Monument record 0762200000 - Former BOCM Works, Risborough Road

It was once a busy research facility which helped change the way bacon and eggs are brought to our dinner plates, but today the BOCM site near Stoke Mandeville lies in ruin. British Oil and Cake Mills opened its experimental pig and poultry farm in 1947. Over the next 38 years scientists conducted important research based on improving the performance of feed and rearing methods. After closing in 1985, the site was lived on until 2004, but since then vandals have replaced the academics.
One man to recently go around there was Harry Seager, who makes a hobby out of visting abandoned buildings. He has delved into the fascinating history of the site by obtaining internal newsletters, newspaper cuttings and annual reports regarding Stoke. The Weedon man described being there as 'creepy'. "It's comprehensively trashed," he added.
Given that the Second World War had just ended and rations were still in force when the Stoke Mandeville station first opened, the work carried out there was deemed of very high importance. "Simply farming pigs and poultry would not do anymore, and we needed to produce meat at a faster and cheaper rate, so experimental procedures had to be put into place to ensure a good, healthy supply of food," said Mr Seager.
A BOCM newsletter article from 1976, headlined 'The Real Purpose of Stoke' and written by their technical assistant Tim Brigstocke, describes the work carried out. The operation there was huge, with 'two main houses for laying hens, each holding 5500 birds and two houses for broilers (chickens reared for meat) with about 3500 animals housed in each. The house for rearing pullets (young females) holds 6600 birds, and this is used to supply the laying houses with birds at "point of lay"'. 'It is a fully-equipped experimental station conducting important research and development work based on improving the scientific performance of our poultry feeds', he states. 'Improvements in feeding can make an exceptionally large contribution to making poultry' it goes on, because around 70 per cent of the cost of producing chicken meat and eggs is from purchased compound feed. Ideas for better feed would be worked into a 'formal development trial proposal' and new diets would be 'formulated by the nutrition department using their new Ceres 200 "desk-top" computer,' explains the article. 'Once a trial is underway meticulous records are kept'.
While such practices might even then have raised the eyebrows of animal rights campaigners, 'we doubt if any birds are better kept anywhere else in the country', claims Mr Brigstocke. Since it opened, the site had increased the 'efficency with which we use raw materials', improved feed, 'shown the economic benefit of using additives' and 'improved the quality of broiler meat,' he said.BOCM Stoke was also famous for hosting European Poultry Fair, which during its 18 year history, welcomed around 180,000 people to view 3,000 different stands. An article in The Bucks Herald in May 1983 -its last year- said people from as far away as Nigeria visited the fair (B1).