1.
Controlled-access highway
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A controlled-access highway is a type of highway which has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow and ingress/egress regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway, other similar terms include Interstate and parkway. Some of which may be limited-access highways, although this term can refer to a class of highway with somewhat less isolation from other traffic. In countries following Vienna convention, the motorway qualification implies they are forbidden for walking or parking, a controlled-access highway provides an unhindered flow of traffic, with no traffic signals, intersections or property access. They are free of any at-grade crossings with roads, railways, or pedestrian paths. Entrances and exits to the highway are provided at interchanges by slip roads, on the controlled-access highway, opposing directions of travel are generally separated by a median strip or central reservation containing a traffic barrier or grass. Elimination of conflicts with other directions of traffic dramatically improves safety and capacity, controlled-access highways evolved during the first half of the 20th century. Italy opened its first autostrada in 1924 connecting Milan to Varese, Germany began to build its first 30-kilometre autobahn controlled-access highway without speed limits in 1932 between Cologne and Bonn. It then rapidly constructed a system of such roads in anticipation of their use in the Second World War. The first North American freeways opened in the New York City area in the 1920s, Britain, heavily influenced by the railways, did not build its first motorway, the Preston By-pass, until 1958. Most technologically advanced nations feature a network of freeways or motorways to provide high-capacity urban travel, or high-speed rural travel. Many have a national-level or even international-level system of route numbering, exit is marked with another symbol. The definitions of motorway from the OECD and PIARC are almost identical, british Standards Motorway, Limited-access dual carriageway road, not crossed on the same level by other traffic lanes, for the exclusive use of certain classes of motor vehicle. ITE Freeway, A divided major roadway with full control of access and this definition applies to toll as well as toll-free roads. Freeway A, This designates roadways with greater complexity and high traffic volumes. Usually this type of freeway will be found in areas in or near the central core. Freeway B, This designates all other divided roadways with full control of access where lighting is needed, principal arterials may cross through urban areas, serving suburban movements. The traffic is characterized by high speeds and full or partial access control, other roads leading to a principal arterial are connected to it through side collector roads
2.
A1 road (Great Britain)
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The A1 is the longest numbered road in the UK, at 410 miles. It connects London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom, with Edinburgh, the course of the A1 has changed where towns or villages have been bypassed, and where new alignments have taken a slightly different route. Several sections of the route have been upgraded to motorway standard, between the M25 and the A696 the road has been designated as part of the unsigned Euroroute E15 from Inverness to Algeciras. The A1 is the latest in a series of north from London to York. It was designated in 1921 by the Ministry of Transport under the Great Britain road numbering scheme, the earliest documented northern routes are the roads created by the Romans during the period from AD43 to AD410, which consisted of several itinera recorded in the Antonine Itinerary. A combination of these were used by the Anglo-Saxons as the route from London to York, Ermine Street later became known as the Old North Road. Part of this route in London is followed by the current A10, by the 12th century, because of flooding and damage by traffic, an alternative route out of London was found through Muswell Hill, and became part of the Great North Road. A turnpike road, New North Road and Canonbury Road, was constructed in 1812 linking the start of the Old North Road around Shoreditch with the Great North Road at Highbury Corner, the A1 route was modified in 1927 when bypasses were built around Barnet and Hatfield. In the 1930s bypasses were added around Chester-le-Street and Durham, in 1960 Stamford, Biggleswade and Doncaster were bypassed, as were Retford in 1961 and St Neots in 1971. Baldock was bypassed in July 1967, during the early 1970s plans to widen the A1 along Archway Road in London were abandoned after considerable opposition and four public inquiries during which road protesters disrupted proceedings. The scheme was dropped in 1990. The Hatfield cut-and-cover was opened in 1986, few of the surviving coaching inns can be seen while driving on the A1, because the modern route now bypasses the towns with the inns. The A1 runs from New Change in the City of London at St. Pauls Cathedral to the centre of Edinburgh, the road skirts the remains of Sherwood Forest, and passes Catterick Garrison. It shares its London terminus with the A40, in the City area of Central London and it runs out of London through Islington, up Holloway Road, through Highgate, Barnet, Potters Bar, Hatfield, Welwyn, Stevenage, Baldock, Biggleswade, Sandy and St Neots. Scotch Corner, in North Yorkshire, marks the point where before the M6 was built the traffic for Glasgow, as well as a hotel there have been a variety of sites for the transport café, now subsumed as a motorway services. Most of the English section of the A1 is a series of alternating sections of dual carriageway and motorway, from Newcastle upon Tyne to Edinburgh it is a trunk road with alternating sections of dual and single carriageway. The table below summaries the road as motorways and non-motorways sections, A 13-mile section of the road in North Yorkshire, neolithic remains and a Roman fort were discovered. The total cost of works was some £50 million
3.
Greater London
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London, or Greater London, is a region of England which forms the administrative boundaries of London. It is organised into 33 local government districts, the 32 London boroughs, the Greater London Authority, based in Southwark, is responsible for strategic local government across the region and consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The county of Greater London was created on 1 April 1965 through the London Government Act 1963, administratively, Greater London was first established as a sui generis council area under the Greater London Council between 1963 and 1986. The area was re-established as a region in 1994, and the Greater London Authority formed in 2000, the region covers 1,572 km2 and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census. In 2012, it had the highest GVA per capita in the United Kingdom at £37,232, the Greater London Built-up Area—used in some national statistics—is a measure of the continuous urban area of London, and therefore includes areas outside of the administrative region. The term Greater London has been and still is used to different areas in governance, statistics, history. In terms of ceremonial counties, London is divided into the small City of London, outside the limited boundaries of the City, a variety of arrangements has governed the wider area since 1855, culminating in the creation of the Greater London administrative area in 1965. The Greater London Arterial Road Programme was devised between 1913 and 1916, one of the larger early forms was the Greater London Planning Region, devised in 1927, which occupied 1,856 square miles and included 9 million people. The LCC pressed for an alteration in its boundaries soon after the end of the First World War, noting that within the Metropolitan, a Royal Commission on London Government was set up to consider the issue. The LCC proposed a vast new area for Greater London, with a boundary somewhere between the Metropolitan Police District and the home counties, protests were made at the possibility of including Windsor, Slough and Eton in the authority. The Commission made its report in 1923, rejecting the LCCs scheme, two minority reports favoured change beyond the amalgamation of smaller urban districts, including both smaller borough councils and a central authority for strategic functions. The London Traffic Act 1924 was a result of the Commission, Greater London originally had a two-tier system of local government, with the Greater London Council sharing power with the City of London Corporation and the 32 London Borough councils. The GLC was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985 and its functions were devolved to the City Corporation and the London Boroughs, with some functions transferred to central government and joint boards. Greater London was used to form the London region of England in 1994, a referendum held in 1998 established a public will to recreate an upper tier of government to cover the region. The Greater London Authority, London Assembly and the directly elected Mayor of London were created in 2000 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999, in 2000, the outer boundary of the Metropolitan Police District was re-aligned to the Greater London boundary. The 2000 and 2004 mayoral elections were won by Ken Livingstone, the 2008 and 2012 elections were won by Boris Johnson. The 2016 election was won by Sadiq Khan, Greater London continues to include the most closely associated parts of the Greater London Urban Area and their historic buffers. Thus it includes, in five boroughs, significant parts of the Metropolitan Green Belt which protects designated greenfield land in a way to the citys parks
4.
Edinburgh
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Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 local government council areas. Located in Lothian on the Firth of Forths southern shore, it is Scotlands second most populous city and the seventh most populous in the United Kingdom. The 2014 official population estimates are 464,990 for the city of Edinburgh,492,680 for the authority area. Recognised as the capital of Scotland since at least the 15th century, Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Parliament and it is the largest financial centre in the UK after London. Historically part of Midlothian, the city has long been a centre of education, particularly in the fields of medicine, Scots law, literature, the sciences and engineering. The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582 and now one of four in the city, was placed 17th in the QS World University Rankings in 2013 and 2014. The city is famous for the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe. The citys historical and cultural attractions have made it the United Kingdoms second most popular tourist destination after London, attracting over one million overseas visitors each year. Historic sites in Edinburgh include Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace, the churches of St. Giles, Greyfriars and the Canongate, Edinburghs Old Town and New Town together are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which has been managed by Edinburgh World Heritage since 1999. It appears to derive from the place name Eidyn mentioned in the Old Welsh epic poem Y Gododdin, the poem names Din Eidyn as a hill fort in the territory of the Gododdin. The Celtic element din was dropped and replaced by the Old English burh, the first documentary evidence of the medieval burgh is a royal charter, c. 1124–1127, by King David I granting a toft in burgo meo de Edenesburg to the Priory of Dunfermline. In modern Gaelic, the city is called Dùn Èideann, the earliest known human habitation in the Edinburgh area was at Cramond, where evidence was found of a Mesolithic camp site dated to c.8500 BC. Traces of later Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements have found on Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat, Craiglockhart Hill. When the Romans arrived in Lothian at the end of the 1st century AD, at some point before the 7th century AD, the Gododdin, who were presumably descendants of the Votadini, built the hill fort of Din Eidyn or Etin. Although its location has not been identified, it likely they would have chosen a commanding position like the Castle Rock, Arthurs Seat. In 638, the Gododdin stronghold was besieged by forces loyal to King Oswald of Northumbria and it thenceforth remained under their jurisdiction. The royal burgh was founded by King David I in the early 12th century on land belonging to the Crown, in 1638, King Charles Is attempt to introduce Anglican church forms in Scotland encountered stiff Presbyterian opposition culminating in the conflicts of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In the 17th century, Edinburghs boundaries were defined by the citys defensive town walls
5.
Leeming, North Yorkshire
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Leeming is a village in the Hambleton district of North Yorkshire, England. Leeming lies a mile east of the current A1 road, south of the village of Leeming Bar. Nearby is the RAF base of RAF Leeming, before the opening of the 3-mile £1 million bypass in October 1961, the A1 passed through the village following the path of Dere Street, parallel and close to the main of the airfield. The name derives from the river-name, which turned settlement-name, the etymology may be linked with British *lemanio elm-tree, but there are other possibilities. An archaeological survey undertaken on Kelsall Villa describes it as deriving from the river with Leming meaning bright stream, in April 2008, the nearby bases remaining Tornado F3 squadron was disbanded. The base has been redeveloped as a station with the formation of No.90 Signals Unit. Two flying squadrons remain at the base, No.100 Squadron RAF, an electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches south to Carthorpe with a population of 3,500
6.
Barton, North Yorkshire
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Barton is a village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. According to the 2011 census it had a population of 837 and it is situated near the border with the ceremonial county of County Durham, and is 6 miles south-west of Darlington. The village is recorded as Bartun in the Domesday Book, at the time of the Norman invasion the manor was split between Earl Edwin and Ulf. Afterwards it was granted to Count Alan of Brittany, in turn he granted the manor to Godric, the steward. The manor was split, unified and then again during the 13th century. At the time of Henry III, the manor was following the descent of Richmond, in 1227, part of the lands were granted to Richard of Cornwall and then to Peter de Brus, lord of Skelton. The manor was split into mesne lordships, of which Roald of Richmond held one in 1286. Other parts of the manor were granted to William de Lancaster around 1235, by 1330 the lands had passed to the Mowbray family. When their direct descent ended in 1391, the manor was passed to the Inglebys of Ripley, in 1579 this line too ended and the land passed to John Ward who descendents via marriages included the Dodsworth and Killinghall families until 1762. The second part of the manor was passed to John de Huddleston around 1316 and these eventually passed to the descendants of the manors of Barforth and Cleasby. The village lies within the Richmond UK Parliament constituency and it also lies within the Richmondshire North electoral division of North Yorkshire County Council and the Barton ward of Richmondshire District Council. An electoral ward in the name exists. This ward stretches north-east to Cleasby with a population taken at the 2011 Census of 1,224. The village lies 1 mile east of the old Roman road of Watling Street, the village of Newton Morrell is the closest to Barton at just 0.77 miles to the north-east and Stapleton 2 miles northward. Other settlements that are close by include Melsonby 2 miles to the west, Middleton Tyas 1.7 miles to the south, Barton Beck flows north through the centre of the village creating a ford across Mary Gate. It joins Clow Beck on the side of the nearby A1 and is part of the tributary system of the River Tees. The 2001 UK census showed that the population was split 47. 8% male to 52. 2% female, the religious constituency was made of 83. 1% Christian,0. 3% Jewish,0. 6% Muslim and the rest stating no religion or not stating at all. The ethnic make-up was 98. 9% White British,0. 5% Mixed ethnic and 0. 7% White other, the 2011 UK census showed that the population was split 48. 4% male to 51. 6% female
7.
Washington, Tyne and Wear
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Washington is a large new town in the City of Sunderland local government district of Tyne and Wear, England, and part of historic County Durham. Washington is located geographically at a distance from the centres of Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland. At the 2011 census, Washington had a population of 67,085, early references appear around 1096 in Old English as Wasindone. The etymological origin is disputed and there are several proposed theories for how the name Washington came about, early interpretations included Wasindone, or Wassyngtona. The origins of the name Washington are not fully known, the most supported theory is that Washington is derived from Anglo-Saxon Hwæsingatūn, which roughly means estate of the descendents of Hwæsa. Hwæsa is an Old English name meaning wheat sheaf, the Swedish House of Vasa being a more famous cognate, due to the evolution of English grammar, modern English lacks the Germanic grammatical features that permeated Anglo-Saxon English. This adds an air of confusion for most in regards to the name Hwæsingatūn and it is essentially composed of three main elements, Hwæsa – most likely the name of a local Anglo-Saxon chieftain or farmer. Ing – a Germanic component that has lost its original context in English and it can still be seen in its original context in the word halfling meaning that from an half. The word means fenced off estate or more accurately estate with defined boundaries, the combined elements therefore create the name Hwæsingatūn with a full and technical meaning of the estate of the descendants of Hwæsa. However, there has no evidence found of any chieftain/land owner/farmer in the area by the name of Hwæsa. Although this is by no means the definite theory of origin, most scholars, another of the popular origin theories is that Washington is in fact derived from the Old English verb wascan and the noun dūn meaning hill, thus making the name Wascandūn, meaning washing hill. This theory likely originates from the proximity of the river Wear to the actual Anglo-Saxon hall at the time and this idea is not backed by linguistic evidence. Combining the two Old English words wascan and dūn would actually have meant washed hill and not washing hill, also, the Old English dūn meant a range of gently rolling hills, as evidenced by the naming of the North and South Downs in southern England. William de Wessyngton was a forebear of George Washington, the first President of the United States, after whom the US capital, though George Washingtons great-grandfather John Washington left for Virginia from Hertfordshire, Washington Old Hall was the family home of George Washingtons ancestors. The present structure incorporates parts of the medieval home in which they lived. American Independence Day is marked each year by a ceremony at Washington Old Hall, the Old Hall may have been built by William de Hertburn, who moved to the area in 1183. As was the custom, he took the name of his new estates, by 1539, when the family moved to Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire, the spelling Washington had been adopted. The present Hall is an early 17th-century small English manor house of sandstone, only the foundations and the arches between the Kitchen and the Great Hall remain of the original house
8.
M1 motorway
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The M1 is a south-north motorway in England connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK, the first road to be built to standard in the country was the Preston By-pass. The motorway is 193 miles long and was constructed in four phases, most of the motorway was opened between 1959 and 1968 but the southern end was extended in 1977 and the northern end was extended in 1999. It forms part of the unsigned European route E13, there had been plans since before the Second World War for a motorway network in the United Kingdom. The first section of motorway was the Preston Bypass in Lancashire, the M1 was Britains first full-length motorway and opened in 1959. The early M1 had no speed limits, no central reservation or crash barriers, the first section of the motorway opened between Junction 5 and Junction 18 on 2 November 1959 together with the motorways two spurs, the M10 and the M45. Parts of the Hertfordshire section were built using steam rollers. P, – Minister of Transport – Inauguration Day – 24th March 1958. It was relocated, during widening works in 2007–08, to the side of junction 10. This section of the M1 broadly follows the route of the A5 north-west and it starts at the Watford Bypass, which runs south-east to meet the A1 at Apex corner, and ended on the A5 at Crick. The M10 spur motorway connected the M1 to the North Orbital Road where it met the A5 and,2 miles to the east via the A414, the A6. Although the whole of first section opened in 1959, it was built in two parts with the part being built by John Laing and the southern part being built by Tarmac Construction. The continuation of the motorway from Junction 18 towards Yorkshire was carried out as a series of extensions between 1965 and 1968. From Junction 32, the motorway passes Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Wakefield, reaching the original end of the motorway at Junction 44 to the east of Leeds. There were plans to route the M1 from just south of Junction 42 where it interchanges with the M62, round the west of Leeds to the A1 at Dishforth, with the M62 and M621, the M1 forms a ring of motorways around the south of Leeds. In 1972 an extension of the M1 was opened into central Leeds as the Leeds South Eastern Motorway where it met the Leeds South Western Motorway coming north-east from the M62 at Junction 3. Sections to be illuminated included the M1 between Junctions 3 and 14, and between Junctions 16 and 24, the motorway junctions and their approaches, and a section of the M1 on either side of Junction 11, would have lighting columns replaced and remain lit. All lighting columns from Junctions 10 to 14 have now been removed completely, between 1996 and 1999 the M1 section north of the M62 underwent a major reconstruction and extension to take the M1 on a new route to the A1 at Aberford. The new road involved the construction of a series of new junctions, bridges, when the new section of M1 was completed and opened on 4 February 1999, the Leeds South Eastern Motorway section of the M1 was redesignated as the M621 and the junctions were given new numbers
9.
Dual carriageway
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A dual carriageway is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation. Roads with two or more carriageways which are designed to higher standards with controlled access are generally classed as motorways, freeways, a road without a central reservation is a single carriageway regardless of the number of lanes. Dual carriageways have improved road traffic safety over single carriageways and typically have speed limits as a result. In some places, express lanes and local/collector lanes are used within a system to provide more capacity. A very early example of a dual carriageway was the Via Portuensis, in 1907 the Long Island Motor Parkway opened, and roughly 20% of it featured a semi-dual-carriageway design. The New York City Belt Parkway system, which was built between 1907 and 1934, also pioneered the same design, however the majority of it featured concrete or brick railings as lane dividers instead of grass medians. In 1924 the first Italian autostrada was opened running 55 km from Milan to Varese and it featured a broad road bed and did not feature lane dividers except near cities and through the mountains. The London end of the Great West Road became Britains first dual carriageway when it was opened in 1925 by King George V, in 1927 the Rome bypass was opened. It ran 92 km bypassing Rome to the east, almost the entire length featured a dual-carriageway design. In the early 1930s it was extended all the way to Naples. Most of the routing was destroyed by the Allies in the World War II. By 1930 several US and European cities had built dual-carriageway highways, in 1932 the first German autobahn opened between Cologne and Bonn. It ran 21 km and became a precedent for future highways, although it, like the first autostrada, did not feature a dual-carriageway design, it inspired the mass construction of future high-speed roadways. During the 1930s, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union began construction of a network of dual carriageway expressways. By 1942, Germany had over 3,200 km of dual carriageway roads, Italy had nearly 1,300 km, opened to traffic in 1940, the 160-mile-long Pennsylvania Turnpike was the first rural dual carriageway built in the United States. By 1955 several states had built dual carriageway freeways and turnpikes, completed in 1994, the major highway system links all the major cities of the United States. In the UK, although the dual carriageway applies to any road with physically separated lanes. Such major dual carriageways usually have two lanes of traffic in each direction, with the lane nearest the centre being reserved for overtaking, occasionally dual carriageways have only one lane in each direction, or more than two lanes each way
10.
Hertfordshire
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Hertfordshire is a county in southern England, bordered by Bedfordshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Buckinghamshire to the west and Greater London to the south. For government statistical purposes, it is placed in the East of England region, in 2013, the county had a population of 1,140,700 living in an area of 634 square miles. Four towns have between 50,000 and 100,000 residents, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford and St Albans. Hertford, once the market town for the medieval agricultural county derives its name from a hart. Elevations are high for the region in the north and west and these reach over 240m in the western projection around Tring which is in the Chilterns. The countys borders are approximately the watersheds of the Colne and Lea, hertfordshires undeveloped land is mainly agricultural and much is protected by green belt. The countys landmarks span many centuries, ranging from the Six Hills in the new town of Stevenage built by local inhabitants during the Roman period, Leavesden filmed much of the UK-based $7.7 Bn box office Harry Potter film series and has the countrys studio tour. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill and his martyrs cross of a yellow saltire on a blue background is reflected in the flag and coat of arms of Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire is well-served with motorways and railways, providing access to London. The largest sector of the economy of the county is in services, Hertfordshire was the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder in 913. Hertford is derived from the Anglo-Saxon heort ford, meaning deer crossing, the name Hertfordshire is first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011. Deer feature in many county emblems, there is evidence of humans living in Hertfordshire from the Mesolithic period. It was first farmed during the Neolithic period and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age and this was followed by tribes settling in the area during the Iron Age. 293 the first recorded British martyrdom is believed to have taken place. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill. His martyrs cross of a saltire on a blue background is reflected in the flag. He is the Patron Saint of Hertfordshire, with the departure of the Roman Legions in the early 5th century, the now unprotected territory was invaded and colonised by the Anglo-Saxons. By the 6th century the majority of the county was part of the East Saxon kingdom
11.
Bedfordshire
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Bedfordshire is a county in the East of England. It is a county and a historic county, covered by three unitary authorities, Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, and Luton. Bedfordshire is bordered by Cambridgeshire to the east/northeast, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the east/southeast. It is the fourteenth most densely populated county of England, with half the population of the county living in the two largest built-up areas, Luton and the county town, Bedford. The highest elevation point is 243 metres on Dunstable Downs in the Chilterns, the traditional nickname for people from Bedfordshire is Clangers, deriving from a local dish comprising a suet crust pastry filled with meat in one end and jam in the other. The first recorded use of the name in 1011 was Bedanfordscir, meaning the shire or county of Bedford, which itself means Bedas ford. Bedfordshire was historically divided into nine hundreds, Barford, Biggleswade, Clifton, Flitt, Manshead, Redbournestoke, Stodden, Willey, Wixamtree, along with the liberty and borough of Bedford. There have been changes to the county boundary, for example, in 1897 Kensworth. The southern end of the county is on the ridge known as the Chiltern Hills. The remainder is part of the drainage basin of the River Great Ouse. Most of Bedfordshires rocks are clays and sandstones from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, local clay has been used for brick-making of Fletton style bricks in the Marston Vale. The Greensand Ridge is an escarpment across the county from near Leighton Buzzard to near Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire is relatively dry, being situated in the east of England. Average annual rainfall is 597.6 millimetres at Bedford, october is the wettest month with 62.5 millimetres, February the driest with 36.7 millimetres. While there is little difference from month to month there are more wet days in autumn and winter but often heavier individual falls in spring and summer, of note were the 1998 Easter floods. Average temperatures in Bedford range from a low of 0.8 °C overnight in February to a high of 22.1 °C during the day in July, in the last 20 years the highest temperature recorded was 35.9 °C. The lowest temperature on record in Bedfordshire is −20.6 °C at Woburn on 25 February 1947, the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner is Kathryn Holloway who is a member of the Conservative Party. For local government purposes, Bedfordshire is divided into three authorities, the boroughs of Bedford and Luton, and the District of Central Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire County Council was abolished on 1 April 2009, although the three continue to form a county for ceremonial functions such as lieutenancy and High Sheriff
12.
Cambridgeshire
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The city of Cambridge is the county town. It contains most of the known as Silicon Fen. Local government is divided between Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council, which is a unitary authority. Cambridgeshire is noted as the site of Flag Fen in Fengate, one of the earliest-known Neolithic permanent settlements in the United Kingdom, compared in importance to Balbridie in Aberdeen, Scotland. A great quantity of archaeological finds from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, most items were found in Isleham. Cambridgeshire was recorded in the Domesday Book as Grantbridgeshire, covering a large part of East Anglia, Cambridgeshire today is the result of several local government unifications. In 1965, these two counties were merged to form Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. Under the Local Government Act 1972 this merged with the county to the west, Huntingdon, the resulting county was called simply Cambridgeshire. Since 1998, the City of Peterborough has been a separately administered area and it is associated with Cambridgeshire for ceremonial purposes such as Lieutenancy, and joint functions such as policing and the fire service. In 2002, the conservation charity Plantlife unofficially designated Cambridgeshires county flower as the Pasqueflower, the Cambridgeshire Regiment, the county-based army unit, fought in the Boer War of South Africa, the First World War and Second World War. Due to the flat terrain and proximity to the continent, during the Second World War the military built many airfields here for RAF Bomber Command, RAF Fighter Command. In recognition of this collaboration, the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial is located in Madingley and it is the only WWII burial ground in England for American servicemen who died during that event. Most English counties have nicknames for their people, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire, the traditional nicknames for people from Cambridgeshire are Cambridgeshire Camel or Cambridgeshire Crane, referring to the wildfowl that were once abundant in the fens. The term Fenners was often applied to those who come from the country to the north of Cambridge. Since the late 20th century, this term is considered to be derogatory and has been discouraged in use, original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire are held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies. See also Geology of Cambridgeshire Large areas of the county are extremely low-lying, the highest point is in the village of Great Chishill at 146 m above sea level. Other prominent hills are Little Trees Hill and Wandlebury Hill in the Gog Magog Downs, Rivey Hill above Linton, Rowleys Hill, AWG plc is based in Huntingdon. The RAF has several stations in the Huntingdon and St Ives area, RAF Waterbeach,6 miles north of Cambridge, is a former RAF airfield, now used as an army barracks
13.
Rutland
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Rutland /ˈrʌtlənd/ is a landlocked county in the East Midlands of England, bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire. Its greatest length north to south is only 18 miles and its greatest breadth east to west is 17 miles and it is the smallest historic county in England and the fourth smallest in the UK as a whole. Because of this, the Latin motto Multum in Parvo or much in little was adopted by the county council in 1950 and it has the smallest population of any normal unitary authority in mainland England and only the City of London is smaller in terms of area. Among modern ceremonial counties the Isle of Wight, City of London, the former County of London, in existence 1889 to 1965, also had a smaller area. It is 348th of the 354 districts in population, the only towns in Rutland are Oakham, the county town, and Uppingham. At the centre of the county is the artificial reservoir, Rutland Water, which is an important nature reserve serving as an overwintering site for wildfowl. Rutlands older cottages are built from limestone or ironstone and many have roofs of Collyweston stone slate or thatch, the origin of the name of the county is unclear. The northwestern part of the county was recorded as Rutland, a part of Nottinghamshire, in Domesday Book. It was first mentioned as a county in 1159. Historically it was known as Rutlandshire, but in recent times only the shorter name is common. Rutland may be from Old English hryþr or hrythr cattle and land land, however, A Dictionary of British Place-Names by A D Mills gives an alternative etymology, Rotas land, from the Old English personal name and land land. It is from the interpretation of red land that the traditional nickname for a male person from Rutland. Earl of Rutland and Duke of Rutland are titles in the peerage of England held in the Manners family, the Earl of Rutland was elevated to the status of Duke in 1703 and the titles were merged. The family seat is Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, the office of High Sheriff of Rutland was instituted in 1129, and there has been a Lord Lieutenant of Rutland since at least 1559. By the time of the 19th century it had been divided into the hundreds of Alstoe, East, Martinsley, Oakham, Rutland covered parts of three poor law unions and rural sanitary districts, those of Oakham, Uppingham and Stamford. In 1894 under the Local Government Act 1894 the rural districts were partitioned along county boundaries to form three rural districts. Meanwhile, that part of Stamford RSD in Rutland became the Ketton Rural District, Oakham Urban District was created from Oakham Rural District in 1911. It was subsequently abolished in 1974, Rutland was included in the East Midlands General Review Area of the 1958–67 Local Government Commission for England
14.
Lincolnshire
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Lincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It also borders Northamptonshire in the south for just 20 yards, Englands shortest county boundary, the county town is Lincoln, where the county council has its headquarters. The ceremonial county of Lincolnshire is composed of the county of Lincolnshire. Therefore, part of the county is in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. The county is the second-largest of the English ceremonial counties and one that is predominantly agricultural in land use, the county is fifth largest of the two-tier counties, as the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire are not included. The county can be broken down into a number of geographical sub-regions including, Lincolnshire derived from the merging of the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Lindsey with that controlled by the Danelaw borough of Stamford. For some time the county was called Lindsey, and it is recorded as such in the 11th-century Domesday Book. In 1888 when county councils were set up, Lindsey, Holland and these survived until 1974, when Holland, Kesteven, and most of Lindsey were unified into Lincolnshire. A local government reform in 1996 abolished Humberside, and the south of the Humber was allocated to the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire. These two areas became part of Lincolnshire for ceremonial such as the Lord-Lieutenancy, but are not covered by the Lincolnshire police and are in the Yorkshire. The remaining districts of Lincolnshire are Boston, East Lindsey, Lincoln, North Kesteven, South Holland, South Kesteven and they are part of the East Midlands region. Lincolnshire is home to Woolsthorpe Manor, birthplace and home of Sir Isaac Newton and he attended The Kings School, Grantham and its library has preserved his signature, applied to a window sill when he was a teenager. Lincolnshire is an area, growing large amounts of wheat, barley, sugar beet. In South Lincolnshire, where the soil is rich in nutrients, some of the most common crops include potatoes, cabbages, cauliflowers. Most such companies are long gone, and Lincolnshire is no longer an engineering centre, however, as a result of the current economic climate some food production facilities have closed down, this has caused some reduction in the levels of migrant workers. The large number of people from Portugal is still obvious in the town of Boston. A coalition of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Independents currently controls Lincolnshire County Council, the Conservative Party comfortably controlled the County Council following the 2009 local elections, in which they increased their majority to 43 seats. The Labour Party lost a total of 15 seats including 7 in Lincoln, the Lincolnshire Independents gained a total of four seats, although one of their number moved to the Conservative group during 2010, increasing the number of Conservative seats to 61
15.
Nottinghamshire
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Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditional county town is Nottingham, though the county council is based in West Bridgford in the borough of Rushcliffe, the districts of Nottinghamshire are Ashfield, Bassetlaw, Broxtowe, Gedling, Mansfield, Newark and Sherwood, and Rushcliffe. The City of Nottingham was administratively part of Nottinghamshire between 1974 and 1998 but is now an authority, remaining part of Nottinghamshire for ceremonial purposes. In 2011 the county was estimated to have a population of 785,800, over half of the population of the county live in the Greater Nottingham conurbation. The conurbation has a population of about 650,000, though less than half live within the city boundaries. Nottinghamshire lies on the Roman Fosse Way, and there are Roman settlements in the county, for example at Mansfield, the county was settled by Angles around the 5th century, and became part of the Kingdom, and later Earldom, of Mercia. However, there is evidence of Saxon settlement at the Broxtowe Estate, Oxton, near Nottingham, the name first occurs in 1016, but until 1568 the county was administratively united with Derbyshire, under a single Sheriff. In Norman times the county developed malting and woollen industries, in the 18th and 19th centuries, mechanised deeper collieries opened and mining became an important economic sector, though these declined after the 1984–85 miners strike. Until 1610, Nottinghamshire was divided into eight Wapentakes, sometime between 1610 and 1719 they were reduced to six – Newark, Bassetlaw, Thurgarton, Rushcliffe, Broxtowe and Bingham, some of these names still being used for the modern districts. Oswaldbeck was absorbed in Bassetlaw, of which it forms the North Clay division, Nottinghamshire is famous for its involvement with the legend of Robin Hood. This is also the reason for the numbers of tourists who visit places like Sherwood Forest, City of Nottingham, to reinforce the Robin Hood connection, the University of Nottingham in 2010 has begun the Nottingham Caves Survey with the goal to increase the tourist potential of these sites. The project will use a 3D laser scanner to produce a three dimensional record of more than 450 sandstone caves around Nottingham. Nottinghamshire was mapped first by Christopher Saxton in 1576, the first fully surveyed map of the county was by John Chapman who produced Chapmans Map of Nottinghamshire in 1774. Nottinghamshire, like Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, sits on extensive coal measures, up to 900 metres thick, there is an oilfield near Eakring. These are overlaid by sandstones and limestones in the west and clay in the east, the north of the county is part of the Humberhead Levels lacustrine plain. The centre and south west of the county, around Sherwood Forest, principal rivers are the Trent, Idle, Erewash and Soar. The Trent, fed by the Soar and Erewash, and Idle, composed of many streams from Sherwood Forest, run through wide and flat valleys, the lowest is Peat Carr, east of Blaxton, at sea level, the Trent is tidal below Cromwell Lock. Nottinghamshire is sheltered by the Pennines to the west, so receives relatively low rainfall at 641–740 mm annually, the average temperature of the county is 8. 8–10.1 degrees Celsius
16.
South Yorkshire
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South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in England. It is the southernmost county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region and had a population of 1.34 million in 2011 and it has an area of 1,552 square kilometres and consists of four metropolitan boroughs, Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. South Yorkshire was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972 with Barnsley as its county town. The Sheffield Urban Area is the tenth most populous conurbation in the UK, South Yorkshire lies within the Sheffield City Region with Barnsley also being within the Leeds City Region, reflecting its geographical position midway between Yorkshires two largest cities. South Yorkshire County Council was abolished in 1986 and its boroughs are now effectively unitary authorities. As a ceremonial county, South Yorkshire has a Lord Lieutenant, South Yorkshire was created from 32 local government districts of the West Riding of Yorkshire, with small areas from Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Although the modern county of South Yorkshire was not created until 1974, prehistoric remains include a Mesolithic house dating to around 8000 BC, found at Deepcar, in the northern part of Sheffield. The region was on the frontier of the Roman Empire during the Roman period, the main settlements of South Yorkshire grew up around the industries of mining and steel manufacturing. The main mining industry was coal which was concentrated to the north, there were also iron deposits which were mined in the area. The rivers running off the Pennines to the west of the county supported the industry that is concentrated in the city of Sheffield. The proximity of the iron and coal made this an ideal place for steel manufacture. Although Christian nonconformism was never as strong in South Yorkshire as in the towns of West Yorkshire, there are still many Methodist and Baptist churches in the area. Also, South Yorkshire has a high number of followers of spiritualism. It is the county that counts as a full region in the Spiritualists National Union. The review was abolished in favour of the Royal Commission on Local Government before it was able to issue a final report, the Royal Commissions 1969 report, known as the Redcliffe-Maud Report, proposed the removal of much of the then existing system of local government. Redcliffe-Mauds recommendations were accepted by the Labour government in February 1970, the Local Government Act 1972 reformed local government in England by creating a system of two-tier metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties and districts throughout the country. The act formally established South Yorkshire on 1 April 1974, although South Yorkshire County Council had been running since elections in 1973, South Yorkshire initially had a two tier structure of local government with a strategic-level county council and four districts providing most services. In 1986, throughout England the metropolitan county councils were abolished, the functions of the county council were devolved to the boroughs, joint-boards covering fire, police and public transport, and to other special joint arrangements
17.
West Yorkshire
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West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in England. It is an inland and in relative terms upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in moors of the Pennines and has a population of 2.2 million, West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. West Yorkshire consists of five boroughs and shares borders with the counties of Derbyshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, North Yorkshire. In the heart of the county is Leeds Bradford International Airport, West Yorkshire County Council was abolished in 1986 so its five districts became effectively unitary authorities. However, the county, which covers an area of 2,029 square kilometres, continues to exist in law. West Yorkshire includes the West Yorkshire Urban Area, which is the most built-up, West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council inherited the use of West Riding County Hall at Wakefield, opened in 1898, from the West Riding County Council in 1974. Since 1987 it has been the headquarters of Wakefield City Council, the county initially had a two-tier structure of local government with a strategic-level county council and five districts providing most services. In 1986, throughout England the metropolitan county councils were abolished, the functions of the county council were devolved to the boroughs, joint-boards covering fire, police and public transport, and to other special joint arrangements. Organisations such as the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive continue to operate on this basis, although the county council was abolished, West Yorkshire continues to form a metropolitan and ceremonial county with a Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire and a High Sheriff. Wakefields Parish Church was raised to cathedral status in 1888 and after the elevation of Wakefield to diocese, Wakefield Council immediately sought city status and this was granted in July 1888. However the industrial revolution, which changed West and South Yorkshire significantly, led to the growth of Leeds and Bradford, Leeds was granted city status in 1893 and Bradford in 1897. The name of Leeds Town Hall reflects the fact that at its opening in 1858 Leeds was not yet a city, the county borders, going anticlockwise from the west, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Derbyshire, South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire. It lies almost entirely on rocks of carboniferous age which form the southern Pennine fringes in the west, in the extreme east of the metropolitan county there are younger deposits of magnesian limestone. The Bradford and Calderdale areas are dominated by the scenery of the slopes of the Pennines, dropping from upland in the west down to the east. There is a conjunction of large scale industry, urban areas. The dense network of roads, canals and railways and urban development, the carboniferous rocks of the Yorkshire coalfield further east have produced a rolling landscape with hills, escarpments and broad valleys. In this landscape there is evidence of both current and former industrial activity. There are numerous derelict or converted mine buildings and recently landscaped former spoil heaps, the scenery is a mixture of built up areas, industrial land with some dereliction, and farmed open country
18.
North Yorkshire
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North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan county and larger ceremonial county in England. It is located primarily in the region of Yorkshire and the Humber, created by the Local Government Act 1972, it covers an area of 8,654 square kilometres, making it the largest county in England. The majority of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors lie within North Yorkshires boundaries, the largest settlements are York, Middlesbrough, Harrogate and Scarborough, the county town, Northallerton, has a population of 16,832. The area under the control of the county council, or shire county, is divided into a number of local government districts, Craven, Hambleton, Harrogate, Richmondshire, Ryedale, Scarborough, the changes were planned to be implemented no later than 1 April 2009. This was rejected on 25 July 2007 so the County Council, the largest settlement in the administrative county is Harrogate, the second largest is Scarborough, while in the ceremonial county, the largest is York. The largest urban area within the county is the Middlesbrough built-up area sub-division of Teesside. Uniquely for a district in England, Stockton-on-Tees is split between North Yorkshire and County Durham for this purpose, Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, and Redcar and Cleveland boroughs form part of the North East England region. The ceremonial county area, including the authorities, borders East Riding of Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria. The geology of North Yorkshire is closely reflected in its landscape, within the county are the North York Moors and most of the Yorkshire Dales, two of eleven areas of countryside within England and Wales to be officially designated as national parks. Between the North York Moors in the east and the Pennine Hills in the west lie the Vales of Mowbray, the Tees Lowlands lie to the north of the North York Moors and the Vale of Pickering lies to the south. Its eastern border is the North sea coast, the highest point is Whernside, on the Cumbrian border, at 736 metres. The two major rivers in the county are the River Swale and the River Ure, the Swale and the Ure form the River Ouse which flows through York and into the Humber estuary. The River Tees forms part of the border between North Yorkshire and County Durham and flows from upper Teesdale to Middlesbrough and Stockton and to the coast, North Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan county that operates a cabinet-style council, North Yorkshire County Council. The full council of 72 elects a council leader, who in turn appoints up to 9 more councillors to form the executive cabinet, the cabinet is responsible for making decisions in the County. The county council have their offices in the County Hall in Northallerton, the county is affluent and has above average house prices. Unemployment is below average for the UK and claimants of Job Seekers Allowance is also very low compared to the rest of the UK at 2. 7%, agriculture is an important industry, as are mineral extraction and power generation. The county also has high technology, service and tourism sectors. This is a chart of trend of gross value added for North Yorkshire at current basic prices with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling
19.
County Durham
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County Durham is a county in North East England. The county town is Durham, a cathedral city, the largest settlement is Darlington, closely followed by Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees. It borders Tyne and Wear to the north east, Northumberland to the north, Cumbria to the west, historically, the county included southern Tyne and Wear, including Gateshead and Sunderland. The county has a mixture of mining and farming heritage, as well as a railway industry. Its economy was based on coal and iron mining. It is an area of regeneration and promoted as a tourist destination, in the centre of the city of Durham, Durham Castle and Durham Cathedral are a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site. Many counties are named after their town, and the expected form here would be Durhamshire. Thus County Durham is a form of County of Durham. The situation regarding the name with regards to present-day local government is less clear. The structural change legislation which in 2009 created the present unitary council refers to the county of County Durham, the former postal county was named County Durham to distinguish it from the post town of Durham. The ceremonial county of Durham is administered by four unitary authorities, the ceremonial county has no administrative function, but remains the area to which the Lord Lieutenant of Durham and the High Sheriff of Durham are appointed. The Borough of Hartlepool, until 1 April 1996 the borough was one of four districts in the relatively short-lived county of Cleveland, the part of the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees that is north of the centre of the River Tees. Stockton was also part of Cleveland until that countys abolition in 1996, the remainder of the borough is part of the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire. Durham Constabulary operate in the area of the two districts of County Durham and Darlington. Ron Hogg was first elected the Durham Police and Crime Commissioner for the force on 15 November 2012, the other areas in the ceremonial county fall within the police area of the Cleveland Police. Air Ambulance services are provided by the Great North Air Ambulance, the charity operates 3 helicopters including one at Durham Tees Valley Airport covering the County Durham area. Teesdale and Weardale Search and Mountain Rescue Team, based at the Durham Constabulary base in Barnard Castle, respond to search, Cuthbert between Tyne and Tees or the Liberty of Haliwerfolc. The bishops special jurisdiction rested on claims that King Ecgfrith of Northumbria had granted a substantial territory to St Cuthbert on his election to the see of Lindisfarne in 684
20.
Tyne and Wear
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Tyne and Wear is a metropolitan county in the North East region of England around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972 and it consists of the five metropolitan boroughs of South Tyneside, North Tyneside, City of Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead and City of Sunderland. It is bounded on the east by the North Sea, and has borders with Northumberland to the north, Tyne and Wear County Council was abolished in 1986, and so its districts are now unitary authorities. However, the county continues to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference. The Local Government Act 1888 constituted Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, between the county boroughs, various other settlements also formed part of the administrative counties of Durham and of Northumberland. The need to reform local government on Tyneside was recognised by the government as early as 1935, the second-tier units would form by amalgamating the various existing boroughs and districts. The county boroughs in the area would lose their status, within this area, a single municipality would be formed covering the four county boroughs of Newcastle, Gateshead, Tynemouth, South Shields and other urban districts and boroughs. A minority report proposed amalgamation of Newcastle, Gateshead, Wallsend, Jarrow, Felling, Gosforth, the 1937 proposals never came into operation, local authorities could not agree on a scheme and the legislation of the time did not allow central government to compel one. Tyneside was a Special Review Area under the Local Government Act 1958, the Local Government Commission for England came back with a recommendation to create a new county of Tyneside based on the review area, divided into four separate boroughs. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed a Tyneside unitary authority, again excluding Sunderland, the Bill as presented in November 1971 pruned back the southern edge of the area, and gave it the name Tyneside. The name Tyneside proved controversial on Wearside, and a government amendment changed the name to Tyne, although the metropolitan county council was abolished in 1986, several joint bodies exist to run certain services on a county-wide basis. Most notable is the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority, which co-ordinates transport policy, also through Nexus, the authority subsidises socially necessary transport services and operates a concessionary fares scheme for the elderly and disabled. The Passenger Transport Authority is an authority, raising funds by imposing a levy on the Council Tax of the five constituent authorities of Tyne. In April 2014 Nexus became a body of the new North East Combined Authority. These joint bodies are administered by representatives of all five of the constituent councils, in addition the Northumbria Police force, which covers the whole of Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, is one of several joint forces in England spanning two or more counties. The force was created in 1974, and so is not a by-product of the abolition of the county council, Tyne and Wear either has or closely borders two official Met Office stations, neither located in one of the major urban centres. The locations for those are in marine Tynemouth where Tyne meets the North Sea east of Newcastle, there are some clear differences between the stations temperature and precipitation patterns even though both have a cool-summer and mild-winter oceanic climate. Tyne and Wear is divided into 13 Parliamentary constituencies, at the level of local government, three of the regions five unitary authorities were controlled by Labour in 2005, the exceptions being Newcastle City Council and North Tyneside Council
21.
Berwickshire
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Berwickshire is a lieutenancy area and historic county in the Scottish Borders. It takes its name from Berwick-upon-Tweed, which was part of Scotland at the time of the countys formation, formerly the county was often called the Merse, from Old English mǣres border. From 1596 to 1890 the county town was Greenlaw, however, this was changed to Duns by the Local Government Act 1889, the act which established the system of county councils in Scotland. Beriwckshire District Council remained based in Duns, the old county town, the system of regions and districts was in turn abolished in 1996 in favour of unitary councils. Berwickshire is now governed by the unitary Scottish Borders Council, the county council of Berwickshire was formed in 1890 by the Local Government Act 1889, and applied for a grant of arms the same year. The grant, by Lord Lyon King of Arms was made on 10 October, the coat of arms shows a bear chained to a wych elm tree, a pun on the countys name, bear + wych = Berwick. In heraldry, this is known as a canting arms, upon the abolition of Berwickshire County Council, the arms were regranted to Berwickshire District Council. When the district council was abolished the arms reverted to the Crown, the coat of arms is featured on Berwickshire High School badge Refer to the List of civil parishes in Scotland Other places in Berwickshire include, St. Abbs or Coldingham Shore. Allanton Clintmains Dryburgh Oxton Paxton The Berwickshire News is published weekly, the High school west of Duns is named Berwickshire High School, it has been open since 1896. Together with Eyemouth High School they run a Rugby team under the name of Berwickshire schools, the Berwickshire Coastal Path runs from Cockburnspath to Berwick-upon-Tweed. List of places in the Scottish Borders Subdivisions of Scotland
22.
East Lothian
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East Lothian, is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. For a time, it was known as Haddingtonshire. It borders the City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and the Scottish Borders and its administrative centre is Haddington, although its largest town is Musselburgh. East Lothian is also the name of a county, which has different boundaries to the council area. The council area was created in 1996, replacing the East Lothian district of the Lothian region, when abolished, for local government purposes, in 1975, the county of East Lothian bordered the county of Midlothian to the west, and Berwickshire to the south. East Lothian is served by two local weekly newspapers, the East Lothian Courier and the East Lothian News. The former, known locally as The Courier, is the better-selling, the family firm of D. & J. Croal, based in Haddington, owned and operated the paper until it was bought by the Dunfermline Press Group in 2004. The East Lothian News was first published in 1971, as part of Scottish County Press group, with offices in Dalkeith. SCP was acquired by Regional Independent Media in 2000, which was in turn bought by Johnston Press in 2002, East Coast FM is a community radio station run by volunteers which has been broadcasting since 2009 from studios at 8 Market Street in Haddington. The station is registered as a charity, an FM Community Radio Licence was awarded to the station in September 2012 by regulator OFCOM and a frequency of 107.6 FM was allocated in January 2013. It is expected that broadcasting on this frequency will start in March 2013, the station can be accessed worldwide across the internet through their website. East Lothian FM is an Online Community Radio Station operated and managed by East Lothian Community Media Ltd, the result of this application will be announced by Ofcom in due course. 7% with a 87. 9% turnout rate. East Lothian Council official government website East Lothian at DMOZ East Lothian Directory East Lothian Courier East Lothian News East Coast FM
23.
European route E15
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The European route E15 is part of the United Nations international E-road network. It is a north-south reference road, running from Inverness, Scotland south through England and France to Algeciras, along most of its route between Paris and London, the road parallels the LGV Nord and High Speed 1. The E15 has a gap at the English Channel between Dover and Calais, France, there is a ferry link between Dover and Calais. The Eurotunnel Shuttle provides a link via Folkestone. The roads in the UK are signed solely by the local number. elbruz. org/eroads/E15. htm
24.
South Mimms
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South Mimms, sometimes spelt South Mymms, is a village and civil parish forming part of the Hertsmere district of Hertfordshire in the East of England. It is a settlement located near to the junction of the M25 motorway with the A1 motorway and is perhaps more widely known because of the naming of the service station at that junction. Potters Bar was originally a settlement in the parish of South Mimms. Potters Bar became the location of the nearest railway station and eventually became much larger, both Potters Bar and South Mimms were part of Middlesex until the creation of Greater London, which abolished the county of Middlesex in 1965. South Mimms was the northernmost village in Middlesex and this area now forms part of the London Borough of Barnet. The rest of the parish became the South Mimms Rural District, South Mimms served as a home for Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands during her exile in World War II. A German air attack on South Mimms at this time narrowly missed her, dancers Hill in South Mimms was the location of a World War II prisoner-of-war camp, Camp 33, that consisted of two compounds, both providing tented accommodation for prisoners. Richmond Thackeray, father of William Makepeace Thackeray, was born in the parish, for many years Clare Hall Hospital was used as a tuberculosis sanatorium. It is now used by Cancer Research UK, a notable person born in South Mimms is Samuel Tinsley, a famous chess player. Official population figures Media related to South Mimms at Wikimedia Commons
25.
M25 motorway
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The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a 117-mile motorway that encircles almost all of Greater London, England, in the United Kingdom. An ambitious concept to build four concentric ring roads around London was first mooted in the 1960s, further widening is in progress of minor sections with plans for managed motorways in many others. To the east of London the two ends of the M25 are joined to complete a loop by the non-motorway A282 Dartford Crossing of the River Thames between Thurrock and Dartford and this crossing, which consists of twin two-lane tunnels and the four-lane QE2 bridge, is named Canterbury Way. Passage across the bridge or through the tunnels is subject to a toll, in the opposite direction, to the east of the point where the M25 diverges from the main east–west carriageway, that carriageway become the M26 motorway. The radial distance from London varies from 12.5 miles in Potters Bar to 19.5 miles in Byfleet.8 miles, major towns listed as destinations, in various counties, adjoin the M25. North Ockendon is the settlement of Greater London situated outside the M25. In 2004, following a poll, the London Assembly mooted for consultation alignment of the Greater London boundary with the M25. Inside the M25 and outside/beyond the M25 are colloquial, looser alternatives to Greater London sometimes used in haulage, the Communications Act 2003 explicitly uses the M25 as the boundary in requiring a proportion of television programmes to be made outside the London area. Two motorway service areas are on the M25, and two others are accessible from it. Those on the M25 are Clacket Lane between junctions 5 and 6 and Cobham between junctions 9 and 10 and those directly accessible from it are South Mimms off junction 23 and Thurrock off junction 31. Cobham services opened on 13 September 2012, originally, the M25 was unlit except for sections around Heathrow, major interchanges and Junctions 23–30. By 2014 only one significant stretch was still SOX-lit and the units were removed the same year, the motorway passes through five counties. Junctions 1A–5 are in Kent, 6–14 are in Surrey, 15–16 are in Buckinghamshire, 17–25 are in Hertfordshire, policing of the road is carried out by an integrated policing group made up of the Metropolitan, Thames Valley, Essex, Kent, Hertfordshire and Surrey forces. The M25 is one of Europes busiest motorways, in 2003, a maximum of 196,000 vehicles a day were recorded on the motorway just south of London Heathrow Airport between junctions 13 and 14. A precursor of the M25 was the North Orbital Road, the idea of an orbital road around London was first proposed early in the 20th century and then re-examined in Sir Charles Bresseys and Sir Edwin Lutyens The Highway Development Survey,1937. Sir Patrick Abercrombies County of London Plan,1943 and Greater London Plan,1944 proposed a series of five roads encircling the capital, the northern sections of the M25 follow a similar route to the World War II Outer London Defence Ring. Little was done to progress these plans until the 1960s when the Greater London Council developed its London Ringways plan consisting of four rings around the capital. Sections of the two outer rings – Ringway 3 and Ringway 4 – were constructed in the early 1970s and were integrated into the single M25 orbital motorway, but the Ringways plan was hugely controversial owing to the destruction required for the inner two ring roads
26.
Stotfold
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Stotfold is a small town and civil parish in the English county of Bedfordshire. In the 19th century, Stotfold was regarded as a wealthy place, the saying was that to live in Stotfold, one has to have £100 and a pig. The town is divided by a road, High Street. There are two parks and a ground, plus a Multi-Use Games Area and a football pitch. The River Ivel runs through the town, Stotfold covers 2,207 acres and the population, according to the 2001 census, is 6,190. The church of St Mary dates back to Norman times, Stotfold Watermill stands on the River Ivel and is one of four mills in Stotfold that were recorded in the Domesday Book. It is the working mill left in Stotfold and is a grade II listed watermill. The Mill was fully restored after being burnt down on 15 December 1992, the Mill opened to the public in May 2006 with the formal opening taking place October 2006 followed shortly after by a visit from HRH The Duke of Edinburgh on 17 November 2006. The Mill is a charity run by the Stotfold Mill Preservation Trust, all moneys raised are used for the continual upkeep and restoration of the Mill and of the local area. Its major fundraiser is the annual Stotfold Mill Steam and Country Fair which takes place in May, the parish church of St Mary the Virgin dates to about 1150 but was probably preceded by a series of wooden Saxon churches on the same site. The church is built of flint with Ashwell clunch stone dressings to the buttresses and is mainly in the Early Perpendicular style. In about 1450 the tower was added and the widened and it is believed that the baptismal font also dates from this time and is octagonal. At the same time the old paintings on the walls were destroyed or whitewashed over. Building work continues to expand the town, with new areas such as Mill View, Fairfield Park is on the site of the old Fairfield Hospital, covering a very large area, south of Stotfold and to the east of Arlesey. The old hospital has been converted into apartments, with hundreds of new homes being built in the grounds of the former mental health institute. Fairfield Park was formally split from Stotfold on 1 April 2013, construction has also begun on 850 new homes in the Land South of Stotfold development. Stotfold has a Non-League football club Stotfold F. C. which plays at Roker Park, olympic and world champion track cyclist Victoria Pendleton was brought up in Stotfold. In 2007, the track between Arlesey and Stotfold was renamed in her honour
27.
Roads in the United Kingdom
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Roads in the United Kingdom form a network of varied quality and capacity. Road distances are shown in miles or yards and UK speed limits are indicated in miles per hour or by the use of the speed limit symbol. Some vehicle categories have various lower maximum limits enforced by speed limiters, enforcement of UK road speed limits increasingly uses speed guns, automated in-vehicle systems and automated roadside traffic cameras. A unified numbering system is in place for Great Britain, whilst in Northern Ireland, the earliest specifically engineered roads were built during the British Iron Age. The road network was expanded during the Roman occupation, some of these survive and others were lost. New roads were added in the Middle Ages and from the 17th century onwards, certain aspects of the legal framework remain under the competence of the United Kingdom parliament. Although some roads have much older origins, the network was subject to development from the 1950s to the mid-1990s. From then, construction of roads has become controversial with direct action campaigns by environmentalists in opposition. In the UK, vehicles drive on the left and on multi-lane carriageways drivers are expected to keep to the left lane except when overtaking, in Great Britain, the Highway Code applies to drivers. In Northern Ireland, the Highway Code for Northern Ireland applies, UK speed limits are shown in mph. With a few exceptions, they are in multiples of 10, unless a lower speed limit is posted on a road, the national speed limit applies, which varies between class of vehicles and the type of road. In a built-up area, unless signs indicate otherwise, a limit of 30 miles per hour applies, other limits are shown in the table. For a road to be classed as a carriageway, the two directions of traffic flow must be physically separated by a central reservation. Roads in the UK are classified as M, A, or B roads, as well as categories of more minor roads, for internal purposes. These numbers follow a zonal system, there is no available explanation for the allocation of road numbers in Northern Ireland. The majority of the major routes are motorways, and are designed to carry long distance traffic. The next category is the A roads, which form the route network. A primary route is defined as, primary destinations are usually cities and large towns, to which, as a result of their size, a high volume of traffic is expected to go
28.
Hatfield, Hertfordshire
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Hatfield is a town and civil parish in Hertfordshire, England, in the borough of Welwyn Hatfield. It had a population of 29,616 in 2001, increasing to 39,201 at the 2011 Census, the settlement is of Saxon origin. Hatfield House, the home of the Marquess of Salisbury, is the nucleus of the old town, Hatfield was one of the post-war New Towns built around London and has much modernist architecture from the period. The University of Hertfordshire is based there, Hatfield is 20 miles north of London and is connected to the capital via the A1 and direct trains to London Kings Cross, Finsbury Park and Moorgate. As a result, the town has seen a recent increase in commuters who work in London moving to the area. In the Saxon period Hatfield was known as Hetfelle, but by the year 970, No other records remain until 1226, when Henry III granted the Bishops of Ely rights to an annual four-day fair and a weekly market. The town was then called Bishops Hatfield, Hatfield House is the seat of the Cecil family, the Marquesses of Salisbury. Elizabeth Tudor was confined there for three years in what is now known as The Old Palace in Hatfield Park. Legend has it that it was here in 1558, while sitting under an oak tree in the Park and she held her first Council in the Great Hall of Hatfield. In 1851, the route of the Great North Road was altered to avoid cutting through the grounds of Hatfield House, the town grew up around the gates of Hatfield House. Old Hatfield retains many buildings, notably the Old Palace, St Etheldredas Church. The Old Palace was built by the Bishop of Ely, Cardinal Morton, in 1497, during the reign of Henry VII, and the only surviving wing is still used today for Elizabethan-style banquets. St Etheldredas Church was founded by the monks from Ely, in 1930 the de Havilland airfield and aircraft factory was opened at Hatfield and by 1949 it had become the largest employer in the town, with almost 4,000 staff. It was taken over by Hawker Siddeley in 1960 and merged into British Aerospace in 1978, in the 1930s it produced a range of small biplanes. During the Second World War it produced the Mosquito fighter bomber and developed the Vampire, after the war, facilities were expanded and it developed the Comet airliner, the Trident airliner, and an early bizjet, the DH125. British Aerospace closed the Hatfield site in 1993 having moved the BAe 146 production line to Woodford Aerodrome, the land was used as a film set for Steven Spielbergs movie Saving Private Ryan and most of the BBC/HBO television drama Band of Brothers. It was later developed for housing, higher education, commerce, today, Hatfields aviation history is remembered by the names of certain local streets and pubs as well as The Comet Hotel built in the 1930s. The de Havilland Aircraft Heritage Centre, at Salisbury Hall in nearby London Colney, preserves and displays many historic de Havilland aeroplanes, the Abercrombie Plan for London in 1944 proposed a New Town in Hatfield
29.
Welwyn Garden City
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Welwyn Garden City /ˈwɛlɪn/ is a town in Hertfordshire, England. It is located approximately 20 miles from Kings Cross, London, Welwyn Garden City was the second garden city in England and one of the first new towns. It is unique in being both a city and a new town and exemplifies the physical, social and cultural planning ideals of the periods in which it was built. Welwyn Garden City was founded by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the 1920s following his previous experiment in Letchworth Garden City, Howard had called for the creation of planned towns that were to combine the benefits of the city and the countryside and to avoid the disadvantages of both. On 29 April 1920 a company, Welwyn Garden City Limited, was formed to plan and build the garden city, louis de Soissons was appointed as architect and town planner, C. B Purdom as finance director and Frederic Osborn as secretary. The first house was occupied just before Christmas 1920, the town is laid out along tree-lined boulevards with a neo-Georgian town centre. It has its own environmental protection legislation, the Scheme of Management for Welwyn Garden City, every road has a wide grass verge. The spine of the town is Parkway, a mall or scenic parkway. The view along Parkway to the south was described as one of the worlds finest urban vistas. Commercial pressures have since ensured much more competition and variety, during World War II the Special Operations Executive had a research department in the town, and the Inter-Services Research Bureau developed the Welrod pistol and the Welgun sub-machinegun there. Station IX was a secret SOE factory making commando equipment at the Frythe Hotel, in 1948, Welwyn Garden City was designated a new town under the New Towns Act 1946 and the Welwyn Garden City company handed its assets to the Welwyn Garden City Development Corporation. Louis de Soissons remained as its planning consultant and that year The Times compared Welwyn Garden City with Hatfield. Welwyn, though far from perfect, made the New Towns Act possible, just as Hatfield, by its imperfection, in 1966, the Development Corporation was wound up and handed over to the Commission for New Towns. The housing stock, neighbourhood shopping and green spaces were passed to Welwyn Hatfield District Council between 1978 and 1983. There was a general hospital in the town, the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital. A new hospital, completed in June 2015, offers outpatient, diagnostic, a shopping mall, the Howard Centre, was built in the 1980s, incorporating the original railway station. Roman baths are preserved in a vault underneath junction 6 of the A1 and are open to visitors. The local civic society, which aims to preserve and conserve the garden city ethos, is the Welwyn Garden City Society, the international ecumenical Focolare movement has its British headquarters at Welwyn Garden City
30.
Stevenage
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Stevenage /ˈstiːvənᵻdʒ/ is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England. It is situated to the east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1, Stevenage is roughly 32.9 miles north of central London. Its population has increased significantly over the last century, the population was 1,430 in 1801,4,049 in 1901,79,715 in 2001 and 83,957 in 2011. The largest increase occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, after Stevenage was designated a new town under the New Towns Act of 1946, the current population is now estimated to be around 84,000. Two films were set in and around Stevenage, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, spy Game was partly filmed in Stevenage but set in Washington, D. C. The 1959 film Serious Charge was also filmed in Stevenage, Stevenage may derive from Old English stiþen āc / stiðen āc / stithen ac meaning the stiff oak. The name was recorded as Stithenæce, c.1060 and Stigenace in 1086 in the Domesday Book, Stevenage lies near the line of the Roman road from Verulamium to Baldock. Some Romano-British remains were discovered during the building of the New Town, the most substantial evidence of activity from Roman times is Six Hills, six tumuli by the side of the old Great North Road – presumably the burial places of a local family. A little to the east of the Roman sites the first Saxon camp was made in a clearing in the woods where the church, manor house, settlements also sprang up in Chells, Broadwater and Shephall. In the Domesday Book the Lord of the Manor was the Abbot of Westminster Abbey, the settlement had moved down to the Great North Road and in 1281 it was granted a Royal Charter to hold a weekly market and annual fair. The earliest part of St Nicholas Church dates from the 12th century, the known list of priests or rectors is relatively complete from 1213. The remains of a moated homestead in Whomerley Wood is an 80-yard-square trench almost 5 feet wide in parts. It was probably the home of Ralph de Homle, and both Roman and later pottery has been found there, around 1500 the Church was much improved, with decorative woodwork and the addition of a clerestory. In 1558 Thomas Alleyne, a rector of the town, founded a grammar school for boys, Alleynes Grammar School. Francis Cammaerts was headmaster of the school from 1952 to 1961, the school, which was a mixed comprehensive school and is now an Academy as of 2013, still exists on its original site at the north end of the High Street. It was intended to move the school to Great Ashby, Stevenages prosperity came in part from the North Road, which was turnpiked in the early 18th century. Many inns in the High Street served the stage coaches,21 of which passed through Stevenage each day in 1800, in 1857 the Great Northern Railway was constructed, and the era of the stage coach had ended. Stevenage grew only slowly throughout the 19th century and a church was constructed at the south end of the High Street
31.
Hitchin
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Hitchin is a market town in the North Hertfordshire District in Hertfordshire, England, with an estimated population of 33,350. Hitchin is first noted as the place of the Hicce people mentioned in a 7th-century document. The tribal name is Brittonic rather than Old English and derives from *siccā, meaning dry, which is perhaps a reference to the local stream, the Hiz. Evidence has been found to suggest that the town was provided with an earthen bank and ditch fortification, probably in the early tenth century. The modern spelling Hitchin first appears in 1618 in the Hertfordshire Feet of Fines, the name of the town also is associated with the small river that runs through the town, most picturesquely in front of the east end of St. Marys Church, the towns parish church. The river is noted on maps as the River Hiz, contrary to how most people now pronounce the name, that is to say as spelt, the z is an abbreviated character for a tch sound in Domesday Book. It would have been pronounced River Hitch, Hitchin is notable for St. Marys Church, which is remarkably large for a town of its size. The size of the church is evidence of how Hitchin prospered from the wool trade and it is the largest parish church in Hertfordshire. Most of the dates from the 15th century, with its tower dating from around 1190. During the laying of a new floor in the church in 1911, in form, they appear to be a basilican church of a 7th-century type, with a later enlarged chancel and transepts, perhaps added in the 10th century. This makes the older than the story that the church was founded by Offa. In 1697, Hitchin were subject to what is thought to have been the most severe hailstorm in recorded British history, by the middle of the 19th century the railway had arrived, and with it a new way of life for Hitchin. The corn exchange was built in the place and within a short time Hitchin established itself as a major centre for grain trading. The latter half of the 20th century has brought great changes in communication to Hitchin. Motorways have shortened the time and brought Luton, a few miles away on the M1. By the close of the 20th century, Hitchin had become a dormitory town for London. Hitchin also developed a fairly strong Sikh community based around the Walsworth area, during the medieval period, both a priory and a friary were established, both of which closed during Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries. They were never reformed, although The Biggin was for years used as almshouses
32.
Letchworth
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Letchworth, officially Letchworth Garden City, is a town in Hertfordshire, England, with a population of 33,600. It is a civil parish. The towns name is taken one of the three villages it surrounded – all of which featured in the Domesday Book. The land used was purchased by Quakers who had intended to farm the area and it is also home to the United Kingdoms first roundabout, which was built in 1909. )Letchworth was one of the ancient parishes of Hertfordshire. The parish church of St Mary the Virgin was built in the 12th or 13th Century, Letchworth was a relatively small parish, having a population in 1801 of 67, rising to 96 by 1901. Industry would be separate from residential areas—such zoning was a new idea at the time—and trees. His ideas were mocked in the press but struck a chord with many, especially members of the Arts and Crafts movement, the concept outlined in the book is not simply one of urban planning, but also included a system of community management. The book also advocated a form of competitive tendering, whereby the municipality would purchase services, such as water, fuel, waste disposal. These systems were never implemented, in Letchworth, Welwyn or their numerous imitators. John Betjeman in his poems Group Life, Letchworth and Huxley Hall painted Letchworth people as earnest health freaks, One commonly-cited example of this is the ban, most unusual for a British town, on selling alcohol in public premises. This did not stop the town having a pub however – the Skittles Inn or the pub with no beer which opened as early as 1907, despite the ban it is not entirely true to say that there were no pubs in the Garden City. New inns also sprang up on the borders of the town and this ban was finally lifted after a referendum in 1958, which resulted in the Broadway Hotel becoming the first public house in the centre of the Garden City. Several other pubs have opened since 1958, but to this day the centre has fewer than half-a-dozen pubs – a remarkably low number of a town of its size. One effect of this is that the centre of the town is normally a noticeably quiet, the Spirella Building, completed in 1920, blends in despite its central position through being disguised as a large country house, complete with towers and a ballroom. During the Second World War, the factory was involved in producing parachutes. Because corsets fell out of fashion, the closed in the 1980s. Letchworth had a diverse light industry, including K & L Steel Foundry, often a target for German bombers in World War II. The biggest employer was British Tabulating Machine Company, later merging with Powers-Samas to become International Computers and Tabulators, at one time the Tab as it was known had occupancy of over 30 factories in Icknield Way, Works Road and finally in Blackhorse Road
33.
Central London
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Central London is the innermost part of London, UK. Over time a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. From 2004 to 2008, the London Plan included a sub-region called Central London comprising Camden, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth and it had a 2001 population of 1,525,000. The sub-region was replaced in 2008 with a new structure which amalgamated inner and outer boroughs together and this was altered in 2011 when a new Central London sub region was created, now including the City of London and excluding Wandsworth. However, districts at the edge of this subregion such as Streatham, Dulwich. During the Herbert Commission and the subsequent passage of the London Government Bill, the first two were detailed in the 1959 Memorandum of Evidence of the Greater London Group of the London School of Economics. It had an population of 350,000 and occupied 7,000 acres. The area had an population of 400,000 and occupied 8,000 acres. During the passage of the London Government Bill an amendment was put forward to create a central borough corresponding to the used at the 1961 census. The population was estimated to be 270,000
34.
London Stansted Airport
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London Stansted currently serves over 170 destinations across Europe, North Africa, Central and North America and more scheduled European destinations than any other airport in the UK. Stansted is a base for a number of major European low-cost carriers, being the largest base for low-cost airline Ryanair, in 2015 it was the fourth busiest airport in the United Kingdom after Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester. The airport is owned and operated by the Manchester Airports Group, MAG agreed to buy the airport from Heathrow Airport Holdings, formerly BAA, on 18 January 2013, and the sale was completed for £1.5 billion on 28 February 2013. BAA had been required to sell the following a ruling originally made by the Competition Commission in March 2009. In 2016 Stansted handled a record 24.3 million passengers, London Stansted Airport has one main passenger terminal, near the village of Stansted Mountfitchet. The base of each structure is a utility pillar, which provides indirect uplighting illumination and is the location for air-conditioning, water, telecommunications. Passenger totals have since risen, and in 2016 recorded an increase of 8. 0% to 24.3 million. Although the official name was Stansted Mountfitchet, the base was known as simply Stansted in both written and spoken form, the station was first allocated to the USAAF Eighth Air Force in August 1942 as a heavy bomber airfield. As well as a bomber base, Stansted was also a Air Technical Services Command maintenance and supply depot concerned with major overhauls. After D-Day, these activities were transferred to France, but the base was used as a supply storage area for the support of aircraft on the continent. After the withdrawal of the Americans on 12 August 1945, Stansted was taken over by the Air Ministry and used by No.263 Maintenance Unit, in addition, between March 1946 and August 1947, Stansted was used for housing German prisoners of war. The Ministry of Civil Aviation finally took control of Stansted in 1949, the US military returned in 1954 to extend the runway for a possible transfer to NATO. The transfer to NATO was never realised, however, and the airport continued in civil use, the school was responsible for the training of all aviation fire crews for British airfields as well as those of many overseas countries. From the outset, however, BAA and the British government planned to develop Stansted into Londons third airport, to relieve Heathrow, the airports first terminal building opened in 1969 and was expanded the next year to handle the growing number of passengers. The current terminal building was designed by architect Norman Foster, construction was undertaken by John Laing and took place between 1988 and March 1991, costing £100 million. In 1990 it was awarded the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Award, continental Airlines also operated services in the late 1990s from Newark, but this service was stopped shortly after the 11 September 2001 attacks. Long-haul services to the USA returned in late 2005, when Eos Airlines, in 2006, MAXjet expanded their service with flights to Washington, D. C. American Airlines began daily flights to Stansted in October 2007 from New York–JFK and was expected to operate a second daily flight from April 2008
35.
Dartford Crossing
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It consists of two bored tunnels and the cable-stayed Queen Elizabeth II Bridge. The only fixed crossing of the Thames east of Greater London, it is the busiest estuarial crossing in the United Kingdom. It opened in stages, the west tunnel in 1963, the east tunnel in 1980, the crossing, despite not being under motorway restrictions, is considered part of the M25 motorways route, using the tunnels northbound and bridge southbound. Described as one of the most important road crossings in Britain, it suffers from heavy traffic, the crossings development started in the late 1930s, but was interrupted due to the Second World War and resumed in the 1950s. The original tunnel catered for a lane of traffic in each direction. The M25 connected to the tunnels at both ends when completed in 1986, and this increased traffic put pressure on the tunnels capacity, a Private Finance Initiative scheme was started in 1988 to build the bridge. The combined crossing now handles four lanes of traffic in each direction, the crossing had always been tolled, and from 1 April 2003 this became a charge, though since 2008 it has been free from 10 pm to 6 am. An electronic charging scheme began in November 2014, as a result, the charge can no longer be paid in cash and the old toll booths have been removed. A residents scheme is available, offering discounts for people living near the crossing. The crossing spans the River Thames between Dartford, Kent, to the south and Thurrock, Essex, to the north and it is about 20 miles east of the centre of London, outside the Greater London boundary. The two tunnels are 1,430 metres long, while the bridge is 137 metres high with a main span of 450 metres. A50 miles per hour speed limit is in place in both directions, the design capacity is 135,000 vehicles per day, but in practice the crossing carries around 160,000. It is signed as a destination on Londons orbital route. Southbound traffic crosses the bridge, while northbound traffic uses both of the two-lane road tunnels. The bridge can be closed due to winds or maintenance. On these occasions, traffic uses the tunnels in both directions, the next nearest vehicle crossings to the west of Dartford are the Woolwich Ferry and the Blackwall Tunnel, both well within East London. There is no official diversion route through London for high vehicles, when the bridge is closed, vehicles over 5.03 metres are diverted around the M25 in the opposite direction. A number of new crossings have been proposed as relief for the Dartford Crossing, the proposed Thames Gateway Bridge to the west was given planning permission by Transport for London in December 2004, but was cancelled in November 2008 when Boris Johnson became Mayor of London
36.
M11 motorway
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The M11 motorway is a 52-mile motorway that runs north from the North Circular Road in South Woodford in northeast London to the A14, northwest of Cambridge, England. Originally proposed as early as 1915, various plans were considered throughout the 1960s, the motorway was opened in stages, with the first stage opening in June 1975, and the completed motorway becoming fully operational in February 1980. The M11 gives access to Bishops Stortford and the only service station via Junction 8. This is followed immediately by the recently constructed Junction 8A, which provides a link to the improved A120 that links to Stansted Airport. From Junction 8 the motorway has two lanes in both directions all the way to Junction 14 where the motorway terminates. The motorway is illuminated at the terminus near Junction 4, at Junction 6, and also at the approach to Junction 8/8A. All four of these sections use modern high pressure sodium lighting, the older, yellow, low-pressure sodium lighting originally used at junctions 4 and 6 was replaced in 2005. The numbering of the M11 junctions is unusual, as 1–3 are neither used nor shared with another road and this means that southbound drivers reaching the end of the M11 have to use the A12 & A11 to reach central London. Plans for an Eastern Avenue in London had been proposed as early as 1915, and it was opposed by a number of groups, including the Hackney Society and local residents as represented by their member of parliament in 1962. By 1966, the Ministry of Transport was planning a longer road, the road from South Woodford to Islington would have been designated as the M12. There were three proposed routes from the inner to outer ringway at the base of the current M11, under one scheme, south of South Woodford a connection would have been made with the western end of a proposed M12 towards Colchester. These proposals also made the case for an M15 motorway for the Ringway 2, part of the unbuilt route of a southern section of the M11 is seen from a sliproad from the North Circular to the M11 which travels over a bridge over bare land. It was announced in March 1975 that from Junction 8 to the northern terminus and this was another way of stating that, following a change in government policy, this section would comprise two rather than three lanes in each direction. An official plan to add north-facing connections at Junction 5 in Debden, plans were abandoned in March 2009 when the Secretary of State for Transport announced that no changes would be made to this section of motorway before 2021. The motorway was opened in stages, the stretch between Junctions 7 and 8 opened in 1975, and that between Junctions 4 and 7 in 1977. The stretch from Junctions 8 to 9 opened in 1979, that between Junctions 9 and 14 in 1980, and the full length becoming fully operational in February 1980. Budgets were tight during the 1970s when the road was built, the motorways first, and only, service station, Birchanger Green Services at Junction 8, opened in 1996. The plans for a station at this site were officially dropped in 1980
37.
M20 motorway
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The M20 is a motorway in Kent, England. It follows on from the A20 at Swanley, meeting the M25, and continuing on to Folkestone, providing a link to the Channel Tunnel, although not signposted in England, this road is part of the European route E15. It then strikes east, running north of Addington, when it reaches junction 4 it passes south of New Hythe and runs parallel to the Medway Valley railway line before crossing it close to junction 5. This next section is the Maidstone bypass, high Speed 1 then runs parallel to the motorway as it continues to the north of Bearsted, crosses the Swanley to Ashford Line then out into the countryside alongside Leeds Castle. Proceeding south of Lenham and Charing it is crossed by the Ashford, travelling past Brabourne Lees it is once again joined by the CTRL and the East Stour. Just north of Saltwood it reaches the Channel Tunnel terminal and is crossed by HS1 for the last time, the final section runs along the northern suburbs of Folkestone. This road was numbered as the A20 as it bypassed the stretch of A20 through Maidstone which was renumbered A2020. This was the first stretch of motorway to south of London. Plans for a bypass of Maidstone had existed since the 1930s, originally as an all-purpose project, when the motorway was extended westwards towards London in the 1970s, it was renamed M20 and the A2020 reverted to A20. Junctions 3 to 5 in 1971 Junctions 1 to 2 in 1977 This section ended at a junction near West Kingsdown. Temporary terminus to junction 3 in 1980 This section of the route was difficult to due to its steep descent down the North Downs escarpment. The bypass started at Willesborough near the current location of junction 10, a section of the old bypass is still visible now named Simone Weil Avenue. The original bridge that brought Canterbury Road over the bypass is still visible as the bridge was not reconstructed when the motorway was constructed and this section of motorway has no hard shoulder indicating the smaller width of the old bypass. This left the motorway in two sections, with the 14-mile gap running via the A20 – this was referred to locally as The Missing Link, the level of traffic was not considered necessary to complete the route. Most of the traffic for the Channel ports was using the A2/M2 route, when the Channel Tunnel was ready for construction, it was decided to complete the M20 between junctions 8 and 9 and this opened in 1991. Concurrent to this was the extension to Dover as part of the A20 which opened in 1993, a new junction was also constructed for the Channel Tunnel. Following completion of the junction 8 to 9 section, the M20 was 3 lanes either side of the original A20 section and this was a bottleneck, so it was decided to widen this section of motorway. The road here was increased to a dual 3 or 4 lane road with 2 lane distributor roads either side and this section was opened in 1995
38.
Heathrow Airport
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Heathrow Airport is a major international airport in London, United Kingdom. In 2016, it handled a record 75.7 million passengers, Heathrow lies 14 miles west of Central London, and has two parallel east–west runways along with four operational terminals on a site that covers 12.27 square kilometres. London Heathrow is the hub for British Airways and the primary operating base for Virgin Atlantic. In September 2012, the UK government established the Airports Commission, in July 2015, the commission backed a third runway at Heathrow and the government approved a third runway in October 2016. Heathrow is 14 mi west of central London, near the end of the London Borough of Hillingdon on a parcel of land that is designated part of the Metropolitan Green Belt. The airport is surrounded by the areas of Harlington, Harmondsworth, Longford and Cranford to the north and by Hounslow. To the south lie Bedfont and Stanwell while to the west Heathrow is separated from Slough in Berkshire by the M25 motorway, Heathrow falls entirely under the TW postcode area. As the airport is west of London and as its runways run east–west, for a chronicled history of Heathrow Airport, see History of Heathrow Airport. Heathrow Airport originated in 1929 as an airfield on land south-east of the hamlet of Heathrow from which the airport takes its name. At that time there were farms, market gardens and orchards there, there was a Heathrow Farm about where Terminal 1 is now, a Heathrow Hall and a Heathrow House. This hamlet was largely along a lane which ran roughly along the east. Development of the whole Heathrow area as a much larger airport began in 1944. But by the time the airfield was nearing completion, World War II had ended, the government continued to develop the airport as a civil airport, it opened as London Airport in 1946 and was renamed Heathrow Airport in 1966. Heathrow Airport is used by over 80 airlines flying to 185 destinations in 84 countries, the airport is the primary hub of British Airways and is a base for Virgin Atlantic. It has four terminals and a cargo terminal. Of Heathrows 73.4 million passengers in 2014, 93% were international travellers, the busiest single destination in passenger numbers is New York, with over 3 million passengers flying between Heathrow and JFK Airport in 2013. As the required length for runways has grown, Heathrow now has two parallel runways running east–west. These are extended versions of the two east–west runways from the original hexagram, from the air, almost all of the original runways can still be seen, incorporated into the present system of taxiways
39.
Gatwick Airport
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Gatwick Airport is a major international airport in south-east England,29.5 miles south of Central London and 2.7 nautical miles north of Crawley. It is the second-busiest airport by passenger traffic in the United Kingdom. Gatwick is the eighth-busiest airport in Europe, Gatwick opened as an aerodrome in the late 1920s, and has been in use for commercial flights since 1933. The airport has two terminals, the North Terminal and the South Terminal, which areas of 98,000 m2 and 160,000 m2 respectively. It operates as a airport, using a main runway with a length of 3,316 m. A secondary runway is available but, due to its proximity to the main runway, in 2016,43.1 million passengers passed through the airport, a 7. 1% increase compared with 2015. The land on which Gatwick Airport stands was first developed as an aerodrome in the late 1920s, the Air Ministry approved commercial flights from the site in 1933, and the first terminal, The Beehive, was built in 1935. Scheduled air services from the new terminal began the following year, major development work at the airport took place during the 1950s. The airport buildings were designed by Yorke Rosenberg Mardall between 1955 and 1988, further rapid growth of charter flights at Gatwick was encouraged by the Ministry of Aviation, which instructed airlines to move regular charter flights from Heathrow. Following the takeover of BUA by Caledonian Airways at the beginning of the following decade, while continuing to dominate scheduled operations at Gatwick for most of the 1980s, BCal was also one of the airports major charter airlines until the end of the 1970s. Following the demise of Air Europe and Dan-Air in the early 1990s and these moves resulted in BA becoming Gatwicks dominant airline by the turn of the millennium. BAs subsequent decision to de-hub Gatwick provided the space for EasyJet to establish its biggest base at the airport, BAA Limited and its predecessors, BAA plc and the British Airports Authority, owned and operated Gatwick from 1 April 1966 to 2 December 2009. From 1978 to 2008, many flights to and from the United States used Gatwick because of restrictions on the use of Heathrow implemented in the Bermuda II agreement between the UK and the US. US Airways, Gatwicks last remaining US carrier, ended service from Gatwick on 30 March 2013 and this leaves Gatwick without a scheduled US airline for the first time in nearly 40 years. On 17 September 2008, BAA announced it would sell Gatwick after the Competition Commission published a report about BAAs market dominance in London, the sale was completed on 3 December. The sales were part of GIPs strategy to syndicate the equity portion of the acquisition by issuing bonds to refinance bank debt. Although this entails bringing additional investors into the airport, GIP aims to retain management control, the Californian state pension fund CalPERS acquired a 12. 7% stake in Gatwick Airport for about $155 million in June 2010. This transaction completed GIPs syndication process for the airport, reducing its stake to 42%, the airport is owned and operated by Gatwick Airport Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ivy Holdco Limited
40.
M40 motorway
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The M40 is a motorway connecting London and Birmingham, part of this road forms a section of the unsigned European route E05. It provides a route from Southern England to the West Midlands, to the M1. The motorway is three lanes except for Junction 1A to J3, which is dual four lanes, a short section past J4. In 2011 several of the logos on the signs for these services were incorrect. An Active Traffic Management system operates on the short section northbound from J16 to the M42, the motorway between London and Oxford was constructed in stages between 1967 and 1974. The Beaconsfield bypass to J2 was built in 1971 and the Gerrards Cross Bypass to J1 was completed in 1973, the section northbound from J5 to J8 was completed in 1974. The preferred route was altered to avoid Otmoor after a road protest. The field had been renamed Alices field as a reference to Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll who lived in the area at the time he wrote the book. Construction began at Warwick in October 1987, with work on the section around Banbury starting in February 1988, the section between the M42 and Warwick opened in December 1989, and the remainder in January 1991. It was originally planned that the section of the M42 between the M5 and the M40 would be renumbered as part of the M40, but this change did not take place. By the time of the opening, the original M40 had been widened. The first service opened as Cherwell Valley services in 1994 on the site of temporary toilet areas created when the motorway was constructed. Beginning in 1997, the motorway was widened to four lane between J1A and J3 under a Private Finance Initiative. It was completed by a Carillion-John Laing joint venture in October 1998 – the original plan would included widening between J3 and J4, Oxford services and Warwick Services opened in 1998. In 2009 the Highways Agency extended the Active Traffic Management system onto the northbound carriageway from J16 to the junction with the M42, Beaconsfield services opened in 2009, near the site of the service station proposed at Abbey Barns almost 40 years earlier. In August 2010 work started on J9, upgrading the southbound exit slip road to three lanes, and similar widening on the connecting A34 and A41 junctions and this was the first part of the work at this busy junction. If there is funding, a part will commence, upgrading the northbound entrance. Twelve school children and a teacher died when their minibus crashed into a parked motorway maintenance vehicle just after midnight on 18 November 1993
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M4 motorway
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The M4 is a motorway which runs between London and South Wales in the United Kingdom. Major towns and cities along the route include Slough, Reading, Swindon, Bristol, Newport, Cardiff, a new Severn bridge, known as the Second Severn Crossing, was opened in 1996 with the M4 rerouted to use it. The M4 runs close to the A4 from London to Bristol, after crossing the River Severn it follows the A48 through South Wales, using the Brynglas Tunnels at Junction 25a, Newport and terminates just north of Pontarddulais. It is one of three motorways in Wales, the other two, the A48 and M48, branch off it. The area of land along the M4, with its towns, european route E30 includes most of the M4, although it is not signed as such. The Maidenhead bypass opened in 1961 whilst J1-J5 opened in 1965, the stretch from J18 to the west of Newport was opened in 1966, including the Severn Bridge. The Port Talbot by-pass, also built in the 1960s and now part of the M4, was originally the A48 motorway, the English section of the motorway was completed on 22 December 1971 when the 50-mile stretch between Junctions 9 and 15 was opened to traffic. The Welsh section was completed in 1993, when the Briton Ferry motorway bridge opened, the Second Severn Crossing opened in 1996, together with new link motorways on either side of the estuary to divert the M4 over the new crossing. The existing route over the Severn Bridge was redesignated the M48, in June 1999 the section of the third lane between Junctions 2 and 3 was converted to a bus lane, first as a pilot scheme and then permanently in 2001. A lower speed limit was introduced along the bus lane section at the same time, between 2007 and January 2010 the section from Castleton to Coryton was widened to six lanes. The scheme was opened on 25 January 2010 by Ieuan Wyn Jones the Deputy First Minister for Wales. During 2009 the Newport section of the motorway between Junctions 23a and 29 was upgraded with a new concrete central barrier. A similar claim was made for a 30-mile section of road in Scotland close to Aberdeen in September 2009 with refuelling points at Bridge of Don, Ellon and Peterhead. Between 2008 and 2010, Junction 11, near Reading, was remodelled with a new four-lane motorway junction. It also involved the movement of the local Highways Agency and Fire Service offices, and the construction of a footbridge network, a new bus-lane. Sound barriers for nearby areas were also installed. In April 2008, the decision to preserve a rare Vickers machine gun pillbox, the table below shows the timeline for the construction of the motorway on a section by section basis. Tolls are charged in one only, westbound
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M3 motorway (Great Britain)
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The M3 is a motorway that runs from Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, to Southampton, Hampshire, a distance of approximately 59 miles. From Junction 9 near Winchester, to Junction 14 on the fringe of Southampton. It was constructed as a dual three-lane motorway for most of its length, the motorway was opened in phases, beginning with the first section in 1971. Since then, the motorway has become a major artery to the South Coast, consequently, the M3 faces regular delays and congestion on its busiest sections during rush hours and seasonal periods. The Junctions 2 to 4A section is currently being upgraded to a Smart Motorway, the eastern section, from Sunbury-on-Thames in Surrey to Popham near Basingstoke opened in sections, first the Hampshire section in 1971, and then the Surrey section in 1974. The cost for this first phase was £46m, the completed road acts as a continuation of the A316 Country Way, an express three-lane road from Apex Corner, Hanworth, in Greater London to Sunbury-on-Thames. A second public inquiry was held in 1976–77, the scope of the M3 extension was reduced to defer the difficult decision about the section around Winchester and it was built in two sections in 1995. When this opened, the junction to the A33 parallel route was removed. The section of the M3 from near Junction 12 to the last, Junction 14 for the M27 replaced part of the A33 road which was upgraded to motorway standard and opened in 1991. In 2008 the busiest section of the motorway, at Chandlers Ford and its service station was envisaged at Basingstoke upon the motorways completion but not built – superseded by one just north of Fleet and another north of Winchester. An additional junction, numbered 4A, opened in April 1992 for Fleet and its third junction is for Camberley, Bagshot, Bracknell, Ascot and Worplesdon. The Spitfire Bridge carries the B3404 Alresford Road to Winchester over the M3 motorway and this is known as the Spitfire Link. It replaced a concrete arch bridge under which a Curtiss P-40 had been flown by George Rogers in October 1941. It was generally assumed locally that the aircraft had been a Spitfire hence the name, a private exit of the northern roundabout connected to Junction 4a provides access to the UK headquarters of Sun Microsystems. The section of the M3 between J2 and J4a is currently being made into a Managed Motorway, due to be completed in December 2016, the coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death. On 1 April 2000, a crossing was illegally painted across the northbound carriageway of the M3 between Junctions 4 and 4a. Data from driver location signs are used to distance and carriageway identification information. List of motorways in the United Kingdom Notes References Chriss British Road DirectoryMotorway Database – M3 Bad Junctions – M3/A31 The Motorway Archive – M3
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M23 motorway
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The M23 is a motorway in the United Kingdom. The motorway runs south of Hooley in Surrey, where it splits from the A23, to Pease Pottage. The northern end of the starts at junction 7 on what is effectively a 2-mile spur north from junction 7 of the M25 motorway. From Hooley it runs for 17 miles past Redhill, Gatwick Airport, a spur runs from junction 9 to Gatwick Airport. The motorway was constructed between 1972 and 1975, at the time as the southern section of the M25 from Godstone to Reigate. The current northern terminus at junction 7 uses the original sliproads to meet the A23, the cancellation of the unbuilt northern section from the M25 in towards Central London has resulted in the A23 carrying the majority of traffic through South London to the motorway. This is largely a single route, with many level junctions, traffic lights. It travels largely through residential areas and is inadequte for the level of traffic it carries, a new junction was opened in 1997, between J10 and J11, for access to the new Crawley neighbourhood of Maidenbower. It was financed as part of the development of Maidenbower by the construction consortium and it gives only off-access southbound and on-access northbound. In an earlier version of the Ringways Plan it would have continued into central London where it would have met the Balham Loop spur from Ringway 1 at Tooting and this was dropped in 1967 when the northern terminus was changed to Ringway 2. While a definite route had not been chosen at that time for the northern section, by 1972 the southern section of Ringway 2 had been dropped from the plan, with an alternative proposal that the M23 continue further into London to end on Ringway 1. The M23 plan was scaled back further to omit the section across Mitcham Common. However, the scale of the junction between the M23 and the M25, one of only three stack interchanges in the UK, is indicative of the importance attached to the M23 at that time. Data from driver location signs are used to distance and carriageway identifier information. Where a junction spans several hundred metres and start and end points are available, list of motorways in the United Kingdom www. cbrd. co. uk Motorway Database – M23 History of the aborted M23 plan The Motorway Archive – M23
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Chipping Barnet
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Chipping Barnet or High Barnet is a market town in the London Borough of Barnet, England. Its name is often abbreviated to just Barnet, which is also the name of the borough of which it forms a part. Chipping Barnet is one of the urban settlements in London. The towns name derives from an ancient settlement, recorded as Barneto c,1070, Barnet 1197, La Barnette 1248, that is the land cleared by burning, from Old English bærnet, referring to the clearing of this once densely forested area in early times. This was one of the most important battles of the Wars of the Roses, Barnet Hill is said to be the hill mentioned in the nursery rhyme The Grand Old Duke of York. It is also the site of an ancient and well-known horse fair, the fair dates back to 1588 when Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to the Lord of the Manor of Barnet to hold a twice yearly fair. The famous Barnet Market is now over 810 years old, on 23 August 1199 King John issued a charter for a market at Barnet to the Lord of the Manor, the Abbot of St. Albans, John de Cella. Chipping Barnet was historically a parish of Hertfordshire and formed part of the Barnet Urban District from 1894. The parish was abolished in 1965 and the Chipping Barnet section of its area was transferred from Hertfordshire to Greater London. In 1801 the parish had a population of 1,258, by 1901 the parish was reduced to 380 acres and had a population of 2,893. In 1951 the population was 7,062, in Saxon times the site was part of an extensive wood called Southaw, belonging to the Abbey of St Albans. The name of the town appears in deeds as Bergnet – the Saxon word Bergnet meant a little hill. Barnets elevated position is indicated in one of its alternative names, which appears in many old books and maps. The area was historically a common resting point on the traditional Great North Road between the City of London and York and Edinburgh, Barnet Council has been treating any such alterations to public road signs as vandalism. Playing on its antiquity, it continues to call itself Barnet Church, the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Monken Hadley also has parish boundaries which include a significant part of High Barnet, including much of Barnet High Street. The living of Barnet is a curacy, held with the rectory of East Barnet till the death of the last incumbent in 1866, in addition to the charity established to maintain his fathers tomb, James Ravenscroft established a charity to support six poor and ancient women. The tower of Barnet parish church — St John the Baptist — at the top of Barnet Hill claims to be the highest point between itself and the Ural Mountains 2,000 miles to the east, however, the same has been said of numerous other points. Since the opening of the railway, development has increased considerably, especially in the west of the area near Arkley, for a London town, Barnet lies very high
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A1081 road
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The A1081 is a road in the south of England. It starts at Luton Airport in Bedfordshire and runs to High Barnet in Greater London via Harpenden, St Albans and London Colney, for most of its length, the A1081 follows the route of the original A6. The first section of the A1081 runs south-west from Luton Airport to the spur of the M1 motorway on the outskirts of Luton. This section is a dual carriageway known as New Airport Way, just west of the airport, there is a junction with the A505. At the M1 spur, the A1081 turns south to join the route of the original A6 and it skirts the grounds of Luton Hoo estate, then crosses into Hertfordshire, passing through Harpenden before reaching St Albans. In St Albans, the road has a junction with the A4147 and A1057, at this point, it bears south-east, bypassing London Colney before reaching junction 22 of the M25 motorway. There is a junction with the current A414, the North Orbital Road, the A1081 then multiplexes with the M25 to junction 23 at South Mimms, the junction with the current A1 and A1. From here, it continues south-east to High Barnet, ending at a junction with the Great North Road. The A1081 designation was used on a 1920s-built road in east London, from South Woodford to the A12 at Gants Hill, this road is now part of the A406 North Circular Road. The current A1081 was established in the 1950s, when the section of the A6 from South Mimms to High Barnet was so renumbered following the re-routing of the A1 onto the 1920s-built Barnet Bypass. When the M25 was built in the 1980s, it took over the section of the A6 from London Colney to South Mimms, the section from Luton to London Colney was then renumbered the A1081
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St Albans
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St Albans /sənt ˈɔːlbənz/, /seɪn. / is a city in Hertfordshire, England, and the major urban area in the City and District of St Albans. It lies east of Hemel Hempstead and west of Hatfield, about 19 miles north-northwest of London,8 miles southwest of Welwyn Garden City and 11 miles south-southeast of Luton. St Albans was the first major town on the old Roman road of Watling Street for travellers heading north and it is a historic market town and is now a dormitory town within the London commuter belt and the Greater London Built-up Area. St Albans takes its name from the first British saint, Alban, Alban met a Christian priest fleeing from his persecutors and sheltered him in his house, where he became so impressed with the priests piety that he converted to Christianity. When the authorities searched Albans house, he put on the priests cloak, consequently, he was sentenced to endure the punishments that were to be inflicted upon the priest, unless he renounced Christianity. Alban refused and was taken for execution, in later legends, his head rolled downhill after execution and a well sprang up where it stopped. The name Verulamium is Celtic, meaning settlement over or by the marsh, the town was on Prae Hill,2 km to the west of modern St Albans, now covered by the village of St. Michaels, Verulamium Park and the Gorhambury Estate. It is believed that the capital was moved to the site by Tasciovanus. Cunobelinus may have constructed Beech Bottom Dyke, an earthwork near the settlement whose significance is uncertain. It grew steadily, by the early 3rd century, it covered an area of about 125 acres, behind a deep ditch and wall. Verulamium contained a forum, basilica and a theatre, much of which were damaged during two fires, one in 155 and the other in around 250, one of the few extant Roman inscriptions in Britain is found on the remnants of the forum. The town was rebuilt in stone rather than timber at least twice over the next 150 years, occupation by the Romans ended between 400 and 450. St Alban was probably buried outside the city walls in a Roman cemetery near the present Cathedral and his hillside grave became a place of pilgrimage. Recent investigation has uncovered a basilica there, indicating the oldest continuous site of Christian worship in Great Britain, in 429 Germanus of Auxerre visited the church and subsequently promoted the cult of St Alban. More remains under the agricultural land which have never been excavated were for a while seriously threatened by deep ploughing. After the Roman withdrawal the town, became the centre of the territory or regio of the Anglo-Saxon Waeclingas tribe, St Albans Abbey and the associated Anglo-Saxon settlement were founded on the hill outside the Roman city where it was believed St Alban was buried. An archaeological excavation in 1978, directed by Martin Biddle, failed to find Roman remains on the site of the chapter house. The medieval town grew on the hill to the east of Wæclingacaester where the Benedictine Abbey of St Albans was founded by Ulsinus in 793, there is some evidence that the original site was higher up the hill than the present building, which was begun in 1077
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A414 road
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The A414 is a major road in England. The section between the M1 and the Park Street roundabout junction south of St Albans was formerly classified as the M10 motorway and this was downgraded to A road status on 1 May 2009, following the completion of the M1 widening between junctions 7 and 8 of the M1. Between the M10 Junction 1 at Park Street, and the A1 junction, the North Orbital Road route was never completed, the planners opting to build the M25 orbital motorway instead. The section of the M25 between the Hunton Bridge Interchange, Watford and Maple Cross, Rickmansworth originally opened as the A405 ahead of the completion of the M25. This route has always connected Hemel Hempstead and Maldon, but over the years it has changed so much that it is almost completely new. The original route from Hemel Hempstead to St Albans followed the course of what is now the A4147, then from St Albans to Hatfield on the course of what are now the A1057 and B6426. The villages of Cole Green, Birch Green, and Staines Green were bypassed in the 1990s by a new dual carriageway that linked into the 1970s Hertingfordbury bypass. On the other side of Hertford, the A414 took what is now the A119 Ware Road, between November 2009 and April 2011 the section between junction 7 of the M11 and Southern Way in Harlow was widened from three to four lanes and the Southern way roundabout completely remodelled. Most of the Essex section was originally the A122, in Chelmsford itself, the road numbers have been subject to change several times over the last three or four decades, with the A12, A130 and A414 having been rerouted many times over that period
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