The Frythe

The Frythe is a country house set in its own grounds in rural Hertfordshire, just south of the village of Welwyn, about 30 miles north of London.

The estate passed to a great-nephew, Captain Gerald Maunsell Gamul Farmer, of a landed gentry family of Nonsuch, Surrey, who adopted the surname of Wilshere,[2] and ran the house as "The Frythe Residential and Private Hotel".

[4] During the Second World War it became a secret British Special Operations Executive factory known as Station IX making commando equipment.

Secret research included military vehicles and equipment, explosives and technical sabotage, camouflage, biological and chemical warfare.

[4] The Frythe was for many years a commercial research facility, operated by ICI from 1946, by Unilever from 1963 and by Smith, Kline & French from 1977.