Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more There is a flourishing genre of content on YouTube and other video sites that can best be described as “gawping at real estate listings”. It can be beautiful, spacious houses that most of us can only dream of living in, or baroque explosions of horrific taste in interior decoration on par with whatever has happened to the White House lately. So far, Feedback hasn’t been inclined to add to this content pile-up, but reporter Matthew Sparkes has lured us in with a listing on RightMove.
It is for a building in Farnborough, England, on sale for £750,000. The listing has a link underneath the price that reads “Can you afford it?” Feedback didn’t click because we don’t need a website to tell us the answer. The building is an upright white cylinder, with chunky extra bits on one side.
The built area is about 1000 square metres. Feedback struggled to precisely count the rooms because the ground floor is partly open-plan, but there are at least 10 rooms on the ground floor and potentially around 20 on the floor above, though the top floor has a disappointingly scanty five. Matt sarcastically described it as a “perfect family home”, and Feedback concurs with his sarcasm.
Only a family whose members don’t enjoy each other’s company could use a building like this. Readers wondering what this is doing in Feedback, wonder no longer. This building is the former Farnborough Centrifuge, which was used, starting in 1955, to train pilots to cope with the intense g-forces required for high-velocity flight and, later, space travel.
The main cylindrical building houses the centrifuge, while the drive motor and bearings are in the basement. Helen Sharman, the first UK astronaut, used the centrifuge. No wonder the estate agents describe it as “a unique opportunity to purchase a piece of British aviation history”.
The Farnborough Centrifuge ceased operations in 2019, when a new and more modern centrifuge was built. It passed into the hands of a charity called the Farnborough Air Sciences Trust (FAST). However, in August 2024, FAST announced that it had been forced to close the centrifuge after the building’s owner asked for “a five-fold increase in rental payment”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
