LONDON — Cuadrilla Resources, a British shale gas company, has suspended drilling activity at its site in Balcombe, the village south of London that has become a focus of protests against Britain’s efforts to develop a shale gas industry.

Although the company is drilling for oil, not gas, at Balcombe, its activities there have become symbolic of the shale-gas effort in Britain because Cuadrilla has been in the forefront of shale gas exploration in northwest England. The company attracted the wrong sort of attention in 2011 when early efforts to hydraulically fracture a well in Lancashire set off minor earthquakes.

Cuadrilla said Friday that it had decided to suspend drilling after taking advice from the local police in Sussex, following “threats of direct action against the exploration site.”