The Frythe is a country house set in its own grounds in rural Hertfordshire, just south of the village of Welwyn, about 30 miles north of London.
The Frythe is a country house set in its own grounds in rural Hertfordshire, just south of the village of Welwyn, about 30 miles north of London.
The Frythe was part of the property of Holywell Priory, Shoreditch, and in 1523 William Wilshere obtained a sixty-year lease of the Frythe from the priory. As a result of the dissolution of the monasteries, in 1539 the property was granted to Sir John Gostwick and Joan his wife. Within ten years, Wilshere had purchased The Frythe from Gostwick's heirs, and the property remained in the possession of the Wilshere family for several centuries. [1]
The present "Gothic revival" mansion was built in 1846 for William Wilshere (MP for Great Yarmouth from 1837 to 1846). The architects were Thomas Smith and Edward Blore. After William Wilshere's death in 1867 the house was enlarged by his brother Charles Willes Wilshere who inherited it. In 1908 on Charles Wilshere's death, it passed on to his three unmarried daughters until the last one died in 1934. The estate passed to a great-nephew, Captain Gerald Maunsell Gamul Farmer, of a landed gentry family of Nonsuch, Surrey, who adopted the surname of Wilshere, [2] and ran the house as "The Frythe Residential and Private Hotel". [3]
'The Frythe' was commandeered in August 1939 by the British Military Intelligence. [4] During the Second World War it became a secret British Special Operations Executive factory known as Station IX making commando equipment. Secret research included military vehicles and equipment, explosives and technical sabotage, camouflage, biological and chemical warfare. In the grounds of The Frythe small cabins and barracks functioned as laboratories and workshops. [4]
The Frythe was for many years a commercial research facility, operated by ICI from 1946, by Unilever from 1963 and by Smith, Kline & French from 1977. [3]
From 1946 to 1963 the site was shared by ICI with Unilever. [3] New buildings were built by Unilever in the 1960s, with a contract for £400,000 in 1964 to Taylor Woodrow. Research was conducted on edible oils, margarine, ice cream, and frozen foods in the 1960s. Techniques included molecular biophysics, X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), mass spectrometry, ESR spectroscopy (electron paramagnetic resonance), and infrared spectroscopy. [3]
Smith, Kline & French discovered Tagamet (Cimetidine) at The Frythe in 1971, which treats peptic ulcers by Sir James Black FRS and C. Robin Ganellin FRS with research on H2 antagonist. [5]
The Frythe site was closed by GlaxoSmithKline and sold to a property development company on 19 December 2010. [6] In 2017 the conversion of the property into flats was still underway. [7]
Hatfield is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, in the borough of Welwyn Hatfield. It had a population of 29,616 in 2001, and 39,201 at the 2011 Census. The settlement is of Saxon origin. Hatfield House, home of the Marquess of Salisbury, forms the nucleus of the old town. From the 1930s when de Havilland opened a factory until the 1990s when British Aerospace closed it, aircraft design and manufacture employed more people there than any other industry. Hatfield was one of the post-war New Towns built around London and has much modernist architecture from the period. The University of Hertfordshire is based there.
Hertfordshire is one of the home counties in southern England. It is bordered by Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For government statistical purposes, it is placed in the East of England region.
The Borough of Welwyn Hatfield is a local government district in southern Hertfordshire, England.
Welwyn Garden City is a town in Hertfordshire, England. It is located approximately 20 miles (32 km) from Kings Cross, London. Welwyn Garden City was the second garden city in England and one of the first new towns.
Welwyn is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England. The parish also includes the villages of Digswell and Oaklands. It is sometimes called Old Welwyn to distinguish it from the much newer settlement of Welwyn Garden City, about a mile to the south, though some residents dislike the suggestion of inferiority or irrelevance that tends to be implied by the moniker "Old" and prefer Welwyn Village. When saying where they live, locals will often be asked, "Welwyn or Welwyn Garden City?", as the latter's title is often shortened to simply Welwyn. To avoid confusion, there were plans to change Welwyn’s name to ‘Welwyn Minster’ in 1990 but this met with local resistance and the idea was abandoned.
East Hertfordshire is a local government district in Hertfordshire, England. It was named as the UK’s best place to live according to the Halifax Quality of Life survey 2020.
Professor Basil Charles Leicester Weedon CBE, FRS was an organic chemist and university administrator. Using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, he was the first to map the structures of carotenoid pigments, including astaxanthin, rubixanthin and canthaxanthin.
St Albans is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Daisy Cooper, a Liberal Democrat.
Hitchin and Harpenden is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Bim Afolami, a Conservative.
Brocket Hall is a classical country house set in a large park at the western side of the urban area of Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, England. The estate is equipped with two golf courses and seven smaller listed buildings, apart from the main house. The freehold on the estate is held by The 3rd Baron Brocket. The house is Grade I-listed.
The High Sheriff of Hertfordshire was an ancient Sheriff title originating in the time of the Angles, not long after the invasion of the Kingdom of England, which was in existence for around a thousand years. On 1 April 1974, under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972, the title of Sheriff of Hertfordshire was retitled High Sheriff of Hertfordshire. The High Shrievalties are the oldest secular titles under the Crown in England and Wales, their purpose being to represent the monarch at a local level, historically in the shires.
Charon Robin Ganellin FRS is a British born medicinal chemist, and Emeritus Smith Kline and French Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, at University College London.
Essendon is a village and civil parish in Hertfordshire 6 miles (10 km), south-west of Hertford.
Station IX was a secret British Special Operations Executive factory making special weapons and equipment during World War II.
William Wilshere was a British Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1837 to 1847.
51.768942°N 0.602896°E
Wellcome Research Laboratories was a site in Beckenham, south-east London, that was a main research centre for pharmaceuticals. Until 1965, this laboratory site was situated in Kent.
William Wilshere (1754–1824) of The Frythe was an English lawyer and banker. He was an attorney in Hitchin, and founded a bank there in 1789.
The New Frontiers Science Park is a science park in Essex, on a redeveloped research site of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).
Coordinates: 51°49′12″N0°13′24″W / 51.82000°N 0.22333°W
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