Life on Campus
The campus has been planned as a place where professionals from around the world will choose to come and work, with amenities including nurseries, sports facilities, cafés, post office, mini supermarket, weekly pop up food stalls and attractive public spaces.
Location
Harwell offers an outstanding quality of life. South Oxfordshire was recently named as the rural area with the best quality of life in Great Britain and national surveys regularly rate the city of Oxford and the county of Oxfordshire very highly for residents’ quality of life. Surrounded by beautiful countryside, the campus is within easy reach of picturesque towns and villages, including the historic centre of Oxford to the north and the quintessentially English market town of Newbury and its famous racecourse to the south.
Just a 20 minute drive away, Oxford boasts a huge choice of restaurants to suit every palate. High street essentials are augmented by fine independents, farmers’ markets, with quirky boutiques, coffee shops, antique shops and more, set amongst picturesque cobbled streets. The campus benefits from a mini-supermarket, cafés, restaurants, pop-up food stalls and a new café proposed in the next stage of development. The surrounding area offers Harwell residents numerous traditional pubs and restaurants to explore.
Sport and Exercise
Fitness enthusiasts are well catered for at Harwell. The campus boasts a variety of facilities and several sports clubs for those who work onsite. It also has a new Fitness Experts gym located behind Quad One Building. With surrounding woodland paths, wide open roads, hills and broad vistas, Harwell is ideal for runners and cyclists and there is an outdoor gym located on next to Thomson Avenue. Facilities include: tennis courts and sports fields featuring a cricket pitch and pavilion. Sports clubs at Harwell include: football, rounders, rugby, tennis, cricket, croquet, archery, running, yoga and an Aunt Sally league.
People from across the site engage in these activities at lunchtime and after work. Many take part in highly competitive league tournaments while others just for fun. Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has its own sports facilities and offers associate membership for the staff of other organisations based at Harwell.
There are paths for ramblers, including the ancient Ridgeway path and Icknield Way, which offer incredible views of the open countryside that surrounds the Campus. Fitness trainers and health therapists are also available.
Other Amenities
Other on-site facilities include a Post Office branch, hairdresser and a dentist. With two nurseries already situated on-site, professional childcare is also catered for.
Harwell Connect - Nxt Gen
If you are in the early stages of your career and would value meeting like-minded people on campus for social and professional gatherings and networking, you can join ‘Nxt Gen’ and find out more about what is going on across campus and how you can get involved.