Colworth House is an 18th-century mansion set in an area of parkland on the edge of the village of
Sharnbrook
Sharnbrook is a village and civil parish located in the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire, England, situated around north-west of Bedford town centre.
The settlement was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a parish within the Hundred o ...
in
Bedfordshire
Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...
. It is a Grade II* listed building.
History
The surrounding site has been occupied since prehistoric times. The current house was started in 1715 by Mark Antonie, a
self-made man
A self-made man is a person whose success is of their own making.
Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, has been described as the greatest exemplar of the self-made man. Inspired by Franklin's autobiography, Fr ...
who aspired to become part of the landed gentry. It passed down to John Antonie, who bequeathed it on his death to a cousin, the MP
William Lee, who then adopted the additional surname of Antonie. On his own death in 1815 William Lee Antonie left it to his nephew, the astronomer and antiquarian
John Fiott, who thereupon adopted the surname of Lee.
The house and extensive grounds were acquired in 1935 by
Henry Mond, 2nd Baron Melchett and subsequently sold to
Unilever
Unilever PLC () is a British multinational consumer packaged goods company headquartered in London, England. It was founded on 2 September 1929 following the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie with British soap maker Lever B ...
in November 1947, who restored and developed them into a research laboratory through 1948, with the first staff moving in during 1950. Unilever employed up to 1,100 people at Colworth during the 1990s.
In 2004 Unilever entered into a joint venture with property investment company Arlington Securities to manage Colworth Science Park, with the aim of turning it into a science cluster by attracting science businesses, academic outposts, and science-based entrepreneurs. Arlington was subsequently acquired by Goodman, a property group involved in long-term ownership, development, and management of commercial and industrial property. In 2015, the joint venture vehicle was acquired by Palmer Capital and Wrenbridge Land. Colworth Science Park remains one of Unilever's six research centres located around the world with around 750 Unilever employees. An additional 200 personnel are employed by several small companies located on the site.
The Colworth House grounds was the location of a
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
''
Time Team
''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4, Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned in 2022 on online platforms YouTube and Patreon. Created by television produce ...
'' programme, first broadcast on February 22, 2009. Numerous finds by amateur archaeologists led to the discovery of a
Roman villa
A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house in the territory of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions.
Nevertheless, the term "Roman villa" generally covers buildings with the common ...
and farm in a field adjacent to the property.
Colworth House has also given its name to the
Colworth Medal, established by the late Professor Tony James of Unilever Research and Professor Henry Arnstein of the Biochemical Society in 1963. The award recognises outstanding research by a young biochemist of any nationality who has carried out the majority of their work in the UK.
References
Further reading
*
External links
Colworth Park*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20140506015138/http://www.biochemistry.org/awards/thecolworthmedal.aspx Colworth Medal Unilever
{{Unilever
Country houses in Bedfordshire
Unilever
Grade II* listed buildings in Bedfordshire
Grade II* listed houses
Sharnbrook