| Caswell, Northamptonshire | |
Allen Clark Research Centre, From the Knightley Way footpath. Looking north across the lake |
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Caswell, Northamptonshire
Caswell, Northamptonshire shown within Northamptonshire |
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| OS grid reference | SP651511 |
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| - London | 65 miles (105 km) |
| Parish | Greens Norton |
| District | South Northamptonshire |
| Shire county | Northamptonshire |
| Region | East Midlands |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Towcester |
| Postcode district | NN12 8EQ |
| Dialling code | 01327 |
| Police | Northamptonshire |
| Fire | Northamptonshire |
| Ambulance | East Midlands |
| EU Parliament | East Midlands |
| UK Parliament | Current: Northampton South From next General Election: South Northamptonshire |
| List of places: UK • England • Northamptonshire | |
Caswell is a lost settlement in Northamptonshire appx 2 miles (3.2 km) from Towcester, 8 miles (12.9 km) from Northampton and 12 miles (19 km) from Milton Keynes. It is close to Greens Norton village and now consists almost entirely of Caswell House, a former family farmhouse built for the 4th Duke of Grafton in 1839. Another similar house is at Field Burcote, a hamlet 0.5 miles (0.80 km) north of Green's Norton. Both have three widely spaced bays with low-pitched hipped slate roofs and lower wings and are formally arranged[1] The building and stables are Grade II listed.
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The concept of a research lab covering the Plessey company's interests in materials germinated in 1934 when its founders Allen George Clark and William Heyne were in charge.[2] Another leading member of staff at this time was Geoffrey Charles Gaut who joined the Plessey company from Oxford University where he was awarded a degree in chemistry. He joined as Chief Chemist at Ilford where he began a lifelong involvement with electronic materials and devices. At the beginning of the Second World War in 1939 he volunteered for the RAF having qualified as a pilot with the University Air Squadron at Oxford. However, to his chagrin, his commission was cancelled through the influence of Allen Clark who believed that Gaut would have a special role to play in the war effort to develop electronics and radar.
With bombing in the Ilford area in 1940, Gaut was told to relocate his laboratory in a quieter country environment where research could proceed undisturbed. Thus was founded Plessey's laboratory at Caswell, in Northamptonshire, which, as Gaut said, also kept his young scientific team concentrating and well away from any interference by senior management.[3][4]
Post-war the distance between Ilford and Caswell forced the introduction of local pre-production units. Over the next 20 years or so this led to the establishment of at least a further eight independent businesses locally in the Towcester area especially around Wood Burcote, just south of the town.[2]
For the next 50 or so years the farmhouse became the home of the Allen Clark Research Centre for the now defunct company which later became part of the British GEC in 1989. The centre was officially opened under Clark's name (Clark had died in 1962[5]) by the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on 20 March 1964 where the Duke unveiled a plaque by Scottish sculptor David McFall.[5][6] Research was carried out there for a number of areas in which Plessey was involved including semiconductors, LED's, other solid-state devices and integrated circuits (ICs) for their company Plessey Semiconductors (also known for a time as Plessey Microelectronics) based at Cheney Manor, Swindon. The site also had a scanning electron microscope useful for checking the surface topology of ICs under static and charged conditions. At peak, the centre employed several hundred people. After the GEC/Siemens takeover of Plessey, the Caswell site was taken over by GEC and subsequently GEC Marconi. Marconi problems later led to the sale of the site to Bookham Technology in 2002.[4]
The GaAs Field effect transistor and the GaAs monolithic ic were invented and developed at Caswell, but what is probably less well known is that scientists on the site were working on silicon integrated circuit(ic) technology almost 18 months before Jack Kilby demonstrated the first working ic at Texas Instruments in Dallas. Caswell technologists also developed the first multilayer ceramic capacitor and a host of other inventions that enabled many of the electronic products we rely on today – including mobile phones, satellite TV and WiFi.[7]
In 2009 a campus-style business park opened on the site, with the potential to be occupied by up to 500 people and to be known as Caswell Science & Technology Park and operated by regional technology parks operator Fasset, which is marketing and letting vacant space for on-site client Oclaro, formerly known as Bookham, a multi-national specialising in optical components for telecommunications and the internet. The site has an area of 22 acres (89,000 m2) site with 170,000 sq ft (16,000 m2) mixed-used office, manufacturing and laboratory space, with 160 people working for 10 different companies at the time of opening. Occupiers in 2009 include Diamond Hard Surfaces, IT Systems UK, Solutions Research, Nemisys, Definition Media and Finch Business Solutions.[8]