1949-1950

Design and layout
Access to the site was obtained in December 1949 and the first meeting of the founder members of the staff was held in one of the first floor bedrooms of the house. At that time the estate looked rather untidy to say the least. Only one half of the house had been occupied by Mr Perkins, the previous owner, who had build a wall through the middle of the house, from north to south, and is said at one stage to have tried to sell half of the house as semi-detached "with share of large grounds". The other side of the house was in an incredibly sorry mess, broken windows, doors hanging off and inches of dirt, dust and cobwebs everywhere. Some features of the house suggested some unusual characteristics in former owners. The windows of the principal bedroom and bathroom on the first floor were protected by iron gates similar to those on an old fashioned lift, while the W.C. in the bathroom was on a raised platform in the window and commanded an extensive view of the south lawn. The grounds had obviously been a showpiece at one time, but had not been tended for years. The remains of three hard tennis courts could just be seen to the north of  The Grove house. North west of The Grove was an old coach house & stables which was in ruins, this was immediately roped off and labeled 'DANGEROUS'. All of the roads were gravel, not tarmac. At that time squatters were likely to take possession of any unoccupied house and George Mulvey, who was to be responsible for physical security ( and ultimately live in a flat at the gate house, later to become offices for the Personnel Department, at later still in the 1990's the Social Club Bar. ) undertook to guard the house against  squatters over Christmas.

By this time those who were to run the new laboratory had learned for the first time that it was to be an Agency of the Ministry of Supply controlled like those that had applied to shadow factories during the second world war. An immediate consequence was a requirement for a "brochure" setting out everything that would be required from buildings, laboratory equipment and machine tools to knives, forks and spoons for the canteen. Each item had to be approved before it could be purchased and the Ministry insisted on supplying some items, such as cars, from Government stocks. Fortunately the civil servant principally concerned, Walter Abson, was extremely intelligent and understanding and the preparation and gradual approval of the brochure, though laborious, went smoothly except for the part which dealt with buildings. Here the Architects Branch of the Ministry had to give its approval to plans, tenders and carrying out of the work.

Robert Clayton was principally responsible for the site layout and personally designed the layout of the individual buildings, using a centimeter graph paper at a scale of one division to a foot. The layout of the site and the design of the buildings were governed by a number of factors and went through a number of stages, An attempt was made to minimize intrusion on the locality and to have a layout with open spaces and lawns, consistent with the Green Belt environment. Two single story laboratory blocks, one on the north and one on the south of the house, were proposed: a two and eventually three story laboratory block was to go on the site of the derelict coach house in the north west corner. A north-lit workshop block with adjoining two story drawing office was proposed to go along a sunken rose garden in the south west corner. The house was to be used for conference rooms, library, management and administration. Supplies were to be located in the boiler house and sub-station alongside the house, connected by a tunnel to the other buildings. A stores building was to be built close to the main gate for minimum entry by suppliers vehicles and a canteen in a loop in the security fence so that it could be inside during working hours and outside for social events in the evenings and weekends. One factor affecting the layout was a tulip tree in the middle of the south lawn said to be rare and important. It was duly protected, but not much later died from natural causes and was ceremonially replaced with a fir tree, the plaque when they planted the new  tree is still in place today.

The original proposal of the Ministry was that as many buildings as possible should be "Ministry of Works Huts" because they had them in stock and there was also a requirement to use as little steel as possible. The GEC constructional engineer, then located at the Wembley estate alongside the Wembley laboratories, designed the new buildings to Robert Clayton's plans, in brick, glass and concrete which mostly used no steel and were no more expensive than the Ministry of Works Huts. This was accepted by the Ministry and a pleasant appearance for the site was ensured.
A letter dated 7th December 1949  estimated the provisional building work to cost £248,103.

Taking up residence and new buildings
By late December 1949 GEC electricians had moved in to wire-up benches in the larger rooms of the house. Project work started sometime in January 1950, together  with the building of the three wings of the south laboratory.
Although there was a long term plan for the use of each of the buildings on the site, the first buildings, such as the spurs of the north and south laboratories, were put to immediate, if temporary, use as soon as they become available. Any building was occupied as soon as it seemed habitable in order to move on the builders who otherwise showed signs of taking up residence.

The test equipment which had been ordered had started to arrive at Wembley, this was driven up to The Grove using Short Wave Department's   30 cwt Commer van together with the acquisition of the first filing cabinet which had been taken through a window at Wembley while its owner was kept talking.

Adverts for new staff were appearing in newspapers and technical journals and towards the end of February the first of the "new boys" arrived. They first started in 'Tele E' at Wembley, but as soon as space became available at The Grove they were transferred. While the building work continued the new, now famous tradition, of "musical chairs" was originated. As one wing of a building was completed, benches and people moved in or a workshop was created. Main Stores would be in the center wing of north laboratory one week and in the east wing of south laboratory a week or two later only to be moved again to make way for the first canteen. Until then a young lady, Pam Sorrell, dispensed tea, coffee, sandwiches and cakes from a small kitchen at the back of The Grove house. She later became the first canteen manageress. 

The electricity supply, in the early days, to each of the buildings was by cables suspended from poles and trees. In the winter months the lighting load and the large number of electric fires and fan heaters, the only form of heating for quite a long time, caused the mains voltage to sag so much that some equipment ceased to function at about 4.30pm. A talk given in 1962 stated that within the laboratories there was also the highly illegal use of do-it-yourself heat boosters, heater elements hooked up on a piece of wood at best, with live 240v in all directions. If any questions were asked they always seemed to be part of a "dummy load set-up".

The Grove House being prepared c1950.	The Grove House being prepared c1950.
Building North Block Laboratory c1950	Building North Block Laboratory c1950
Building North Block Laboratory c1950	Building North Block Laboratory c1950
Building South Block Laboratory c1950	Building South Block Laboratory c1950
Building South Block Laboratory c1950	Building South Block Laboratory c1950;
Building South Block Laboratory c1950	Building South Block Laboratory c1950
Building South Block Laboratory c1950	Building South Block Laboratory c1950
Building 5, Workshops, Design Office and Surgury c1950	Building 5, Workshops, Design Office and Surgury c1950
Building 5, Workshops, Design Office and Surgury c1950	North East Annexe and Temporary Buildings c1950