Clarendon Laboratory

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The Clarendon Laboratory Lindemann Building front facade.

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The Clarendon Laboratory - Townsend Building front facade.

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The Lindemann Building with the site of the new Beecroft Building due for completion in 2017 in front.

The Clarendon Laboratory, located on Parks Road with the Science Area in Oxford, England (not to be confused with the Clarendon Building, also in Oxford), is part of the Department of Physics at Oxford University. It houses the atomic and laser physics, condensed matter physics, and biophysics groups within the Department, although four other Oxford Physics groups are not based in the Clarendon Lab. The Oxford Centre for Quantum Computation is also housed in the laboratory.

Buildings

The Clarendon Laboratory consists of two adjoining buildings, the Lindemann Building (named after Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell) and the Grade II listed Townsend Building (named after Sir John Sealy Townsend).

A new Beecroft Building (named after Adrian Beecroft) is due to open immediately in front of the Lindemann Building in 2017, designed by Hawkins Brown, with a budget of approximately £40 million.

History

Blue plaque erected by the Royal Society of Chemistry on the Townsend Building of the Clarendon Laboratory in 2007, commemorating Henry Moseley's early 20th-century research work on X-rays emitted by elements.

The Clarendon is named after Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, whose trustees paid £10,000 for the building of the original laboratory, completed in 1872, making it the oldest purpose-built physics laboratory in England. The building was designed by Robert Bellamy Clifton.

The brothers Fritz and Heinz London developed the London equations when working there in 1935.

In 2007, the laboratory was granted chemical landmark status. The award was bestowed due to the work carried out by Henry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley in 1914.

It is rumoured that the building was Tolkien's inspiration for Minas Morgul when he was writing the Lord of the Rings in the Eagle and Child nearby.

Current use

The original building, substantially enlarged, is now part of the Oxford Earth Sciences Department. The Oxford Electric Bell apparatus (also known as the Clarendon Dry Pile), constructed in 1840, is located in the foyer of the Clarendon Laboratory.

See also

• Denys Wilkinson Building, another Department of Physics building
• Department of Physics, University of Oxford

External links

• A brief history of Physics at Oxford
• A longer history of Physics at Oxford