Hill Grove Family Cats, at Hill Grove Farm, near Crawley, Oxon OX8 5NA is a business set up by Mr Christopher Brown in 1970 to provide the vivisection industry around the world with SPF (specified pathogen free) cats.

Mr Brown has admitted having "hundreds of cats", but the exact number is not known. He has a staff of at least twelve who come in daily. Mr Brown has said he "likes to keep a low profile".

Mr Brown claims his cats are used for veterinary research only. In 1994 a Sunday Express investigation revealed that he had sold 9 week old kittens for 300 pounds sterling each to laboratories in Australia where they were used for vaccine research before being killed and incinerated. This trade was comdemned in Britain by MPs, the RSPCA and the Cat's Protection League.

An undercover investigation (1994-1996) by a major British anti-vivisection society revealed that Mr Brown has also sold cats to the Institute of Neurology and Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School in London. The cats are kept in bare rooms with no bedding and at the Institute of Neurology in at least one instance a cat killed and consumed her entire litter of kittens.

Experiments at the Sobell Department of Neurophysiology include cutting or crushing the spinal nerves in old cats (up to 15 years old), studies of nerve connections between adjacent parts of the spinal cord and damaging various nerves with diphtheria toxin.

The investigator noted: "The cats are desperate for attention and affection, which makes this job easier said than done."

Mr Brown's profits from this terrible trade were eighty thousand pounds in 1992.

Mr and Mrs Brown also run a B&B business from Hill Grove farm. Guests have no idea what is in the locked sheds behind the main house unless they arrive on protest days. Many have said they would not have stayed at Hill Grove farm had they known of the cat breeding business.

Direct Action

On Saturday 19th April there was a raid on the Hill Grove Family Cats. Over 20 cats were liberated and cages and doors were left open to allow the rest (about 250) to wander outside. Several of these were picked up over the next few days and taken to safe homes but the rest were recaptured by Chris Brown and presumably "destroyed". The cats are "Specific Pathogen Free (SPF)" so have to be raised in sterile conditions otherwise they can't be used in research.

On Saturday 26th April during the Day of Action in Oxford, Hill Grove Farm had to be protected by dozens of riot cops who only prevented more damage being done by sheer force of numbers. Farmer Brown is rumoured to be suffering from panic attacks. As this is only a small family run business with no large companies behind it, it is particularly susceptible to pressure from activists and is an ideal candidate for closure.

"Vivisection is barbaric, useless and a hindrance to scientific progress."
- Dr med Werner Hartinger, chief surgeon, West Germany, 3rd Congress of International Doctors for the Abolition of Vivisection, Holland 1998.