Sold by the family in 1911, the estate then had a sucesssion of owners until acquired by the BBC in 1939. Established as an emergency broadcasting base, Wood Norton had become the largest broadcasting centre in Europe by the beginning of 1940 with an average output of 1,300 programmes a week.
It was the home of the BBC’s monitoring service from 1939 until 1943, when monitoring moved to Caversham Park. The move was made to release space at Wood Norton so that it could become the BBC’s main broadcasting centre, should London have to be evacuated. A major fire during the war destroyed the Halls’ upper storeys.
After the war, Wood Norton became the home of the BBC Engineering Training department. During the Cold War, it was designated as the broadcasting centre in the event of a nuclear attack.
Wood Norton was used for some of the filming of the Doctor Who serial Spearhead from Space and it was later used for all of the location filming for another Doctor Who series Robot.
Wood Norton enjoyed a multi-million pound refurbishment by the BBC in 1995 and opened as a luxury 45 bedroom Hotel and Conference Centre. It was subsequently sold by the BBC in 2001 and has been in private ownership since this time.
Wood Norton Hotel is scheduled to re-open in September 2012.