Wye College
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Wye College was founded in 1447 by John Kempe, the Archbishop of York, as a college for the training of priests. Located in the small village of Wye, Kent, 60 miles (100 km) east of London in the North Downs area. In 1894, the school moved to new premises and the South Eastern Agricultural College was established with A. D (Sir Alfred) Hall as principal. In 1898 Wye became a School of Agriculture within the University of London. Wye College was until 2005 a well-known study and research centre in the fields of Business and Management, Biological Sciences, the Environment and Agriculture. One of its alumni as such was Christopher Lloyd.
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[edit] Historical interest
Several of the oldest College buildings, such as the Latin School or the Parlour, date from the fifteenth century and the main college buildings are set amidst quadrangles and gardens. The medieval features of the College are definitely worth a visit.
[edit] Academic and learning centre
The Wye campus occupies a 3 km² estate, which includes a farm, managed woodland and ancient grassland that provide outstanding research resources for agroecological research. These resources are augmented by extensive glasshouses, climate-controlled growth rooms for plants and insects, and a new containment facility for transgenic plants, that support the laboratory-based research. There are dedicated laboratories for plant molecular biology, genomics and gene sequencing, electron microscopy, use of radiochemicals, microbiology, soil analysis, and plant/animal cell culture.
Students from all over the world followed undergraduates or postgraduates courses in fields related to agriculture, biology and food marketing. Numerous conferences and seminars were also run for professionals, or short-term students.
In 2000 Wye College lost its status as a College within the federal University of London and merged with Imperial College London, renamed as Imperial College at Wye. In 2004 Imperial College announced that the Department of Agricultural Sciences at Wye was closing, for financial reasons, and that most teaching and research at Wye would end[1]. In 2005 it was announced that Wye College would be converted into a research centre for non-food crops and biomass fuels, in association with Kent County Council and Ashford Borough Council. Funding for the project remains uncertain, and leaks of official documents to a local campaigning website, save-wye.org have shown that the principal aim of the plan appears to be to raise £100 million for Imperial projects in London by building thousands of houses and commercial developments on protected countryside with Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty status. The plan provoked bitter opposition both locally and nationally and was seen as a test case for other attempts to build on AONB land. On September 15, 2006, Imperial announced it was abandoning the plan altogether after support was withdrawn by Ashford Borough Council following widespread complaints from the public and the publication by save-wye of an Imperial masterplan for four thousand homes on the green AONB land. This was hailed by environmentalists as a key victory to preserve the status of Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The failed project cost Imperial at least £1 million in professional fees and may be the subject of an independent inquiry into the actions of the local authorities involved. [2]. More recently the University of Kent, Canterbury, has agreed to run the undergraduate business management courses and is investing in what remains of Applied Economics departments.
[edit] Hops
One of Wye College's major contributions has been the development of a number of new strains of hops used in the brewing of beer. These new varieties include Challenger, Northdown, Target and Yeoman.[4]
[edit] External links
[edit] References
[4] Wheeler, G, "Home Brewing", CAMRA, 1993
