Liquid crystals for display applications typically comprise a rigid 'core' unit flanked with a terminal chain and a polar terminal group. The need to engineer the properties of nematic liquid-crystals has led to an understanding of how changes to molecular structure impact the bulk properties of these materials. Positioning a bulky group at the end of the terminal chain can lead to reductions in melting points with only minimal change in the clearing point; electron-withdrawing end groups (-Cl, -Br, -ArFn) can suppress the SmA mesophase of cyanobiphenyl derived LCs although in phenylpyrimidine-derived materials these halogen terminated end groups can actually stabilise the SmA state. Apolar or weakly polar bulky terminal groups (-C(CH3)3 etc.) suppress the nematic phase and lead to smectogenic materials, albeit with reductions in the clearing point relative to the parent material. The smectic layer spacing of materials incorporating apolar bulky terminal groups is inversely dependent on temperature. Some archaea incorporate cyclic units in their lipids which confers, inter alia, the ability to withstand greater extremes of temperature than eukaryotes by either raising the temperature at which the liquid crystalline lipid-bilayers undergo isotropisation, or lowering the temperature at which they undergo crystallisation. Inspired by this, we considered that incorporating cyclic units into the terminal regions of liquid crystalline materials could perhaps offer a similar thermal advantage. Cyclic end groups have previously been studied in the context of the tilted smectic C phase for use in display devices, but not for nematic or SmA type materials (Figure ) which is the focus of this present article. Furthermore, in prior examples the bulky cyclic group is attached to the terminal chain via polar groups (esters, ethers), and thus it is difficult to determine to what extent steric and electronic effects are responsible for the resulting behaviour.