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Twenty large satellite dishes that have been a landmark feature at Television Centre in White City have been dismantled as part of the redevelopment of the site.

The dishes were used by the BBC to receive and broadcast major world news and sporting events including wars, Olympic Games and General Elections.

The 11m dish pictured was used to distribute programming in the UK via satellite.

Other dishes were used to receive content from BBC correspondents around the world and other broadcasters.

Removal of the dishes, on Friday (June 26), was complex because of their proximity to the Hammersmith and City Tube line.

The BBC has located a new satellite farm elsewhere with eight dishes.

The dishes from Television Centre have been sold to the Goonhilly Earth Station, in Cornwall, which is being transformed into a new Space Science Centre.

Goonhilly Earth Station received the first ever trans-Atlantic satellite TV images, broadcast by Telstar, on 11 July 1962.

The redevelopment of Television Centre, by Stanhope plc, will be a mix of office and television studio space for the BBC, 950 new homes, offices, cafes, restaurants and a gym. It will include a new branch of private members’ club Soho House consisting of a 47-room hotel, restaurant and roof-top pool.

Alistair Shaw, managing director of Television Centre, said: “We took the decision early on to do something very different at Television Centre to reflect the creative history of this iconic site.

"White City is changing and Television Centre will be at the heart of this exciting regeneration, a new centre of gravity for London with its own sense of place.”

Lynden Potter, BBC Head of Technology Delivery for Major Projects, said the International Control Room which for more than 50 years was a vital link between BBC sites, correspondents and other broadcasters in the UK and the rest of the world, was one of the last functions to leave Television Centre in 2014.

BBC started using its own satellite broadcasting facilities at Television Centre at the time of the first Gulf War in the early '90s, and the dishes now being removed were installed over the following years.

The first phase of the redevelopment of Television Centre is due to open in 2017.