1.
London Borough of Croydon
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The London Borough of Croydon is a London borough in south London, England and is part of Outer London. It covers an area of 87 km2 and is the largest London borough by population and it is the southernmost borough of London. At its centre is the town of Croydon from which the borough takes its name. Croydon is mentioned in Domesday Book, and from a market town has expanded into one of the most populous areas on the fringe of London. Croydon is the centre of the borough. The borough is now one of Londons leading business, financial and cultural centres, and its influence in entertainment, the economic strength of Croydon dates back mainly to Croydon Airport which was a major factor in the development of Croydon as a business centre. Once Londons main airport for all flights to and from the capital. It is now a Grade II listed building and tourist attraction, Croydon Council and its predecessor Croydon Corporation unsuccessfully applied for city status in 1954,2000,2002 and 2012. Croydon is mostly urban, though there are suburban and rural uplands in the south. Since 2003 Croydon has been certified as a Fairtrade borough by the Fairtrade Foundation and it was the first London Borough to have Fairtrade status which is awarded on certain criteria. The area is one of the hearts of culture in London, institutions such as the major arts and entertainment centre Fairfield Halls add to the vibrancy of the borough. However, its famous fringe theatre the Warehouse Theatre was put under administration in 2012 when the council withdrew its funding, the Croydon Clocktower was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 as an arts venue featuring a library, the independent David Lean Cinema and museum. From 2000 to 2010, Croydon staged a summer festival celebrating the areas black and Indian cultural diversity. An internet radio station, Croydon Radio, is run by people for the area. The borough is home to its own local TV station, Croydon TV. Premier League football club Crystal Palace F. C. play at Selhurst Park in South Norwood, for the history of the original town see History of Croydon The London Borough of Croydon was formed in 1965 from the Coulsdon and Purley Urban District and the County Borough of Croydon. The name Croydon comes from Crogdene or Croindone, named by the Saxons in the 8th century when they settled here, although the area had been inhabited since prehistoric times. It is thought to derive from the Anglo-Saxon croeas deanas, meaning the valley of the crocuses, indicating that, like Saffron Walden in Essex, by the time of the Norman invasion Croydon had a church, a mill and around 365 inhabitants as recorded in the Domesday Book
2.
Shirley, London
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Shirley is an area of south east London, within the London Borough of Croydon. It borders the London Borough of Bromley and it is located east of Croydon, and 10 miles south south-east of Charing Cross. Until the 1930s Shirley consisted of a few hamlets between farms and the estates of the large houses and these included Spring Park, Monks Orchard, Shirley Park, Shirley Lodge and Ham, names which are reflected in the names of neighbourhoods today. When Lewis Lloyd acquired the land and had a built in 1854, he adopted the name of a local wood, Monks Orchard. Lloyds Monks Orchard House was one of the most substantial mansions in the Croydon area and it had 19 bedrooms, a billiard room, library, and numerous other rooms. The Dining Hall alone was over 36 by 21 ft, when the estate came up for sale in 1920, only parts of it found buyers, and the rest, including the part we now call Monks Orchard was offered again in 1924. This was purchased by the City of London Corporation for the relocation of the Bethlem Royal Hospital, building of the new hospital started in 1928, and, sadly, this involved pulling down the old mansion. The hospital development did not need all the land and parts of it were sold off for housing development, there are still substantial grounds around the Hospital largely undeveloped, although planning permission was recently granted amid local controversy. The Hospital and grounds were transferred into Bromley in the 1990s in exchange for South Norwood Country Park, in the 1930s, a large amount of building took place over much of the open land, largely suburban-style semi-detached houses. To the north, Shirley links into neighbouring areas, however, some land escaped the building boom. Shirley Park House with its grounds became a hotel and in 1965 was bought by the Whitgift Foundation to become Trinity School in a new building constructed on the site. Neighbouring the school grounds is Shirley Park Golf Course, to the south of Shirley are large areas of woodland, including Shirley Hills and Threehalfpenny Wood. Parks and open spaces are dotted across the area, including Miller’s Pond, in Upper Shirley, very large houses in a few exclusive estates have been built, housing ambassadors, etc. Shirley Parish Church - St John the Evangelist - was built in 1856 from Sir George Gilbert Scotts design, all Saints Church, Bridle Road, was built in the 1950s by Rev Aubrey K W Wright and its design is of a very high quality. It was one of the first post-war buildings in Croydon to be listed, St George the Martyr on The Glade was also built in the 1950s. There are also various evangelical churches, Shirley Methodist which is opposite Trinity School for Boys, Croydons Synagogue is on Shirley Oaks Road. After the Second World War, Croydons severe housing shortage prompted the Council to make a purchase order on the golf course. The area was covered by prefabs, and by 1955 the County Borough of Croydon Council had formulated a plan for the development of the area as a new estate
3.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
4.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
5.
Cricket
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Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a cricket field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch with a wicket at each end. One team bats, attempting to score as many runs as possible, each phase of play is called an innings. After either ten batsmen have been dismissed or a number of overs have been completed, the innings ends. The winning team is the one that scores the most runs, including any extras gained, at the start of each game, two batsmen and eleven fielders enter the field of play. The striker takes guard on a crease drawn on the four feet in front of the wicket. His role is to prevent the ball hitting the stumps by use of his bat. The other batsman, known as the non-striker, waits at the end of the pitch near the bowler. A dismissed batsman must leave the field, and a teammate replaces him, the bowlers objectives are to prevent the scoring of runs and to dismiss the batsman. An over is a set of six deliveries bowled by the same bowler, the next over is bowled from the other end of the pitch by a different bowler. If a fielder retrieves the ball enough to put down the wicket with a batsman not having reached the crease at that end of the pitch. Adjudication is performed on the field by two umpires, the laws of cricket are maintained by the International Cricket Council and the Marylebone Cricket Club. Traditionally cricketers play in all-white kit, but in limited overs cricket they wear club or team colours. In addition to the kit, some players wear protective gear to prevent injury caused by the ball. Although crickets origins are uncertain, it is first recorded in south-east England in the 16th century and it spread globally with the expansion of the British Empire, leading to the first international matches in the mid-19th century. ICC, the governing body, has over 100 members. The sport is followed primarily in Australasia, Britain, the Indian subcontinent, southern Africa, womens cricket, which is organised and played separately, has also achieved international standard. A number of words have been suggested as sources for the term cricket, in the earliest definite reference to the sport in 1598 it is called creckett. One possible source for the name is the Old English cricc or cryce meaning a crutch or staff, in Samuel Johnsons Dictionary, he derived cricket from cryce, Saxon, a stick
6.
Croydon
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Croydon is a large town in south London, England,9.5 miles south of Charing Cross. The principal settlement in the London Borough of Croydon, it is one of the largest commercial districts outside Central London, with a shopping district. Its population of 52,104 at the 2011 census includes the wards of Addiscombe, Broad Green, Croydon expanded in the Middle Ages as a market town and a centre for charcoal production, leather tanning and brewing. The Surrey Iron Railway from Croydon to Wandsworth opened in 1803 and was the worlds first public railway, later nineteenth century railway building facilitated Croydons growth as a commuter town for London. By the early 20th century, Croydon was an important industrial area, known for car manufacture, metal working, Croydon was amalgamated into Greater London in 1965. Road traffic is diverted away from a largely pedestrianised town centre, East Croydon is a major hub of the national railway transport system, with frequent fast services to central London, Brighton and the south coast. The town is unique in Greater London for its Tramlink light rail transport system, alternative, although less probable, theories of the names origin have been proposed. According to John Corbett Anderson, The earliest mention of Croydon is in the joint will of Beorhtric and Aelfswth, in this Anglo-Saxon document the name is spelt Crogdaene. Crog was, and still is, the Norse or Danish word for crooked, which is expressed in Anglo-Saxon by crumb, from the Danish came our crook and crooked. This term accurately describes the locality, it is a crooked or winding valley, in reference to the valley runs in an oblique. However, there was no long-term Danish occupation in Surrey, which was part of Wessex, and Danish-derived nomenclature is also highly unlikely. The town lies on the line of the Roman road from London to Portslade, later, in the 5th to 7th centuries, a large pagan Saxon cemetery was situated on what is now Park Lane, although the extent of any associated settlement is unknown. By the late Saxon period Croydon was the hub of an estate belonging to the Archbishops of Canterbury, the church and the archbishops manor house occupied the area still known as Old Town. Croydon appears in Domesday Book as Croindene, held by Archbishop Lanfranc and its Domesday assets were,16 hides and 1 virgate,1 church,1 mill worth 5s,38 ploughs,8 acres of meadow, woodland worth 200 hogs. The church had established in the middle Saxon period, and was probably a minster church. A charter issued by King Coenwulf of Mercia refers to a council that had taken place close to the monasterium of Croydon, an Anglo-Saxon will made in about 960 is witnessed by Elfsies, priest of Croydon, and the church is also mentioned in Domesday Book. The will of John de Croydon, fishmonger, dated 6 December 1347, includes a bequest to the church of S John de Croydon, the church still bears the arms of Archbishop Courtenay and Archbishop Chichele, believed to have been its benefactors. In 1276 Archbishop Robert Kilwardby acquired a charter for a market
7.
London Docklands
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For the specific dock known under that name, see London Docks. For the basketball team known as London Docklands, see London Towers. London Docklands is the name for an area in east and southeast London and it forms part of the boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Lewisham, Newham and Greenwich. The docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the worlds largest port and they have now been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name London Docklands was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 but has become virtually universally adopted. It also created conflict between the new and old communities of the London Docklands, in Roman and medieval times, ships tended to dock at small quays in the present-day city of London or Southwark, an area known as the Pool of London. However, this gave no protection against the elements, was vulnerable to thieves, the Howland Great Dock in Rotherhithe was designed to address these problems, providing a large, secure and sheltered anchorage with room for 120 large vessels. It was a commercial success and provided for two phases of expansion during the Georgian and Victorian eras. The first of the Georgian docks was the West India, followed by the London, the East India, the Surrey, the Regents Canal Dock, St Katharine, the Victorian docks were mostly further east, comprising the Royal Victoria, Millwall and Royal Albert. The King George V Dock was an addition in 1921. Three principal kinds of docks existed, wet docks were where ships were laid up at anchor and loaded or unloaded. Dry docks, which were far smaller, took individual ships for repairing, ships were built at dockyards along the riverside. In addition, the river was lined with warehouses, piers, jetties. The various docks tended to specialise in different forms of produce, the Surrey Docks concentrated on timber, for instance, Millwall took grain, St Katharine took wool, sugar and rubber, and so on. The docks required an army of workers, chiefly lightermen and quayside workers, some of the workers were highly skilled - the lightermen had their own livery company or guild, while the deal porters were famous for their acrobatic skills. Most were unskilled and worked as casual labourers and they assembled at certain points, such as pubs, each morning, where they were selected more or less at random by foremen. For these workers, it was effectively a lottery as to whether they would get work - and pay and this arrangement continued until as late as 1965, although it was somewhat regularised after the creation of the National Dock Labour Scheme in 1947. The main dockland areas were originally low-lying marshes, mostly unsuitable for agriculture, with the establishment of the docks, the dock workers formed a number of tight-knit local communities with their own distinctive cultures and slang
8.
Tramlink
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Tramlink is a light rail tram system serving Croydon and surrounding areas in South London, England. It began operation in 2000, the first tram system in London since 1952 and it is owned by London Trams, an arm of Transport for London, and operated by FirstGroup. The Tramlink is the fourth-busiest light rail network in the UK behind Manchester Metrolink, Tyne and Wear Metro, in 1990 Croydon Council with London Regional Transport put the project to Parliament and the Croydon Tramlink Act 1994 resulted, which gave LRT the power to build and run Tramlink. In 1996 Tramtrack Croydon Limited won a 99-year Private Finance Initiative contract to design, build, operate, TCL was a partnership comprising FirstGroup, Bombardier Transportation, Sir Robert McAlpine and Amey, and Royal Bank of Scotland and 3i. TCL kept the revenue generated by Tramlink and LRT had to pay compensation to TCL for any changes to the fares, TCL subcontracted operations to CentreWest Buses. One of the leading to its creation was that the London Borough of Croydon has no London Underground service. There are four routes, Route 1 – Elmers End to Croydon, Route 2 – Beckenham Junction to Croydon, Route 3 – New Addington to Wimbledon, and Route 4 – Therapia Lane to Elmers End. Route 2 runs parallel to the Crystal Palace to Beckenham Junction line of the Southern network between Birkbeck and Beckenham Junction – the National Rail track had been singled some years earlier. At Woodside the old station buildings stand disused, and the platforms have been replaced by accessible low platforms. From Woodside to near Sandilands and from near Sandilands almost to Lloyd Park, Tramlink follows the former Woodside and South Croydon Railway, including the Park Hill tunnels. The section of Route 3 between Wimbledon and West Croydon mostly follows the single-track British Rail route, closed on 31 May 1997 so that it could be converted for Tramlink, a partial obstruction near this point has necessitated the use of interlaced track. A Victorian footbridge beside Waddon New Road was dismantled to make way for the flyover over the West Croydon to Sutton railway line, the footbridge has been re-erected at Corfe Castle station on the Swanage Railway. In March 2008, TfL announced that it had reached agreement to buy TCL for £98m, the purchase was finalised on 28 June 2008. The background to this purchase relates to the requirement that TfL compensates TCL for the consequences of any changes to the fares, in 2007 that payment was £4m, with an annual increase in rate. In October 2008 TfL introduced a new livery, using the blue, white and green of the routes on TfL maps, the colour of the cars was changed to green, and the brand name was changed from Croydon Tramlink to simply Tramlink. These refurbishments were completed in early 2009, the tram stops have low platforms,35 cm above rail level. They are unstaffed and have automated ticket machines, in general, access between the platforms involves crossing the tracks by pedestrian level crossing. There are 39 stops, most being 32.2 m long and they are virtually level with the doors and are all wider than 2 m
9.
Pine
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A pine is any conifer in the genus Pinus, /ˈpiːnuːs/, of the family Pinaceae. Pinus is the genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The Plant List compiled by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts 126 species names of pines as current, together with 35 unresolved species, the modern English name pine derives from Latin pinus, which some have traced to the Indo-European base *pīt- ‘resin’. Before the 19th century, pines were often referred to as firs, the genus is divided into three subgenera, which can be distinguished by cone, seed, and leaf characters, Pinus subg. Pinus, the yellow, or hard pine group, generally harder wood. Ducampopinus, the foxtail or pinyon group Pinus subg, strobus, the white, or soft pine group, generally with softer wood and five needles per fascicle Most regions of the Northern Hemisphere host some native species of pines. One species crosses the equator in Sumatra to 2°S, in North America, various species occur in regions at latitudes from as far north as 66°N to as far south as 12°N. Various species have been introduced to temperate and subtropical regions of both hemispheres, where they are grown as timber or cultivated as ornamental plants in parks, a number of such introduced species have become invasive and threaten native ecosystems. Pine trees are evergreen, coniferous trees growing 3–80 m tall. The smallest are Siberian dwarf pine and Potosi pinyon, and the tallest is a 81.79 m tall ponderosa pine located in southern Oregons Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, the bark of most pines is thick and scaly, but some species have thin, flaky bark. The branches are produced in regular pseudo whorls, actually a very tight spiral, the spiral growth of branches, needles, and cone scales are arranged in Fibonacci number ratios. The new spring shoots are sometimes called candles, they are covered in brown or whitish bud scales and point upward at first, then turn green. These candles offer foresters a means to evaluate fertility of the soil, pines are long-lived, and typically reach ages of 100–1,000 years, some even more. The longest-lived is the Great Basin bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva, one individual of this species, dubbed Methuselah, is one of the worlds oldest living organisms at around 4,600 years old. This tree can be found in the White Mountains of California, an older tree, now cut down, was dated at 4,900 years old. It was discovered in a grove beneath Wheeler Peak and it is now known as Prometheus after the Greek immortal, pines have four types of leaf, Seed leaves on seedlings, born in a whorl of 4–24. Juvenile leaves, which follow immediately on seedlings and young plants, 2–6 cm long, single, green or often blue-green and these are produced for six months to five years, rarely longer. Scale leaves, similar to bud scales, small, brown and non-photosynthetic, needles, the adult leaves, are green and bundled in clusters called fascicles
10.
Birch
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A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus Betula, in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae, the genus Betula contains 30 to 60 known taxa of which 11 are on the IUCN2011 Green List of Threatened Species. They are a typically rather short-lived pioneer species widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in northern temperate, Birch species are generally small to medium-sized trees or shrubs, mostly of northern temperate and boreal climates. The simple leaves are alternate, singly or doubly serrate, feather-veined and they often appear in pairs, but these pairs are really borne on spur-like, two-leaved, lateral branchlets. The fruit is a samara, although the wings may be obscure in some species. They differ from the alders in that the female catkins are not woody and disintegrate at maturity, falling apart to release the seeds, unlike the woody, cone-like female alder catkins. The bark of all birches is characteristically marked with long, horizontal lenticels and its decided color gives the common names gray, white, black, silver and yellow birch to different species. The buds form early and are grown by midsummer, all are lateral, no terminal bud is formed. The wood of all the species is close-grained with satiny texture, staminate aments are pendulous, clustered or solitary in the axils of the last leaves of the branch of the year or near the ends of the short lateral branchlets of the year. They form in autumn and remain rigid during the winter. The scales of the staminate aments when mature are broadly ovate, rounded, yellow or orange color below the middle, each scale bears two bractlets and three sterile flowers, each flower consisting of a sessile, membranaceous, usually two-lobed, calyx. Each calyx bears four short filaments with one-celled anthers or strictly, the pistillate aments are erect or pendulous, solitary, terminal on the two-leaved lateral spur-like branchlets of the year. The pistillate scales are oblong-ovate, three-lobed, pale yellow green often tinged with red and these scales bear two or three fertile flowers, each flower consisting of a naked ovary. The ovary is compressed, two-celled, and crowned with two styles, the ovule is solitary. Each scale bear a small, winged nut that is oval. Betula species are organised into five subgenera, pendula and B. pubescens confused, though they are distinct species with different chromosome numbers. This root is derived from *bʰreh₁ǵ- ‘to shine’, in reference to the birchs white bark. The Proto-Germanic rune berkanan is named after the birch, the generic name betula is from Latin, which is a diminutive borrowed from Gaulish betua
11.
Oak
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An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 600 extant species of oaks, the common name oak also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus, as well as in those of unrelated species such as Grevillea robusta and the Casuarinaceae. North America contains the largest number of oak species, with approximately 90 occurring in the United States, the second greatest center of oak diversity is China, which contains approximately 100 species. Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with lobate margins in many species, also, the acorns contain tannic acid, as do the leaves, which helps to guard from fungi and insects. Many deciduous species are marcescent, not dropping dead leaves until spring, in spring, a single oak tree produces both male flowers and small female flowers. The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a structure known as a cupule, each acorn contains one seed and takes 6–18 months to mature. The live oaks are distinguished for being evergreen, but are not actually a distinct group, the oak tree is a flowering plant. Oaks may be divided into two genera and a number of sections, The genus Quercus is divided into the following sections, Quercus, the white oaks of Europe, Asia and North America. Styles are short, acorns mature in 6 months and taste sweet or slightly bitter, the leaves mostly lack a bristle on their lobe tips, which are usually rounded. The type species is Quercus robur, Mesobalanus, Hungarian oak and its relatives of Europe and Asia. Styles long, acorns mature in about 6 months and taste bitter, the section Mesobalanus is closely related to section Quercus and sometimes included in it. Cerris, the Turkey oak and its relatives of Europe and Asia, styles long, acorn mature in 18 months and taste very bitter. The inside of the shell is hairless. Its leaves typically have sharp tips, with bristles at the lobe tip. Protobalanus, the live oak and its relatives, in southwest United States. Styles short, acorns mature in 18 months and taste very bitter, the inside of the acorn shell appears woolly. Leaves typically have sharp tips, with bristles at the lobe tip. Lobatae, the red oaks of North America, Central America, styles long, acorns mature in 18 months and taste very bitter
12.
Epping Forest
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Epping Forest is an area of ancient woodland near Epping, straddling the border between Greater London and Essex. It is a royal forest, and is managed by the City of London Corporation. It covers 2,476 hectares and contains areas of woodland, grassland, heath, rivers, bogs and ponds, and most of it is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation. The forest lies on a ridge between the valleys of the rivers Lea and Roding, its elevation and thin gravelly soil historically made it unsuitable for agriculture and it gives its name to the Epping Forest local government district which covers part of it. The name Epping Forest was first recorded in the 17th century, the area which became known as Waltham, and then Epping Forest has been continuously forested since Neolithic times. The former lime/linden Tilia-dominated woodland was permanently altered during Saxon times by cutting of trees. Todays beech-birch and oak-hornbeam-dominated forest was the result of partial forest clearance in Saxon times, the forest is thought to have been given legal status as a royal forest by Henry II in the 12th century. This status allowed commoners to use the forest to gather wood and foodstuffs, and to graze livestock and turn out pigs for mast, but only the king was allowed to hunt there. Forest in the sense of royal forest meant an area of land reserved for royal hunting, where the forest laws applied. In Tudor times, Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I may have hunted in the forest, in 1543, Henry commissioned a building, known as Great Standing, from which to view the chase at Chingford. The building was renovated in 1589 for Queen Elizabeth I and can still be today in Chingford. The building is now known as Queen Elizabeths Hunting Lodge, and is open to the public, there is another hunt standing, which now forms the core of the Forest HQ at the Warren, Loughton. There were disputes between landowners and commoners, one group of commoners was led by Thomas Willingale who on behalf of the villagers of Loughton continued to lop the trees after the Lord of the Manor had enclosed 550 hectares of forest in Loughton. This led to an injunction against further enclosures, the Epping Forest Act 1878 was passed, saving the forest from enclosure, and halting the shrinkage of the forest that this had caused. Epping Forest ceased to be a royal forest and was placed in the care of the City of London Corporation who act as Conservators, in addition, the Crowns right to venison was terminated, and pollarding was no longer allowed, although grazing rights continued. This act laid down a stipulation that the Conservators shall at all times keep Epping Forest unenclosed and unbuilt on as a space for the recreation. In compensation for the loss of lopping rights, Lopping Hall in Loughton was built as a community building, the City of London Corporation still manages Epping Forest in strict conformity with the Epping Forest Act. This care is funded from Citys Cash, the funds of the Corporation rather than any money for its upkeep coming from local rates or taxes
