Chesterford Park Research Station | |
---|---|
Chesterford Research Park | |
Alternative names | Chesterford Park, Chesterford Research Park |
General information | |
Type | Research centre |
Architectural style | Country house |
Address | Little Chesterford, Essex, CB10 1XL |
Coordinates | 52°03′25″N0°14′08″E / 52.057°N 0.2356°E |
Elevation | 80 m (262 ft) |
Current tenants | Science park |
Completed | 1956 |
Inaugurated | 2 October 1956 |
Client | Fisons |
Chesterford Park Research Station was a former crop protection research centre in Essex, and is now a science park with biotechnology companies.
The 808 acres of the Chesterford Park Estate was put up for sale in June 1950. , [1] owned by Dr Werner Göthe since around 1930.
Pest Control Ltd of Bourn in south-west Cambridgeshire, bought the Little Chesterford Park site in 1952. The Bourn site made crop spraying equipment. Fisons bought Pest Control Ltd in early 1954.[ citation needed ]
Elwyn Parry-Jones was the site's first technical director, who died in July 1965. [2]
In September 1964 the site started research work with Boots. [3]
Genetic resistance by insects to insecticides was increasing in the late 1960s. [4] By the late 1960s, the site had around 220 staff.
From the 1970s, the director of the site was Charles Edwards.[ citation needed ]
By the late 1980s, there were around 500 staff.[ citation needed ]
The site is accessed via the B184 from junction 9 of the M11 motorway.
Boots and Fisons joined divisions in 1980 to form FBC Limited. In 1982 Fisons sold its fertiliser division to a Norwegian company for £50m. On Monday 18 July 1983, Boots and Fisons sold FBC Ltd to Schering AG of West Germany for £120m [5] with the sale completed on Wednesday 14 September 1983.
In late 1993, Schering's chemical division looked at merging with another German chemical company Hoechst, which formed AgrEvo on 3 March 1994. [6]
In July 1999 AgrEvo UK looked at closing the site due to Hoechst merging, to become Aventis. [7] The site briefly became part of Aventis CropScience UK. On 12 October 2001 Aventis CropScience was bought for 7.25 billion euros.
In 2000, Aviva Investors acquired the park, planning to develop it further alongside its joint-venture partners, adding new buildings and infrastructure to accommodate tenants as their operations expand. [8] [9]
In 2017, Uttlesford District Council purchased a 50% share in the park, making them joint owners alongside Aviva Investors. [10]
New buildings were opened on Tuesday 2 October 1956 by Sir William Slater. [11] The new buildings included a Medical Laboratory for tests on laboratory animals. The buildings were built by Prime Ltd of Cambridge. [12] The site was around 240 acres - there was 90 acres of woodland and a 139-acre farm. [13]
In 1967 a new animal health unit opened, with a £30,000 pig unit, and £30,000 building for a dairy herd. [14]
In the late 1970s, a £4.5m building was built. [15] The new centre was opened on Tuesday 24 April 1979 by Scottish biochemist Alexander R. Todd, who won the 1957 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. [16]
A 400kv transmission line runs north-south through the east of the site, on the 4ZM Walpole, Norfolk - Burwell, Cambridgeshire - Stocking Pelham route.
From 1954 it conducted research on TCA, which it sold under the tradename Tecane [17]
Insecticides had radioactive tracers to test uptake by insects. [18]
In 1942, the herbicide DNOC - dinitro-ortho-cresol was found, but it was harmful to humans. In 1956, the site found a way to reduce the harmful effects. [19] MCPA was found in 1945, but DNOC was better, as MCPA had resistance.
In February 1958, a team under Dr Pfeiffer discovered TCB. [20] The site researched pesticides, known as crop protection, by Fisons Pest Control. The pesticide Rogor (dimethoate) was developed there, [21] as well as Banlene and Carbyne. [22] Fison's other site was Levington Research Station, in Suffolk, which was for fertiliser products.
In April 1977, the site won a Queen's Award for Industry, for the Norton herbicide, made at a new £3.5m factory in Widnes, with 350 workers, which opened in October 1976; [23] it was awarded on Friday 8 September 1977. [24]
Environmental toxicity was tested on rodents such as mice, rats, and hamsters, and on rabbits, ducks and chickens, by radioactive tracers. Various types of insects were kept. In the late 1950s, it conducted research around £250,000 a year. [25]
Restroscreen Virology opened a clinical trials laboratory on the site in 2014. [26]
The Duke of Kent visited the site on the morning of Tuesday 23 January 2013 [27]
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh visited the Fisons Pest Control site on the afternoon of Friday 18 October 1963, initially travelling by aircraft, and later personally piloting a red-coloured helicopter; he had visited Shell in Kent in the morning, [28] and the day before he had visited the ICI plant protection research centre in Berkshire. The Duke met James Turner, 1st Baron Netherthorpe, the chairman of Fisons, and Sir John Carmichael, the deputy chairman. [29]
The research park is occupied by a range of tenants including biotechnology, pharmaceutical and technology R&D companies [30]
Saffron Walden is a market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England, 12 miles (19 km) north of Bishop's Stortford, 15 miles (24 km) south of Cambridge and 43 miles (69 km) north of London. It retains a rural appearance and some buildings of the medieval period. The population was 15,504 at the 2011 census and 16,613 in the 2021 census.
Uttlesford is a local government district in Essex, England. Its council is based in the town of Saffron Walden. The district also includes the town of Great Dunmow and numerous villages, including Stansted Mountfitchet, Takeley, Elsenham, Thaxted, and Newport. The district covers a largely rural area in the north-west of Essex. London Stansted Airport lies within the district.
BBC East Midlands Today is the BBC's regional television news programme for the East Midlands.
Ashdon, is a village and civil parish in Essex, England. It is about 4 miles (6 km) northeast of Saffron Walden and 23 miles (37 km) northwest from the county town of Chelmsford. The village is in the district of Uttlesford and the parliamentary constituency of Saffron Walden. The village has its own Parish Council.
The Times is a Gannett daily newspaper based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Its distribution area includes 12 parishes in Northwest Louisiana and three counties in East Texas. Its coverage focuses on issues affecting the Shreveport-Bossier market, and includes investigative reporting, community news, arts and entertainment, government, education, sports, business, and religion, along with local opinion/commentary. Its website provides news updates, videos, photo galleries, forums, blogs, event calendars, entertainment, classifieds, contests, databases, and a regional search engine. Local news content produced by The Times is available on the website at no charge for seven days.
Little Chesterford is a small village and civil parish in Uttlesford, Essex, in the East of England. Close to the Cambridgeshire border, it is built principally along a single sunken lane to the east of a chalk stream tributary of the River Cam or Granta and is located 1 km southeast of Great Chesterford and some 5 km northwest of Saffron Walden. The small hamlet of Springwell is just to the south of the village. Up the hill to the east is Chesterford Park, with a mid-19th-century mansion in a 250-acre estate and now a science park called Chesterford Research Park. The wide and relatively deep valley of the river Cam provides a rolling landscape of chalky boulder clay with extensive and wide views. The surrounding farmland is mostly in intensive arable use and except for areas alongside the river, some of which is liable to flooding, is classified as being of grade 2 quality.
Great Chesterford is a village and civil parish in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. The village is 13 miles (20 km) north from Bishop's Stortford, 10 miles (16 km) south from Cambridge and about 25 miles (40 km) northwest from the city and Essex county town of Chelmsford.
Fisons plc was a British multinational pharmaceutical, scientific instruments and horticultural chemicals company headquartered in Ipswich, United Kingdom. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was acquired by Rhone-Poulenc in 1995.
Top of the Form was a BBC radio and television quiz show for teams from secondary schools in the United Kingdom which ran for 38 years, from 1948 to 1986.
The Eddy Arnold Show is the name of three similar American network television summer variety programs during the 1950s hosted by Eddy Arnold and featuring popular music stars of the day. It was also the name of a radio program starring Arnold.
Keith Albarn is an English artist. He is the father of musician Damon Albarn and artist Jessica Albarn.
The Unilever Research & Development Port Sunlight Laboratory is the multinational consumer goods company Unilever's main research and development facility in the United Kingdom. It is located in Bebington, Merseyside.
The Hundred Parishes is an area of the East of England with no formal recognition or status, albeit that the concept has the blessing of county and district authorities. It encompasses around 450 square miles of northwest Essex, northeast Hertfordshire and southern Cambridgeshire. The area comprises just over 100 administrative parishes, hence its name. It contains over 6,000 listed buildings and many conservation areas, village greens, ancient hedgerows, protected features and a historical pattern of small rural settlements in close proximity to one another.
Jannette Veronica Roscoe is a female British sprinter.
The Levington Research Station is a fertiliser research institute in Suffolk.
The Napp Research Centre is a large medical research institute in the north of Cambridge, and innovative-looking and award-winning architecture; it is a Cambridge landmark.
The history of air traffic control in the United Kingdom began in the late 1950s, and early 1960s, when an integrated and coordinated system began, once radar had become sufficiently advanced to allow this.
Sir Henry Ernest Marking KCVO CBE was a British businessman and a former chairman and chief executive of British European Airways (BEA), which became British Airways.
The Shell Technology Centre was a chemical and oil products research institute in northern Cheshire, near Stanlow, owned by Anglo-Dutch Shell.
The School Dental Service was a county council network of dental screening for children at school in UK in the mid-20th century. In some areas it is now known as a community dental service.