–present
Known for	Being the global headquarters and registered office of former tenant, BT Group.

81 Newgate Street (alternatively referred to as Panorama St Paul’s) is a 10-storey office building on Newgate Street in the City of London, opposite St Paul's tube station. It opened in its current state in June 1984.

Prior to the departure of the BT Group in December 2021, it was best known as the BT Centre, having been the global headquarters and registered office of the group since its opening in its current state in 1984. It had been home to BT and its predecessors, including the General Post Office, for more than a century.

HSBC, currently based at 8 Canada Square, will move into the building in 2025, following the completion of redevelopment work being undertaken by Kohn Pedersen Fox.

History

The building was designed for British Telecom by the Property Services Agency in a 'modern and forward-looking' style (though its Portland stone and granite facings recalled the Central Telegraph Office, which had previously stood on the site). The main entrance, on Newgate Street, was built on the alignment of Bath Street, which had been closed since 1934 and was completely covered by the new building. In 1997-99 the interior of the building was substantially updated, 'to make better use of space, conform to modern approaches to working, and exploit the latest telecommunications technology for more effective and fulfilling working'.

Sale and rebuilding

In 2019, BT sold the building and revealed plans to relocate their offices to 1 Braham Street near Aldgate East tube station. Their new headquarters was opened in November 2021 (in the intervening time they had continued to occupy the BT Centre in a leaseback deal). As of 2023, the 81 Newgate Street was being very substantially altered in what was described as a 'retrofit and expansion' of the property: the building's structural frame is being retained but it is otherwise being entirely rebuilt to create flexible office space, retail units and a roof garden with a restaurant. 'Its massing will change considerably, with a portion of the front removed to reduce its impact on key views and new bays added stepping down from north to south creating accessible terraces'.

History of the site

A plaque on the outside of the building marks this as the location from which Guglielmo Marconi made the first public transmission of wireless signals, in 1897 while it was the Central Telegraph Office building of the General Post Office complex. The Telegraph Office building was originally built in 1874. It was damaged by a German bomb in 1917, and more severely damaged by bombing in 1940 when the interior was burned out; it reopened in 1943. By the 1950s, the volume of telegraph traffic had declined; the Telegraph Office closed in 1963, Subsequently, the building was declared unsafe and was demolished in 1967. Following archaeological investigations by the Museum of London, planning permission was granted for the new building in 1979.

References

1. "Contact BT". Archived from the original on 26 January 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009.
2. "BT agrees £210m sale of historic London site". Financial Times. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
3. Dorrell, Chris (26 June 2023). "HSBC moving out of Canary Wharf HQ to site by St Paul's - reports". CityAM. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
4. "HSBC's move from Canary Wharf to St Paul's is a big win for the City and hybrid working". Sky News. Retrieved 16 February 2024.
5. ^ "Central Telegraph Office and BT Centre – a timeline" (PDF). www.bt.com. BT Archives. May 2008. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
6. Warrington, James (22 July 2019). "BT reveals new City headquarters as it plans to move by end of 2021". www.cityam.com. CityAM. Limited. Retrieved 7 November 2021.
7. "BT opens new London HQ". BT.com. 26 November 2021.
8. Hopkirk, Elizabeth (24 June 2020). "KPF rings the changes for BT's old 1980s HQ". Building Design. Retrieved 3 June 2023.
9. "Flickr Photo". 9 June 2006.
10. "BT Life".
11. "Postal Heritage".

External links

Media related to BT Centre at Wikimedia Commons

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Programmes and standards	Current BT 21CN BT site engineering code BT Speaking Clock British telephone socket Cable jetting Customer Service System Advanced Mobile Location Digital Access Carrier System Digital Access Signalling System 2 System X System Y ADSL Max Redcare 1-5-7-1 YouView Defunct Digital Access Signalling System 1 Digital Private Network Signalling System Fixed-Mobile Convergence Alliance Go!Messenger International Packet Switched Service NHSnet N3 (NHS) Packet Switch Stream Prestel TXE TXK
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