Inverlair Lodge, Scot. inspiration for 'The Prisoner' (1969)

[TonyGosling]

Inverlair Lodge
http://www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/InverlairLodge
Inverlair Lodge, David Healey, www.theunmutual.co.uk
http://www.theunmutual.co.uk/inverlair.htm
Inverlair Lodge lies East of Fort William, about one mile west of Tulloch station, and half a mile south of the A86.
Dating from the late 18th century, the house was purchased by John Walker of Crawfordton in 1834, along with Corrour, when he bought part of the Loch Treig estates from the Duke of Gordon. It was extended in 1860 and in 1880 by his son, Colonel Sir George Gustavus Walker (1830 - 1897).
In 1941, the lodge was requisitioned and became one of the facilities operated by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II, and was known as No 6 Special Workshop School, part of the Inter Services Research Bureau (ISRB),
SOE (and SIS or MI6) planned many secret operations in enemy territory during World War II, and it was inevitable that there would be occasions where volunteers would refuse to take part once they became aware of the full details. Some were unable to kill when the occasion was reduced to a one-on-one scenario, as opposed the anonymity of a battlefield exchange. With information being released on a Need to Know basis, their training meant that they were in possession of highly classified and secret information relating to pending missions, and could not be allowed to return to public life, where a careless remark could have compromised their secrecy. Inverlair Lodge became a detention or internment camp where such individuals could be accommodated, safely isolated from public contact. Conditions there were described as luxurious, and the lodge was even said to provide a safe haven for former agents or spies, who could not risk being seen in public, for fear of being recognised and killed in retaliation for missions they had carried out.
It has also been suggested that the lodge was equipped with facilities, equipment and activities similar to those of a normal training camp, the aim being to accommodate those that were unable to complete training in the normal way. The aim being to fool them into believing they were still undergoing training, allowing them to be kept safely out of circulation until they, or conditions, were deemed safe for then to be released. The idea seems a little improbable, and wasteful of resources, if the deception was run with sufficient realism to fool the trainees, given it would seems reasonable to assume that they had already been screened and selected on the basis of their aptitude for espionage related activities.
A number of web sites have been noted to refer to Inverlair Lodge being used to hold Rudolf Hess, after his flight to Scotland on May 10, 1941. Notably, VisitScotland.com asserted: Inverlair, famous in the twentieth century as one of the places in Northern Scotland where Rudolf Hess, Deputy Leader of Nazi Germany, was held prisoner after his flight to Scotland in May 1941.
When considering the above tale, it's worth reviewing the published record of Hess's movements after his arrival:
May 10, 23:09, Hess bales out over Eaglesham
May 10/May 11, midnight, transfer to Gifnock Scout Hall, 3 Battalion Home Guard HQ
May 11/May 12, overnight at Maryhill Barracks
May 13, Buchanan Castle Military Hospital near Drymen
May 17 to May 20, the Queen's House at the Tower of London
May 20, transported to Camp Z (Mytchett Place, Aldershot) for 13 months
June 26, 1942,transported to POW Reception Station, Maindiff Court, Abergavenny, South Wales
October 8, 1945, flown to Nuremberg on for trial
The tale is, in all probability, genuine, but not in respect of Hess's actual movements. Consider the isolated location, its reputation, distance, and direction in relation to Hess's actual movements, and the story gains credibility as deliberate mis-information. This could have been leaked to known agents (or through German agents that had been turned), diverting enemy attention from Hess's actual location, to a very plausible, but false, and time-consuming alternative.
SOE (Special Operations Executive) formed out of parts of SIS 1940, remnants merged with SIS 1946
The following excerpt is quoted from documentation that appears on many web sites. It has not been attributed in the normal way, as many of the appearances contain the same words, but claim different authors, so we have only given the source for this quote, and not the author:
This was the response made by Hugh Dalton, the Minister of EcW to Churchill's pressure for an immediate counter-offensive against the German occupation of Western Europe. SOE, effectively a temporary, wartime-only organization of doubtful value was run separately from SIS, though for much of the war relied heavily on the intelligence services communications network until the creation of STS-2 (Thame Park); STS53A (Grendon Underwood); STS53B (Poundon House); STS53C (Signal Hill-Poundon, later SIS/DWS closed 1990's); STS54 (Fawley Court, Henley) and STS53D (Belhaven House-Dunbar). Although it had limited successes in Norway (the destruction of Heavy Water facilities), Yugoslavia and the Far East (with TF-136 which was later almost completely absorbed into the post war SIS) in particular, disasters such as the German Operation North Pole penetration of the SOE Dutch section and the German reprisals in the wake of the Heydrich assassination were of greater significance. Indeed by 1944 its military value was strictly limited and it was largely sidelined for the rest of the warw. On 15th August 1945 SOE ceased to be separate organization from SIS and the run down process began and in July 1946 the SOE was finally disbanded with many of its best officers, agents, some whole sections and a number of operations being transferred to SIS. Far from SOE disappearing however its absorption into the intelligence service had a significant and largely positive impact on the future organization and leadership of SIS itself. Its first Headquarters was in the St Ermins Hotel, but moved to its permanent facilities at 64 Baker Street on 31st October 1940 with the cover name of Inter-Services Research Bureau (IRSB). Later added Norgeby House at no-83 and St Michael's House at no-82 Baker Street. Along with a myriad of Training Establishments (known as STS-1, 2 etc) SOE was also to create a 'Cooler' for failed agents who could not be posted elsewhere until sensitive operations they had been trained for had been completed. This was at Inverlair Lodge, in Inverness-shire and was heavily guarded by the Cameron Highlanders. Both SOE and SIS were to make considerable use of its secure facilities.
- Source (Various, origin not identified)
Contents [hide]
Prisoner inspiration
For sale
2009 Radio programme
References
External links
Aerial views
Map
Comments
Prisoner inspiration
George Markstein, who worked with Patrick McGoohan on the 1960s TV series The Prisoner, has told of how he learnt about places such as Inverlair Lodge during the war, when he was a journalist, and there can be little doubt that the discovery influenced the design of the fictional Village in which the series was set. Commenting on the residents "They were largely people who had been compromised. They had reached the point in their career where they knew too much to be let loose, but they hadn't actually done anything wrong. They weren't in any way traitors, they hadn't betrayed anything, but in their own interest it was better if they were kept safely."
Markstein was also to base a book on this knowledge, The Cooler, written in 1974, and featuring the fictitious Inverloch.
In a later book, Ferret, he went as close as possible to revealing the American and Russian villages, which, together with Inverlair Lodge, would make up "at least three", referred to on occasions by McGoohan.
For sale
The lodge was placed on the market during 2008, expected to sell the for at least £1.1 million. The sales brochure was notable in that it repeated the "Hess Stayed Here" story.
2009 Radio programme
The Spies Who Knew Too Much was first broadcast by BBC Radio Scotland at 11:30 on Friday, November 27, 2009, with the preview promising that Mark Stephen would reveal the secrets behind the 18th century lodge that inspired the fictional village in the 1960s TV series, The Prisoner.[1]

The Spies Who Knew Too Much
Mark Stephen reveals the secrets behind the 18th century lodge that inspired the fictional village in the 1960s TV series The Prisoner.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nz3lb

[TonyGosling]

Scots hideaway for bungling spies who knew too much
19:3620:40Saturday 06 September 2008
THEY were the real-life secret agents who were more deserving of a P45 than MI5.
Newly declassified government files have revealed that a remote Highland estate was used during the Second World War to house under-achieving British spies whose incompetence meant they posed more of a threat to their homeland than to Hitler. During the conflict, Inverlair Lodge near Spean Bridge become a top-secret base for spooks deemed not up to the task of infiltrating the Third Reich but who knew too much to be left at large. The institution, where the failed agents were well looked after but prevented from leaving, later inspired the hit TV show The Prisoner. The revelation is contained in a new book on the British secret services that has been put together by academics based at the UK National Archives in Kew. Their tome, British Intelligence, is based on a host of newly opened files. It features detailed reports on the shadowy Special Operations Executive (SOE), whose existence was kept an official secret until recent years. During the Second World War, the sprawling 18th century lodge was commandeered by the SOE. The book states: "A little-known camp run by SOE developed an undeserved notoriety after the war and influenced The Prisoner, the cult television series of the 1960s. "The camp at Inverlair, given the cover name of the 'Number 6 Special Workshop School', but nicknamed 'the cooler' by SOE in London was set up to house prospective agents deemed unsuitable for operations after initial training. The secret information acquired during training meant that they could not be released into general society. "They therefore needed to live in 'retirement' at the camp at Inverlair until the end of the war." The book, which was compiled by historians and academics Stephen Twigge, Edward Hampshire and Graham Macklin, said the hapless inhabitants suffered no ill treatment during their enforced hideaway in the Highlands. "Those placed there were generally foreign nationals and although they were housed in some comfort and could leave during the day to mix with locals, the situation naturally caused frustration. "Some of the failed agents had difficult personalities, others were physically unsuitable for secretive work." The files, which sound like they could have inspired the creation of the bungling fictional spy Austin Powers, state that one man was sent to the camp for being "outstandingly ugly". They state: "He'd be recognised anywhere. Once seen never forgotten. He had no teeth at all except two gold tusks and two incisors." A spokesman for the National Archives said the wartime episode was one of several missions that has been kept from public knowledge until now. He said: "While many people have speculated on the history and nature of the British intelligence services, this book is the first to tell the story through the documents themselves. "The use of Inverlair Lodge by SOE is one of many dramatic, undisclosed and remarkable events that took place during the two world wars." As well as hosting a colony of incompetent spies, the lodge is also rumoured to have acted as a temporary jail for Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess. In 1941 Hess flew solo from Augsburg to Scotland in an apparent attempt to negotiate peace with Britain. He parachuted from his Messerschmitt over Renfrewshire but was promptly arrested after landing at Eaglesham near Glasgow. The National Archives give no clue as to whether Hess was taken to Inverlair, and he took his secrets to the grave after he died in Spandau Prison, Berlin, in 1987. But the lodge's former owner, Richard Sidgwick, believes it was true. He said: "Many who lived here during the war will tell you that Hess was detained at Inverlair. It is a suggestion that has also been repeated frequently in local historical guides." Bidwells estate agents in nearby Fort William confirmed the lodge had recently been sold to a private individual and, as such, will continue to be off-limits to the public. It is believed the property more than met the asking price of 1m. The schedule for the property hints of its remarkable history, stating: "During the Second World War, in common with many large houses in the West Highlands, Inverlair Lodge was requisitioned by the War Office as part of a response to Churchill's instructions. "Reputedly, both by local contemporary word of mouth and in print, it was also a temporary prison for Rudolph Hess. "The lodge was returned to the British Aluminium Company at the end of the war and remained empty, other than for a short period in the summer months when it was used a holiday base for children from Fife from deprived backgrounds." The house is set within 30 acres of gardens, paddocks and mature woodland and also includes the site of a former tennis court, which may well have been used by the interned spies during the Second World War, as well as a deer larder and a fruit garden. British Intelligence: Secrets, Spies and Sources is published by The National Archives.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/news/scots-hideaway-for-bungling-spies-who-kne w-too-much-1-1437116