The Frythe is a Victorian mansion set in grounds just south of the village. It was privately occupied until 1934, then run as a hotel until the outbreak of World War II. During the war, it was the home of Station IX, a Special Operations Executive (SOE) factory designing and building weapons and tools for SOE activities in occupied Europe. After the war, it became a commercial research facility for first Unilever and then Smith, Kline & French. GlaxoSmithKline, its successor company, wound down the site and sold it in 2010 for residential property development.