Fanum House facts for kids

Fanum House, the main building.

Fanum House is a tall building in Basingstoke, England. It is the main office for a company called the Automobile Association, often called the AA. The AA helps drivers when their cars break down. This building is one of several AA offices that have been named "Fanum House" over the years. The very first AA main office in London was also called Fanum House. The name "Fanum" comes from the AA's old radio call sign.

Building Fanum House

In the 1960s, the government encouraged companies to move out of busy London. The AA decided to move its main office to Basingstoke, which was growing quickly. The Fanum House building was finished in 1970. AA employees started working there right away.

A Royal Opening

The building was officially opened in 1973 by Queen Elizabeth II. It is 83 metres (about 274 feet) tall. That's like putting 18 double-decker buses on top of each other! It has seventeen floors of offices. There is also a special viewing area at the very top.

Where is Fanum House?

Fanum House is easy to spot if you are driving on the M3 motorway. You can also see it when you get close to Basingstoke on the A30 road. The word Fanum comes from Latin and means "temple." This name was chosen to show that the AA was a very important company for helping drivers in the UK.

Tallest Building in Town

For a long time, Fanum House was the tallest building in Basingstoke. But in 2009, another building called Skyline Plaza became taller. Skyline Plaza grew from 61 metres to 85 metres. It added three more floors to become the new tallest building.

Inside Fanum House Today

The seventeenth floor of Fanum House used to be for the company's top leaders. It even had its own bar! Now, it looks like all the other office floors. There was also a bar in the second-floor cafe when the building first opened. But that closed many years ago.

Unique Floor Names

This building has some unusual floor names. There is no "Floor 1." The ground floor is called "Upper Ground." The basement floor, which is smaller, is called "Lower Ground." So, the first floor you go up from Upper Ground is actually called "Floor 2."

The Upper Ground floor is much bigger than the floors in the tower. It has a large open office area. You can also find a coffee shop, a regular shop, and a learning centre there. There is even a theatre used for company meetings.

Parking and Power

Fanum House also has a large covered car park. Many employees find the parking spaces very narrow. This is because cars have become much bigger since the car park was built. This is a common problem for older car parks in the UK. There is a covered path that connects the car park to the Upper Ground floor.

Floor 10 is not like the other office floors. It mainly holds power supplies and controls for the building. Some parts of it are used as offices for special tasks. If you look at the building at night, you can see that Floor 10 is partly dark.

The Future of Fanum House

In the mid-1990s, the AA tried to move its main office to a new building called Norfolk House. The plan was to close Fanum House completely. However, the new offices were not big enough for all the employees in Basingstoke. So, both buildings were used at the same time for a while.

Return to Fanum House

In the end, it was Norfolk House that closed in 2002. This happened after another company, Centrica, took over the AA. The main office then moved to Farnborough. But in 2005, the AA's headquarters moved back to Fanum House!

In 2017, the AA announced that they would leave Fanum House. They planned to move to new offices and that Fanum House would be taken down. But just a few months later, they changed their minds! In September 2017, the AA said they would stay at Fanum House. They even announced plans to spend money to improve the building.