The Old Cavendish Experience

As the Cavendish Laboratory celebrates it’s 150th anniversary we’re pleased to announce an exciting project to bring the extraordinary history of the lab to life for the general public. Beginning in 2026, the Old Cavendish Experience will invite audiences to step inside the Old Cavendish Laboratory on Free School Lane and journey back in time to an era when world-changing discoveries were made within its walls.

Through theatrical performances staged in the former lab’s Maxwell Lecture Theatre and adjoining rooms, visitors will be immersed in the history of the lab, discovering how breakthroughs including the splitting of the atom and the unravelling of DNA were made, and encountering the scientists and technicians who made them. Original laboratory spaces will be restored to their former states and populated with rich sets that recreate the lab environments of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Founded on the expertise of Cambridge’s physicists and historians of science, and realised through the creative skills of artists and theatre professionals, the project will target a wide range of audiences including tour groups, schools, students, visitors to Cambridge and members of the local community. The first performances are slated for a summer run in 2026, which if successful, will be continued and expanded in subsequent years. In addition to the live performances, a digital project will share the stories of the Old Cavendish beyond the boundaries of Cambridge.

Since the Cavendish relocated to West Cambridge in 1974, there has been little to see at the old lab apart from a plaque or two. You will often find a tour group sheltering under the archway as their guide briefly recounts some of the old lab’s history, before they shuffle off to one of Cambridge’s other sights. The Old Cavendish Experience now offers a unique opportunity to invite people inside this historic site and to showcase one of Cambridge’s greatest contributions to science and the wider world.

The project has just received approval from the University to move to development and fundraising, and we have an ambitious target to reach if we are to make this vision a reality.

If you would like to follow the project as it develops, or perhaps even offer support, please contact the team at info@oldcavendishlab.co.uk. We’d be delighted to hear from you as we embark on this journey.