Research Department

The achievements of staff at BBC Research & Development are of the highest order in the world of broadcasting and for many years "Research Department" was a major part of BBC Engineering Division. 

1950: Newsreel: Improving the View at Kingswood Warren.  A film that is now on the BBC Archive Facebook site.

The following documents were made available at Open Days in 1990 which celebrated 60 years of BBC Research Department.  They provide a good overview of RD and a few details of some achievements:-  

History and Milestones
Engineering Research Review - 1987 (searchable)
Engineering Research Review 1990
RD Article
Open Days Map
34Mbit PAL
Acoustic Test Room
Antenna Modelling
Digital Audio Editing
RDS 1
RDS 2

Reminiscences

An article titled Nightingale Square on page 6 of the October 2016 issue of Prospero provides some information about early work on acoustics.  Added Jan 2024

rd-reunion-2006.pdf

Picture taken at the Kingswood Warren reunion lunch in 2012:

  (click thumbnail to enlarge).

Drive Section

Article in Prospero - the newspaper for retired BBC staff.

The “Reg. Deane” Studer A80
An amusing and pleasing story about a tape recorder that used to belong to Research Department.

Lifting the veil on Research Department at Bagley Croft, by Rex Boys
A brief article about life in this BBC wartime outpost.

My Career in the BBC: Part 2, by Richard Russell
This article follows on from Part 1 (see No. 11 here) and covers the rest of Richard's BBC career. It is listed on a Designs Department page in order to keep the two parts together but, as Richard explains, both he and the Department moved on as a result of organisational changes. Initially he moved to D&ED and then to Research and Development. Richard's achievements were spectacular and represent BBC engineering at its best.

Article about clearing out time at Kingswood.

A History of Kingswood Warren

The estate has a history extending back to the Domesday Book. It was acquired with the object of building by Thomas St. Leger Alcock in about 1835. At that time the estate consisted of 1821 acres of which four hundred were woodland. The mansion was completed in 1837. Nearby St. Andrew's church was built by Alcock.

In 1873 Alcock sold the manor to Sir John William Cradock Hartopp. He became bankrupt in 1884 and sold the estate in 1885 to Mr. (later Sir) Henry Cosmo Orme Bonsor, MP, for the sum of £65,000. He became chairman of the South Eastern Railway in 1897 and that year the railway was extended from Purley to Kingswood. He was unable to persuade the Board to compete for the Derby Day traffic and so he formed a private syndicate who built the Tattenham Corner Extension at their own risk. This opened in time for the 1901 Derby and was a great success, being eventually taken over by the SER. Mr. Bonsor was a generous local benefactor; he built Walton Heath Golf Course and nearby Bonsor Drive is named after him.

The early years of the twentieth century saw the break-up of the estate which had remained practically intact since the Domesday Book. Between 1897 and 1901 the railway cutting went through the estate and in 1911 and 1912 a large area went to the Walton Heath Land Development Company for building, and other parts went to private buyers. Warren Farm, one hundred and eighty four acres, brought £12,960.

In 1912 Joseph Rank, founder of the milling empire, acquired the mansion together with one hundred and two acres for £21,336.

In 1926 Kingswood Warren was sold to an American, Mr. C.D. Winant, a brother of John Winant who later became US Ambassador to the UK during World War II.

In 1928 it was again up for sale because Mr. Winant had become insolvent, but was not sold until 1932 when it was bought by the Walton Heath Land Development Company and subsequently conveyed to Richard Costain in May 1933.

In October 1933 Mlle Rossignon bought Kingswood Warren and transferred to it from Switzerland her girls' finishing school. This venture did not last long and in 1935 the same lady turned it into a hotel for 32 guests; this came to an end in 1940.

From 1940 to 1947 it was owned by the Legal and General Assurance Company and it then remained deserted until the BBC purchased it in 1948, Research Department beginning occupation in August of that year.