The Frythe
The Frythe is a
History
Early history
The Frythe was part of the property of
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]
SOE Station IX
'The Frythe' was commandeered in August 1939 by the British
Research facility
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]
Unilever
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]
GSK
Residential Accommodation
The Frythe site was closed by
References
- ^ "Parishes: Welwyn, A History of the County of Hertford". 1912. pp. 165–171. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
- ^ Burke's Landed Gentry 17th edition, ed. L. G. Pine, 1952, pp. 811, 2745
- ^ a b c d "The Frythe, Welwyn, Hertfordshire". Archived from the original on 13 March 2015. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
- ^ a b "S.O.E." Retrieved 25 April 2009.
- ISBN 978-0-7236-0589-8.
- ^ "Welwyn site sold for £15m". Welwyn Hatfield Times. 3 December 2010. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
- ^ "New era for Welwyn's former Commando gadget lab". Welwyn Hatfield Times. 16 April 2017. Retrieved 6 January 2018.