History of the Aberdeen Centre
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 at 10:13AM Radio, television and radar must rank high among the most important technological advances of the 20th century. Significant developments in all three took place in the unassuming buildings that now make up the Aberdeen Centre on Highbury Grove in north Islington.
Aberdeen Centre stands in an incongruous residential setting behind the handsome town houses that front Highbury Grove, built from the 1820s onwards for prosperous merchants and City men.
In 1918 a factory was built for a company known as A. C. Cossor. Cossor made its name producing experimental equipment for some of the most celebrated technological pioneers at the turn of the century, including the first British example of the Braun-type cathode ray tube. Cossor continued to lead the market and when the first-ever TV programmes were broadcast in November 1936, Cossor was ready to meet demand with two different receivers.
As war approached, the company played a crucial role in the development of radar, which was to prove a key factor in the ultimate Allied victory. The utmost secrecy was enforced with staff only told about the transmitter or receiver: never both. Early research into radar took place in Rose Cottage, set in the middle of the Aberdeen Centre, hidden from inquisitive eyes.
After the war, the two Highbury factories resumed manufacturing television and radio sets, while the company explored other markets for the radar.
The centre began to be used as a business centre in the late 1980s. The convenient location close to good public-transport links to central London makes Aberdeen centre attractive to small consultancies, public relations companies and computer businesses, and also to artists and craftspeople.
Cossor's new five-valve Melody Maker
The Aberdeen Centre today
Aberdeen Centre, building use, history in Building History 
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