West Cambridge

The William Gates Building, or WGB, is a square building that houses the Computer Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, on the University's West Cambridge site in JJ Thomson Avenue south of the Madingley Road in Cambridge, England. Construction on the building began in 1999 and was completed in 2001 at a cost of £20 million. Opened by Maurice Wilkes, it was named after William H. Gates Sr., the father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provided 50% of the money for the building's construction.

The Department of Computer Science and Technology, formerly the Computer Laboratory, is the computer science department of the University of Cambridge. As of 2023 it employed 56 faculty members, 45 support staff, 105 research staff, and about 205 research students. The current Head of Department is Professor Ann Copestake.

The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named after the British chemist and physicist Henry Cavendish. The laboratory has had a huge influence on research in the disciplines of physics and biology. The laboratory moved to its present site in West Cambridge in 1974. As of 2019, 30 Cavendish researchers have won Nobel Prizes. Notable discoveries to have occurred at the Cavendish Laboratory include the discovery of the electron, neutron, and structure of DNA.

The Whittle Laboratory works on reducing the climate impact of aircraft and power generation. It is located at the West Cambridge site in Cambridge, UK. It is a part of the Department of Engineering, at the University of Cambridge. The Whittle Lab has its origins in Sir Frank Whittle and a number of his original team, from Cambridge, and who in 1937 invented the jet engine. In opening the Lab in 1973 the aim was to develop the technology which would underpin the emerging age of mass air travel. The Whittle Laboratory today is one of the world's leading jet engine and power generation research laboratories. It has partnered with Rolls-Royce, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and Siemens for over 50 years; with Dyson for 10 years; and in the last few years with many of the new entrants into the aviation sector. The Whittle Laboratory has successfully translated hundreds of primary research ideas into industrial products and its research has been awarded the American Society of Mechanical Engineers highest honour, the ‘Gas Turbine Award’ 15 times, more than any other institution or company. The current focus of the Laboratory is to accelerate the decarbonisation of flight and energy.

Institute for Manufacturing (IfM) is part of the Department of Engineering of the University of Cambridge. The IfM integrates research and education with practical application in industry. It disseminates its research findings via a university-owned knowledge transfer company, IfM Engage. Research undertaken at the IFM is done in collaboration with companies, ensuring its relevance to industrial needs and the rapid dissemination of new ideas and approaches. The IfM's education programs combine a thorough grounding in management and manufacturing technology with the chance to put theory into practice via industry-based projects. Its interest encompasses a broad range of manufacturing activities, from understanding markets and technologies, through the process and product design to production and supply chain operations and through-life services; all within an economics and policy context.

The Institute of Astronomy (IoA) is the largest of the three astronomy departments in the University of Cambridge, and one of the largest astronomy sites in the United Kingdom. Around 180 academics, postdocs, visitors and assistant staff work at the department.Research at the department is made in a number of scientific areas, including exoplanets, stars, star clusters, cosmology, gravitational-wave astronomy, the high-redshift universe, AGN, galaxies and galaxy clusters. This is a mixture of observational astronomy, over the entire electromagnetic spectrum, computational theoretical astronomy, and analytic theoretical research. The Kavli Institute for Cosmology is also located on the department site. This institute has an emphasis on The Universe at High Redshifts. The Cavendish Astrophysics Group are based in the Battcock Centre, a building in the same grounds.

The Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CEB) is one of the teaching and research departments at the University of Cambridge. The department trains undergraduate students and conducts original research at the interfaces between engineering, chemistry, biology and physics. It conducts research in collaboration with industrial partners. Its research programmes encompass sustainable reaction engineering, chemical product and process design, healthcare, measurement, and materials science. It conducts biotechnology research with chemical engineering at the science-engineering interface.

Cambridge Observatory is an astronomical observatory at the University of Cambridge in the East of England. It was established in 1823 and is now part of the site of the Institute of Astronomy. The old Observatory building houses the Institute of Astronomy Library which has a collection of modern and historical astronomical books.There are a set of optical telescopes at the site on the Madingley Road in the west of Cambridge. By modern standards these are small, as well as being affected by light pollution. Nevertheless, the 36-inch telescope continues to be used for studies of stellar radial velocities and the historic Northumberland and Thorrowgood telescopes are used as part of the public outreach activities of the Institute. Much more significant is the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, built in 1957, a few kilometres southwest. From 1990 to 1998, the Royal Greenwich Observatory was based in Cambridge in Greenwich House, just to the north of the Observatory.

The University of Cambridge Sports Centre is the University of Cambridge's main sporting facility.

Conduit Head is a 1910 house located off the Madingley Road (A1303) on the western outskirts of Cambridge, England. Built in 1910, it was designed by Harry Redfern for Francis Darwin, and was built for Darwin's daughter Frances on the occasion of her marriage to F. M. Cornford. The architectural historians Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner describe the house as "gabled, rural and relaxed".

Madingley Road is a major arterial road linking central Cambridge, England with Junction 13 of the M11 motorway. It passes by West Cambridge, a major new site where some University of Cambridge departments are being relocated. The road is designated the A1303. At the eastern end, the A1303 continues as Northampton Street, then Chesterton Lane and Chesterton Road. There is a junction with the A1134 (Queen's Road) to the south. At the Cambridge (east) end of the road, there are a number of large detached residences. Side streets include Grange Road and Wilberforce Road. The village of Coton is south of the western end of Madingley Road.

Traveller's Rest Pit is a 2.2-hectare (5.4-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the western outskirts of Cambridge. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.This is described by Natural England as an important site dating to the Anglian ice age around 450,000 years ago. Ice wedges indicate a long period of permafrost. Non-marine molluscs and occasional large vertebrates indicate an open landscape. The site also has the most extensive collection of stone tools in Cambridgeshire. These are thought to date to the Cromerian Stage, which preceded the Anglian, and are of Chellean, Acheulian, Early Levalloisian and Clactonian types.The site has been filled in. Part of the site lies under the playing fields at Eddington, the remainder is private land with no public access.