page_title: White Nancy
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: White Nancy / History
caption_attribution_description: English: British Army Signals Trials Unit testing cathode ray signals on White Nancy 1948
context_page_description: White Nancy is a structure at the top of the northern extremity of Kerridge Hill, predominantly in the Parish of Rainow, overlooking the village of Kerridge and the town of Bollington, Cheshire, England. Since 1966 it has been recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. Its profile forms the logo for the town of Bollington. As to the origin of the name White Nancy, there are several theories: it may have been named after one of the Gaskell daughters, Nancy, or maybe after the horse that is said to have hauled the table top up the hill. However, much the most likely origin is that the hill once had upon it an Ordnance marker, as installed by mapping surveyors. Early maps noted the location as Northern Nancy.
context_section_description: White Nancy was built in 1817 by John Gaskell junior of North End Farm to commemorate the victory at the Battle of Waterloo.  John Gaskell was a member of the Gaskell family who lived nearby at Ingersley Hall.  It originally had an entrance to a single room which was furnished with stone benches and a central round stone table, but the entrance is now blocked. It has been described as a summer house or a folly.
  In the mid-1940s, the Royal Signal Corps Trials Unit based at Catterick would drive a truck-mounted dish-shaped transmitter/receiver up onto Kerridge Hill. Here they tested cathode-ray tube transmission and reception (data-based, not images), to a mobile receiving station on another truck. The receiver would be driven further and further south over time, until eventually the lads at Kerridge Hill were sending a signal to the south coast of the country. 
  Locals told the signallers that the landmark was named after the lead horse that had transported all materials for the building of White Nancy.
caption: British Army Signals Trials Unit testing cathode ray signals on White Nancy 1948
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