History

History  |   Conservation  |   Preservation  |   Objectives

The Estate is situated about six miles south-east of Cambridge beyond the Gog Magog Hill, near where the Roman Road, Via Devana, crossed the prehistoric Icknield Way. Babraham Hall, designed in the Jacobean style by Philip Hardwicke, was built in 1832-37 and is the third house on the same site (the first was constructed by Robert Taylor in 1576).

The last private inhabitants of the house were the Adeane family. The Hall was purchased by the Agricultural Research Council in 1948, together with 182 hectares of farm and woodland in the Babraham Estate.

If you are interested in a more detailed account of the history surrounding Babraham and Babraham Hall, please contact Dr Caroline Edmonds, Deputy Director (Operations), to obtain a copy of 'A short history of Babraham Hall and the Babraham Estates' by D.W. Butcher.

The Babraham Institute is a Life Science Research Institute originally founded in 1948 as The Institute of Animal Physiology. In 1986 The Institute of Animal Physiology was joined with two Scottish Institutes based at Roslin, near Edinburgh, the Animal Breeding Research Organisation (ABRO) and The Poultry Research Centre, to form The Institute of Animal Physiology and Genetics Research (IAPGR). In 1993 Roslin and Babraham devolved to form two separate Institutes, at which time The Babraham Institute assumed its current name. The Babraham Institute is a company Limited by Guarantee, a registered charity which receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC)