In a Radio Times I have from 1955 I was surprised to find that for one particular programme, the address given to write to it was BBC Television Centre! So part of it must have been in use as early as that.
Stage 1 (Scenery block) was completed in 1953
Stage 2 (Restaurant block) was completed in 1955 and was used as rehearsal rooms and office space.
Stage 3 (Main block studios aka The Doughnut) opened with TC3 in June 1960, with TCs 2,4 and 5 opening a little later.
That would explain the TV Centre postal address in 1955 - it was open by then (just not as a studio centre)
In a Radio Times I have from 1955 I was surprised to find that for one particular programme, the address given to write to it was BBC Television Centre! So part of it must have been in use as early as that.
Maybe... I realise that 1955 predates postcodes as we know them, but you would often see this address:
Programme Name
BBC TV Centre
London
W12 8QT
which was a slight con - W12 8QT was the post room at Lime Grove rather than TC. (W12 7RJ was TC's postcode)
In a Radio Times I have from 1955 I was surprised to find that for one particular programme, the address given to write to it was BBC Television Centre! So part of it must have been in use as early as that.
Maybe... I realise that 1955 predates postcodes as we know them, but you would often see this address:
Programme Name
BBC TV Centre
London
W12 8QT
which was a slight con - W12 8QT was the post room at Lime Grove rather than TC. (W12 7RJ was TC's postcode)
I checked it last night - incidentally, the programme was called 'Is This Your Problem?', in which a panel of experts discussed viewers' dilemmas - and the address is shown as: 'BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, London W12'.
In a Radio Times I have from 1955 I was surprised to find that for one particular programme, the address given to write to it was BBC Television Centre! So part of it must have been in use as early as that.
Maybe... I realise that 1955 predates postcodes as we know them, but you would often see this address:
Programme Name
BBC TV Centre
London
W12 8QT
which was a slight con - W12 8QT was the post room at Lime Grove rather than TC. (W12 7RJ was TC's postcode)
Was it really? I never knew that. Did the BBC manage to keep 8QT after the Grove closed or did its on air use end in the early 90s?
Incidentally, the BBC's postcode for Broadcasting House W1A 1AA, is a special postcode just for the building. Others include SW1A 1AA for HM Queen, Buckingham Palace ...
So where did the different postcodes deliver to? Did they all go to TVC and then sorted internally to the right production office, or did Royal Mail deliver to different places for each postcode?
My guess is that they were an easier way of sorting high volume mail and made both the BBC and the Royal Mail's lives easier (in fact the Royal Mail may have taken over the BBC internal post service by this point - they operated it for a while ISTR?) allowing mail to be sorted once and the large volumes directed to the shows mentioned above to be delivered en masse?
In the days before e-mail these shows had huge physical mail deliveries to cope with.
I think each programme had a different PO Box, so it was probably Royal Mail who were sorting things.
CBBC was 4567 for afternoons and 9989 for birthday cards, Blue Peter was 20 for general correspondence and 21 for competitions - but I think that predated the specific postcodes.
One that always confused me as a kid was Hart Beat, which was W3 6XJ. I'm guessing their production office was at the former rehearsal rooms in Acton which were later used as office space.
One that I remember was Bristol's postcode BS8 2LR which they used to use for sending pictures in for The Gallery on Take Hart. It remains the postcode for BH Bristol, though isn't a special one to the BBC. Funny how I can remember these things well (and phone numbers like 01 801 8055) but can't remember what I've gone to the shops for... Sorry for drifting things OT...
I think eventually the BBC's W12 postcodes all pointed to their mailroom on Silver Road. noggin's right - Royal Mail did the internal post for the BBC for a while, so you'd see postmen in their uniform wandering around TVC. (They eventually got transferred over to Swiss Post, but in BBC Workplace uniforms rather than those of Swiss postmen.)
One that always confused me as a kid was Hart Beat, which was W3 6XJ. I'm guessing their production office was at the former rehearsal rooms in Acton which were later used as office space.
I'm assuming that the Hartbeat production office was at East Tower with all the other kids shows, but W3 6XJ was also the postcode for Broadcasting Support Services who you'd write to for various factsheets, so presumably you sent them there because they had the facilities to deal with loads of post that didn't have to be looked at as a matter of urgency.