22 May 1971 A bomb explodes at Tintagel House. The Angry Brigade has targeted the National Police Computer that is located in the building.
Tintagel House was a Metropolitan Police office block, located just down from Vauxhall Bridge and a couple of buildings away from the MI6 building.
That same evening further simultaneous attacks against British Rail, Rolls Royce and Rover offices in Paris.
That evening they declared responsibility in their Communique 9
The Tintagel House 1301 computer
The composite picture below consists of three overlaid photo’s Supplied by Mr Boyle, who was part of the installation team, about 40 years ago. More info here.
The computer was about 20 ft wide and 22 ft long, weighed five tons and had an internal memory of about 72 kilobytes (a Word document a few pages long). Each of the Ampex 1″ tape units in the background on the right could store about 9 megabytes of memory (about a couple of mp3s).
Other Angry Brigade Attacks in Lambeth
In 1970, the year before had already seen 3 attacks in Lambeth.
| 28 March 1970 | Waterloo Station | Time bomb found |
| 10 June 1970 | Brixton Conservative Association | firebombed |
| 18 June 1970 | Lambeth Court | firebombed |
Bomb Squad Formed
The actions of the Angry Brigade Campaign led directly to the formation of the bomb squad (now the anti-terrorist branch) and this was also based in the building.
A few months after the Tintagel House bombing the police raided a house in Stoke Newington finding various explosives, ammunition and guns but most damning of all a John Bull printing kit. Gradually eight supposed members of The Angry Brigade were arrested, subsequently becoming known as the Stoke Newington Eight (named after the location of their flat in Hackney).
Lambeth Magistrates
The committal proceedings opened at Lambeth Magistrates’ Court on 3 January 1972. The same court that the group had firebombed in 1970. The Lambeth Magistrates Court (now the Jamyang Buddhist Centre) was used as it was considered to be one of the most secure courts in the Country at the time and so many high profile trials.
Video: Lambeth Magistrates Court – Renfew Road
The Trial
Radio 4 – The Friday Play 9/8/2002: The Trial of the Angry Brigade
Tintagel House Today
The building has recently undergone a major refit and the following video shows some great before & after views.
Communique 9
WE are getting closer. We are slowly destroying the long tentacles of the oppressive State machine... secret files in the universities work study in the factories the census at home social security files computers TV Giro passports work permits insurance cards. Bureaucracy and technology used against the people... to speed up our work to slow down our minds and actions to obliterate the truth. Police computers cannot tell the truth. They just record our `crimes'. The pig murders go unrecorded. Stephen McCarthy Peter Savva, David Owale -- The murder of these brothers is not written on any secret card. We will avenge our brothers. If they murder another brother or sister, pig blood will flow in the streets. 168 explosions last year. Hundreds of threatening telephone calls to govt, bosses, leaders. The AB is the man or woman sitting next to you. They have guns in their pockets and anger in their minds. We are getting closer. Off the system and its property. Power to the people. Communique 9 - The Angry Brigade
