Pyotr Kapitsa (Wikipedia)

173 Huntingdon Road, Kapitza House, Cambridge

History of 173 Huntingdon Road

Pyotr Kapitsa was a Russian physicist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Kapitsa

The house was built in the 1930s, architect H C Hughes.

According to the Cambridge2000 web site:

Kapitza was a talented Russian physicist who worked in Cambridge for thirteen years. On a trip back to the Soviet Union in 1934 the government there decided not to let him return. Over the years he protected many physicists, such as Landau, from death at the hands of that government and was in some ways lucky himself not to be killed, although he was under house arrest for many years. Kapitza was eventually allowed to visit Cambridge again in 1966.

The house is odd looking, with different colours of brick layers, and a door frame which is unusual. It was double glazed from the beginning, unusual for that time.

Kapitza allowed the house to be used by the Soviet Academy of Sciences for visiting scientists, and it still is being used for that purpose.

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1939

M A Bailey

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According to an email sent in 2026 this address appears on two RAF packing cases that belonged to Squadron Leader H I Patrick.