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Wiltshire
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Wiltshire is a county in South West England with an area of 3,485 km2. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, the county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the new county town of Trowbridge. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys, Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its mediaeval cathedral, important country houses open to the public include Longleat, near Warminster, and the National Trusts Stourhead, near Mere. The county, in the 9th century written as Wiltunscir, later Wiltonshire, is named after the county town of Wilton. Wiltshire is notable for its pre-Roman archaeology, the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age people that occupied southern Britain built settlements on the hills and downland that cover Wiltshire. Stonehenge and Avebury are perhaps the most famous Neolithic sites in the UK, in the 6th and 7th centuries Wiltshire was at the western edge of Saxon Britain, as Cranborne Chase and the Somerset Levels prevented the advance to the west. The Battle of Bedwyn was fought in 675 between Escuin, a West Saxon nobleman who had seized the throne of Queen Saxburga, in 878 the Danes invaded the county. Following the Norman Conquest, large areas of the country came into the possession of the crown, at the time of the Domesday Survey the industry of Wiltshire was largely agricultural,390 mills are mentioned, and vineyards at Tollard and Lacock. In the 17th century English Civil War Wiltshire was largely Parliamentarian, the Battle of Roundway Down, a Royalist victory, was fought near Devizes. The Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry currently lives on as Y Squadron, based in Swindon, around 1800 the Kennet and Avon Canal was built through Wiltshire, providing a route for transporting cargoes from Bristol to London until the development of the Great Western Railway. Information on the 261 civil parishes of Wiltshire is available on the Wiltshire Community History website, run by the Libraries and this site includes maps, demographic data, historic and modern pictures and short histories. The local nickname for Wiltshire natives is moonrakers and this originated from a story of smugglers who managed to foil the local Excise men by hiding their alcohol, possibly French brandy in barrels or kegs, in a village pond. The officials took them for simple yokels or mad and left them alone, many villages claim the tale for their own village pond, but the story is most commonly linked with The Crammer in Devizes. Two-thirds of Wiltshire, a rural county, lies on chalk. This chalk is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group, the largest area of chalk in Wiltshire is Salisbury Plain, which is used mainly for arable agriculture and by the British Army as training ranges. The highest point in the county is the Tan Hill–Milk Hill ridge in the Pewsey Vale, just to the north of Salisbury Plain, the chalk uplands run northeast into West Berkshire in the Marlborough Downs ridge, and southwest into Dorset as Cranborne Chase. Cranborne Chase, which straddles the border, has, like Salisbury Plain, yielded much Stone Age, the Marlborough Downs are part of the North Wessex Downs AONB, a 1,730 km2 conservation area
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Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide
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Civil parish
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In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority. It is a parish, in contrast to an ecclesiastical parish. A civil parish can range in size from a town with a population of around 80,000 to a single village with fewer than a hundred inhabitants. In a limited number of cases a parish might include a city where city status has been granted by the Monarch. Reflecting this diverse nature, a parish may be known as a town, village. Approximately 35% of the English population live in a civil parish, as of 31 December 2015 there were 10,449 parishes in England. On 1 April 2014, Queens Park became the first civil parish in Greater London, before 2008 their creation was not permitted within a London borough. The division of land into ancient parishes was linked to the system, parishes. The manor was the unit of local administration and justice in the early rural economy. Later the church replaced the court as the rural administrative centre. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the power to levy a rate to fund relief of the poor was conferred on the authorities by the Act for the Relief of the Poor 1601. Both before and after this optional social change, local charities are well-documented, the parish authorities were known as vestries and consisted of all the ratepayers of the parish. As the number of ratepayers of some parishes grew, it increasingly difficult to convene meetings as an open vestry. In some, mostly built up, areas the select vestry took over responsibility from the body of ratepayers. This innovation improved efficiency, but allowed governance by a self-perpetuating elite, by the 18th century, religious membership was becoming more fractured in some places, due for instance to the progress of Methodism. The legitimacy of the parish came into question and the perceived inefficiency. Sanitary districts covered England in 1875 and Ireland three years later, the replacement boards were each entitled to levy their own rate in the parish. The church rate ceased to be levied in many parishes and became voluntary from 1868, the ancient parishes diverged into two distinct systems of parishes during the 19th century
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Districts of England
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The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of government in England is not uniform. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs, these are purely honorific titles, prior to the establishment of districts in the 1890s, the basic unit of local government in England was the parish overseen by the parish church vestry committee. Vestries dealt with the administraction of both parochial and secular governmental matters, parishes were the successors of the manorial system and historically had been grouped into hundreds. Hundreds once exercised some supervising administrative function, however, these powers ebbed away as more and more civic and judicial powers were centred on county towns. From 1834 these parishes were grouped into Poor Law Unions, creating areas for administration of the Poor Law and these areas were later used for census registration and as the basis for sanitary provision. In 1894, based on these earlier subdivisions, the Local Government Act 1894 created urban districts and rural districts as sub-divisions of administrative counties, another reform in 1900 created 28 metropolitan boroughs as sub-divisions of the County of London. Meanwhile, from this date parish-level local government administration was transferred to civil parishes, the setting-down of the current structure of districts in England began in 1965, when Greater London and its 32 London boroughs were created. They are the oldest type of still in use. In 1974, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties were created across the rest of England and were split into metropolitan districts, in London power is now shared again, albeit on a different basis, with the Greater London Authority. During the 1990s a further kind of district was created, the unitary authority, metropolitan boroughs are a subdivision of a metropolitan county. These are similar to unitary authorities, as the county councils were abolished in 1986. Most of the powers of the county councils were devolved to the districts but some services are run by joint boards, the districts typically have populations of 174,000 to 1.1 million. Non-metropolitan districts are second-tier authorities, which share power with county councils and they are subdivisions of shire counties and the most common type of district. These districts typically have populations of 25,000 to 200,000, the number of non-metropolitan districts has varied over time. Initially there were 296, after the creation of unitary authorities in the 1990s and late 2000s and these are single-tier districts which are responsible for running all local services in their areas, combining both county and district functions. They were created in the out of non-metropolitan districts, and often cover large towns. In addition, some of the smaller such as Rutland, Herefordshire
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Wiltshire Council
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Wiltshire Council is the unitary authority for most of the ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in the West of England, created in April 2009. The council is led by Jane Scott, who had led the former Wiltshire County Council since 2003. The ceremonial county of Wiltshire consists of two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, administered respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. Before April 2009, Wiltshire was administered as a county by Wiltshire County Council, with four districts, Kennet, North Wiltshire, Salisbury. Swindon, in the north of the county, had been a unitary authority since 1997. This was later put into effect by an instrument as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England. To date, this has one of the most successful Unitary initiatives in the UK, achieved on time and under budget. With the abolition of the District of Salisbury, a new Salisbury City Council was created at the time to carry out several city-wide functions. Most executive decisions are taken by the cabinet, each member of which has a particular area of responsibility. Development control is undertaken by five planning committees, the powers of which cannot be exercised by the cabinet, the overall result was 58 Conservatives,27 Liberals, eight Independents, four Labour, and one UKIP member. Wiltshire Council operates from the same Trowbridge base as the old Wiltshire County Council, in 2012 the County Hall building was revamped at a cost of about £24 million
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Ceremonial counties of England
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk
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Regions of England
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The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards
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South West England
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South West England is one of nine official regions of England. It is the largest in area, covering 9,200 square miles, five million people live in South West England. The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex, other major urban centres include Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bath, Torbay, and the South East Dorset conurbation. There are eight cities, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Bristol, Gloucester, Exeter, Plymouth and it includes two entire national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor, and four World Heritage Sites, including Stonehenge and the Jurassic Coast. The northern part of Gloucestershire, near Chipping Campden, is as close to the Scottish border as it is to the tip of Cornwall, the region has by far the longest coastline in England and many seaside fishing towns. The region is at the first-level of NUTS for Eurostat purposes, key data and facts about the region are produced by the South West Observatory. Following the abolition of the South West Regional Assembly and Government Office, the region is known for its rich folklore, including the legend of King Arthur and Glastonbury Tor, as well as its traditions and customs. Cornwall has its own language, Cornish, and some regard it as a Celtic nation, the South West of England is known for Cheddar cheese, which originated in the Somerset village of Cheddar, Devon cream teas, crabs, Cornish pasties, and cider. It is also home to the Eden Project, Aardman Animations, the Glastonbury Festival, most of the region is located on the South West Peninsula, between the English Channel and Bristol Channel. It has the longest coastline of all the English regions, totalling over 700 miles, much of the coast is now protected from further substantial development because of its environmental importance, which contributes to the region’s attractiveness to tourists and residents. Geologically the region is divided into the largely igneous and metamorphic west and sedimentary east, Cornwall and West Devons landscape is of rocky coastline and high moorland, notably at Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. These are due to the granite and slate that underlie the area, the highest point of the region is High Willhays, at 2,038 feet, on Dartmoor. In North Devon the slates of the west and limestones of the east meet at Exmoor National Park, the variety of rocks of similar ages seen here have led to the countys name being lent to that of the Devonian period. The east of the region is characterised by wide, flat clay vales and chalk, the vales, with good irrigation, are home to the regions dairy agriculture. The Blackmore Vale was Thomas Hardys Vale of the Little Dairies, another and these downs are the principal area of arable agriculture in the region. Limestone is also found in the region, at the Cotswolds, Quantock Hills and Mendip Hills, all of the principal rock types can be seen on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and East Devon, where they document the entire Mesozoic era from west to east. The climate of South West England is classed as oceanic according to the Köppen climate classification, the oceanic climate typically experiences cool winters with warmer summers and precipitation all year round, with more experienced in winter. Annual rainfall is about 1,000 millimetres and up to 2,000 millimetres on higher ground, summer maxima averages range from 18 °C to 22 °C and winter minimum averages range from 1 °C to 4 °C across the south-west
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Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
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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
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United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
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Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code. All mobile telephone numbers have 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code, regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long, the total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits. The area code is referred to as an STD or a dialling code in the UK. The code allocated to the largest population is for London, the code allocated to the largest area is for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—even though they are not part of the UK itself. Possible number formats for UK telephone numbers are as follows, Number ranges starting 01 can have NSN length as 10 or 9 digits, the 0800 range can have NSN length as 10,9 or 7 digits. The 0845 range can have NSN length as 10 or 7 digits, the 0500 range has NSN length as 9 digits only. There are no numbers in the UK with an NSN length of 8 digits. Geographic telephone numbers in the UK always have nine or ten digits, four-digit area codes have either six-digit subscriber numbers or a mix of five- and six-digit subscriber numbers. Xxxxxx This is the used by most areas. It has an area code and a six digit subscriber number. These area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995. Just short of 581 areas use this format, and the area range from 01200 to 01998. A small number of areas also have a few subscriber numbers that have only five digits. That is, almost all area codes now have only six digit local numbers, six of the four-digit area codes are known as mixed areas as they share those four digits with the twelve five-digit area codes. The numbers therefore have only nine digits after the initial zero trunk code and these area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the initial zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995
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Wiltshire Police
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Wiltshire Police, formerly known as the Wiltshire Constabulary, is the territorial police force responsible for policing Wiltshire and Swindon in the south-west of England. Before 1839, policing in Wiltshire was the responsibility of petty and parish constables and this was largely ineffective as they were unpaid and untrained. Independent and private forces, such as the Devizes Prosecution Society, the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 meant that Salisbury Borough was formed and was required to have an official city force, that would replace the local force, New Sarum Police. The official handover took place on 1 April 1943, when the County Police Act 1839 was introduced, Wiltshire leapt at the chance to form a police force. As a result Wiltshire Constabulary was established on Wednesday 13 November 1839 at The Bear Hotel, Devizes and was the first county police force to be formed, beating Gloucestershire by a few hours. The first Chief Constable was Captain Samuel Meredith RN who placed an advertisement in the paper to recruit 200 constables who were paid 17/6d a week. New constables were given their uniform and a booklet and then sent off to work without any training or guidance. It wasnt until 1843 that they were given training, Wiltshire Constabulary started operating from January 1840 and had filled almost all its posts by summertime. The Chief Constable spent the first months of his time visiting all the boroughs in Wiltshire, the first ranks were only Constable and Superintendent, but Sergeant, Inspector, Detectives and five classes of Constable were later introduced. Its motto, Primus et Optimus, means the First and the Best, on 6 July 1961, Sir Charles Carter Chitham, a retired policeman of the former British India, laid the foundation stone of the new Wiltshire Police county headquarters at Devizes. Twice in the 1980s, Wiltshire Police officers had to cover for the officers of Erlestoke Prison when they went on strike. The incident led to accusations of a police riot, the police also had to deal with the Greenham Common Womens Peace Camp who were protesting against nuclear weapons being kept in Greenham Common, Berkshire. Most significantly the 1980s saw the introduction of the Police National Computer, Command and Control systems, also a national probationary training programme was introduced in all forces for new recruits. In January 2008, Brian Moore was appointed as Chief Constable of Wiltshire Police and he took over following the departure of Martin Richards, who transferred to become Chief Constable of Sussex Police on 1 October 2007. The Deputy Chief Constable was former Wiltshire Assistant Chief Patrick Geenty, the Assistant Chief Constable is former Detective Chief Superintendent and Divisional Commander Mike Veale. Until his replacement was chosen the role was filled by the deputy Chief Constable, now Temporary Chief Constable, under the leadership of Chief Constable Moore, Wiltshire Police became the safest county in the country. 1839–1870 Captain Samuel Meredith RN 1870–1908 Captain Robert Sterne RN 1908–1943 Colonel Sir Höel Llewellyn DSO, the police authority had nine councillor members, who were appointed from Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council, and eight independent members, one of whom was a justice of the peace. The responsible government department is the Home Office, on 15 November 2012, the Police and Crime Commissioner elections took place in England and Wales
15.
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They are distinct from and governed by an authority, which is the legislative, public and administrative body. Fire authorities in England and Wales, and therefore fire and rescue services, Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire and rescue services, and so their authorities are effectively committees of the devolved parliaments. The total budget for services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. The devolved government in Scotland has an agency, HMFSI Scotland. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain,1947, Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed entirely in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire,1959, Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act, it dealt with pensions, staffing arrangements and provision of services by other authorities. It was repealed in England and Wales along with the 1947 Act,1999, Greater London Authority Act 1999 This act was necessary to allow for the formation of the Greater London Authority and in turn the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2002, there was a series of fire strikes. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the action still ongoing. Bains report ultimately led to a change in the relating to firefighting. 2002, Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, generally only applying to England and it came into force on 1 October 2006. The DfCLG has published a set of guides for non-domestic premises,2006, The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave the National Assembly for Wales powers to pass laws on Fire, promotion of fire safety otherwise than by prohibition or regulation. But does not prevent future legislation being passed by the UK government which applies to two or more constituent countries, There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. The fire service in England and Wales is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee, in June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office, Fire Control On 8 February 2010 the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee heard evidence on the Fire Control project. Called to give evidence were Cllr Brian Coleman and Cllr James Pearson from the Local Government Association, also giving evidence Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union and John Bonney Chief Fire Officers Association
16.
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland. The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are also a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles. There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have also provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are also monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
17.
South Western Ambulance Service
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The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the National Health Service across South West England. On March 1,2011 SWASFT was the first ambulance service in the country to become a Foundation Trust, the Trust merged with neighbouring Great Western Ambulance Service on 1 February 2013. SWASFT serves a population of more than 5.3 million, the operational area is predominantly rural but also has large urban centres including Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter, Truro, Bath, Swindon, Gloucester, Bournemouth and Poole. The Trust’s core operations include, Emergency ambulance 999 services Urgent Care Services – GP out-of-hours medical care NHS111 call-handling and triage services Tiverton Urgent Care Centre. It is one of ten Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency services and employs more than 4,000 mainly clinical and operational staff plus GPs. The Trust is one of the largest in England and it covers an area of 51,871 km and 827 miles of coastline. In 2015/16 approximately one in eight 999 calls to South Western Ambulance Service are treated over the telephone, hear and treat is 12. 7% of calls and means the patient receives clinical advice over the telephone. For 36. 4% of incidents the patients experience see and treat, in a further 7. 7% of incidents, the patient is taken to a non-emergency hospital department so that might mean a community hospital or minor injuries unit. The remaining incidents result in a patient being taken to an emergency department. SWASFT is the best performing ambulance service in the country for non-conveyance rates, in addition approximately 62% of patients taken to hospital are admitted – this is again the highest performance for an ambulance trust in the country. SWASFT place a lot of emphasis on patient experience and actively encourage feedback about its services - whether positive or negative, lessons learned from the feedback, and all improvements and changes, are reported to its Board of Directors. The Trust also engages with patients and the public at events and shows, the number of compliments received by the Trust in 2014/15 increased by 41% to 2,055. Complaints also rose by 20% to 1,268, the easiest way to contact the Trust is online at their website. In May 2014 the Trust won a contract to run a minor injuries unit at Tiverton and District Hospital
18.
Salisbury (UK Parliament constituency)
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Salisbury is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by John Glen, a Conservative. From 1295, a form of this constituency on a narrower area and this afforded the ability for wealthy male townsfolk who owned property rated at more than £2 a year liability in Land Tax to vote in the county and borough. The franchise in the town was restricted to male tradespersons and professionals within the central town wards. Under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, the representation was reduced to one member. The parliamentary borough of Salisbury was abolished for the 1918 general election however the name transferred immediately to a new county division, 1918-1950, The Municipal Boroughs of Salisbury and Wilton, and the Rural Districts of Amesbury, Salisbury, Tisbury, and Wilton. 1950-1983, The Municipal Boroughs of Salisbury and Wilton, and the Rural Districts of Amesbury, the constituency is based around the city of Salisbury in Wiltshire. A large portion of the former Salisbury district, excluding a part to the west, is included within the constituency, downton was a former borough constituency until abolished as a rotten borough, like Old Sarum, in 1832. At the end of 2012 the unemployment rate in the constituency stood as 1. 6% of the population claiming jobseekers allowance, compared to the regional average of 2. 5%. The rural county as a whole has a low 14. 8% of its population without a car,18. 6% of the population without qualifications and a high 29. 5% with level 4 qualifications or above. In terms of tenure across the whole county 67. 5% of homes are owned outright or on a mortgage as at the 2011 census, constituency created 1295 List of Parliamentary constituencies in Wiltshire Notes References Craig, F. W. S
19.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
20.
Prehistory
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Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
21.
Stonehenge
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Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England,2 miles west of Amesbury and 8 miles north of Salisbury. Stonehenge consists of ring of standing stones, with each standing stone around 4.1 metres high,2.1 metres wide and weighing around 25 tons. The stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the most dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, archaeologists believe it was constructed from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC. Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as early as 3000 BC, one of the most famous landmarks in the UK, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon. It has been a legally protected Scheduled Ancient Monument since 1882 when legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully introduced in Britain, the site and its surroundings were added to UNESCOs list of World Heritage Sites in 1986. Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage, Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings. Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the ditch and bank were first dug, William Stukeley in 1740 notes, Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire. I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones. Like Stonehenges trilithons, medieval gallows consisted of two uprights with a lintel joining them, rather than the inverted L-shape more familiar today, the henge portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges. Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from antiquarian use, Stonehenge evolved in several construction phases spanning at least 1500 years. There is evidence of construction on and around the monument that perhaps extends the landscapes time frame to 6500 years. The modern phasing most generally agreed to by archaeologists is detailed below, features mentioned in the text are numbered and shown on the plan, right. Archaeologists have found four, or possibly five, large Mesolithic postholes and these held pine posts around 0.75 metres in diameter, which were erected and eventually rotted in situ. Three of the posts were in an east-west alignment which may have had significance, no parallels are known from Britain at the time. A settlement that may have been contemporaneous with the posts has been found at Blick Mead, a reliable year round spring 1 mile from Stonehenge. Salisbury Plain was then still wooded but 4,000 years later, during the earlier Neolithic, people built an enclosure at Robin Hoods Ball. In approximately 3500 BC, a Stonehenge Cursus was built 700 metres north of the site as the first farmers began to clear the trees, a number of other adjacent stone and wooden structures and burial mounds, previously overlooked, may date as far back as 4000 BC
22.
Amesbury Archer
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The Amesbury Archer is an early Bronze Age man whose grave was discovered during excavations at the site of a new housing development in Amesbury near Stonehenge. The grave was uncovered in May 2002, and the man is believed to date from about 2300 BC and he is nicknamed the Archer because of the many arrowheads that were among the artefacts buried with him. The Archers grave yielded the greatest number of artefacts found in a Bronze Age burial in Britain. On his forearm was a black stone wrist-guard, a similar red wrist-guard was by his knees. With the second wrist-guard was a shale belt ring and a pair of hair ornaments. Research using oxygen isotope analysis in the Archers tooth enamel has suggested that he may have originated from a region of central Europe. An eroded hole in his jaw showed that in life he had suffered from an abscess and his skeleton is now on display at the Salisbury Museum in Salisbury. This younger man, sometimes called the Archer’s Companion, appears to have raised in a more local climate. The Archer was estimated to be about forty at the time of his death, the graves were discovered only a short distance from the Boscombe Bowmen, whose bones were excavated the following year. The Archer was quickly dubbed the King of Stonehenge in the British press due to the proximity of the famous monument, however, this cannot be known for sure and more recently archaeologists have reconsidered the idea. Tim Darvill regards the skeleton as possibly that of a pilgrim to Stonehenge to draw on the properties of the bluestones. However his grave is of importance because of its connections with Continental Europe. The character of Arthmael in Mark Pattons novel, Undreamed Shores, is based on the archer, the Amesbury Archer in Current Archaeology 184, pp 146–152 Stone, R.2005. Mystery Man of Stonehenge in Smithsonian Magazine August 2005, pp 62–7, the Tribes of Britain, pp 78–82 Brayne, J.2016
23.
Alfred the Great
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Alfred the Great was King of Wessex from 871 to 899. Alfred successfully defended his kingdom against the Viking attempt at conquest and he is one of only two English monarchs to be given the epithet the Great, the other being the Scandinavian Cnut the Great. He was also the first King of the West Saxons to style himself King of the Anglo-Saxons, details of Alfreds life are described in a work by the 10th-century Welsh scholar and bishop Asser. In 2002, Alfred was ranked number 14 in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Alfred was born in the village of Wanating, now Wantage, historically in Berkshire but now in Oxfordshire. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf of Wessex by his first wife, Osburh. In 853, at the age of four, Alfred is reported by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to have sent to Rome, where he was confirmed by Pope Leo IV. Victorian writers later interpreted this as a coronation in preparation for his eventual succession to the throne of Wessex. This is unlikely, his succession could not have foreseen at the time. A letter of Leo IV shows that Alfred was made a consul and it may also be based on Alfreds later having accompanied his father on a pilgrimage to Rome, where he spent some time at the court of Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, around 854–855. On their return from Rome in 856, Æthelwulf was deposed by his son Æthelbald, with civil war looming, the magnates of the realm met in council to hammer out a compromise. Æthelbald would retain the western shires, and Æthelwulf would rule in the east, when King Æthelwulf died in 858, Wessex was ruled by three of Alfreds brothers in succession, Æthelbald, Æthelberht and Æthelred. Bishop Asser tells the story of how as a child Alfred won as a prize a book of Saxon poems, legend also has it that the young Alfred spent time in Ireland seeking healing. Alfred was troubled by health problems throughout his life and it is thought that he may have suffered from Crohns disease. Statues of Alfred in Winchester and Wantage portray him as a great warrior, evidence suggests he was not physically strong, and though not lacking in courage, he was noted more for his intellect than as a warlike character. During the short reigns of the two of his three elder brothers, Æthelbald of Wessex and Æthelberht of Wessex, Alfred is not mentioned. This arrangement may have been sanctioned by Alfreds father, or by the Witan, the arrangement of crowning a successor as royal prince and military commander is well known among other Germanic tribes, such as the Swedes and Franks, to whom the Anglo-Saxons were closely related. In 868, Alfred is recorded as fighting beside Æthelred in an attempt to keep the Great Heathen Army, led by Ivar the Boneless. At the end of 870, the Danes arrived in his homeland, the year which followed has been called Alfreds year of battles
24.
British Library
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The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and the second largest library in the world by number of items catalogued. It holds well over 150 million items from many countries, as a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. The Librarys collections include around 14 million books, along with holdings of manuscripts. In addition to receiving a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland, the Library adds some three million items every year occupying 9.6 kilometres of new shelf space. Prior to 1973, the Library was part of the British Museum, the Euston Road building is classified as a Grade I listed building, of exceptional interest for its architecture and history. The British Library was created on 1 July 1973 as a result of the British Library Act 1972. Prior to this, the library was part of the British Museum. In 1983, the Library absorbed the National Sound Archive, which holds many sound and video recordings, with over a million discs, the core of the Librarys historical collections is based on a series of donations and acquisitions from the 18th century, known as the foundation collections. From 1997 to 2009 the main collection was housed in this new building. Construction work on the Newspaper Storage Building was completed in 2013, the collection has now been split between the St Pancras and Boston Spa sites. The British Library Document Supply Service and the Librarys Document Supply Collection is based on the site in Boston Spa. Collections housed in Yorkshire, comprising low-use material and the newspaper and Document Supply collections, the Library previously had a book storage depot in Woolwich, south-east London, which is no longer in use. The new library was designed specially for the purpose by the architect Colin St John Wilson, facing Euston Road is a large piazza that includes pieces of public art, such as large sculptures by Eduardo Paolozzi and Antony Gormley. It is the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century, in December 2009 a new storage building at Boston Spa was opened by Rosie Winterton. The building was Grade I listed on 1 August 2015, in England, Legal Deposit can be traced back to at least 1610. The other five libraries are, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the University Library at Cambridge, the Trinity College Library at Dublin, in 2003 the Ipswich MP Chris Mole introduced a Private Members Bill which became the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. The Act extends United Kingdom legal deposit requirements to electronic documents, such as CD-ROMs, the Library also holds the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections which include the India Office Records and materials in the languages of Asia and of north and north-east Africa
25.
Eleanor of Provence
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Eleanor of Provence was Queen consort of England, as the spouse of King Henry III of England, from 1236 until his death in 1272. She served as regent of England during the absence of her spouse in 1253, although she was completely devoted to her husband, and staunchly defended him against the rebel Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, she was very much hated by the Londoners. On one occasion, Eleanors barge was attacked by citizens who pelted her with stones, mud, pieces of paving, rotten eggs. Eleanor was the mother of five children, including the future King Edward I of England and she also was renowned for her cleverness, skill at writing poetry, and as a leader of fashion. Born in Aix-en-Provence, she was the daughter of Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence and Beatrice of Savoy. She was well educated as a child, and developed a love of reading. Her three sisters also married kings, after her elder sister Margaret married Louis IX of France, their uncle William corresponded with Henry III of England to persuade him to marry Eleanor. Like her mother, grandmother, and sisters, Eleanor was renowned for her beauty and she was a dark-haired brunette with fine eyes. Piers Langtoft speaks of her as The erles daughter, the fairest may of life, on 22 June 1235, Eleanor was betrothed to King Henry III. Eleanor was probably born in 1223, Matthew Paris describes her as being jamque duodennem when she arrived in the Kingdom of England for her marriage, Eleanor was married to King Henry III of England on 14 January 1236. She had never seen him prior to the wedding at Canterbury Cathedral and had never set foot in his kingdom, edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated. She was dressed in a golden gown that fitted tightly at the waist. The sleeves were long and lined with ermine, Eleanor and Henry together had five children, Edward I, married Eleanor of Castile in 1254, by whom he had issue, including his heir Edward II. His second wife was Margaret of France, by whom he had issue, Margaret, married King Alexander III of Scotland, by whom she had issue. Beatrice, married John II, Duke of Brittany, by whom she had issue, edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster, married Aveline de Forz in 1269, who died four years later without issue, married Blanche of Artois in 1276, by whom he had issue. Katherine Four others are listed, but their existence is in doubt as there is no record of them. It was because of her influence that King Henry granted the duchy of Gascony to Edward in 1249 and her youngest child, Katherine, seems to have had a degenerative disease that rendered her deaf. When the little girl died at the age of three, both her parents suffered overwhelming grief
26.
Queen consort of England
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The Kingdom of England merged with the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707, to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. There have thus been no consorts of England since that date, in 1066, the Duke of Normandy, William, killed King Harold II of England at the battle of Hastings, and overthrew the English elite. He established himself as King, his wife Matilda as Queen consort and his dynasty would not, however, outlive his children, becoming defunct with the death of his youngest son, Henry I, in 1135. In 1135, Stephen of Blois, the son of Henry Is sister Adela, seized the English throne and his wife, Matilda of Boulogne, became his Queen consort, but her elder son died, and Stephen was forced to appoint the Empresss son as his successor. With the death of Elizabeth I, the crown of England passed to her cousin and nearest heir, James VI of Scotland and his dynasty would rule - interrupted by the Interregnum between 1649 and 1660 - until 1714. The Kingdom of England, however, was merged with the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707, to form a new Kingdom, for the continuation of this list, go to List of British consorts
27.
Henry III of England
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Henry III, also known as Henry of Winchester, was King of England, Lord of Ireland and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death. The son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, Henry assumed the throne when he was nine in the middle of the First Barons War. Cardinal Guala declared the war against the barons to be a religious crusade and Henrys forces, led by William Marshal, defeated the rebels at the battles of Lincoln. Henry promised to abide by the Great Charter of 1225, which limited royal power and his early rule was dominated first by Hubert de Burgh and then Peter des Roches, who re-established royal authority after the war. In 1230 the King attempted to reconquer the provinces of France that had belonged to his father. A revolt led by William Marshals son, Richard, broke out in 1232, following the revolt, Henry ruled England personally, rather than governing through senior ministers. He travelled less than previous monarchs, investing heavily in a handful of his palaces and castles. He married Eleanor of Provence, with whom he had five children, in a fresh attempt to reclaim his familys lands in France, he invaded Poitou in 1242, leading to the disastrous Battle of Taillebourg. After this, Henry relied on diplomacy, cultivating an alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Henry supported his brother Richard in his bid to become King of the Romans in 1256 and he planned to go on crusade to the Levant, but was prevented from doing so by rebellions in Gascony. The baronial regime collapsed but Henry was unable to reform a stable government, in 1263 one of the more radical barons, Simon de Montfort, seized power, resulting in the Second Barons War. Henry persuaded Louis to support his cause and mobilised an army, the Battle of Lewes occurred in 1264, where Henry was defeated and taken prisoner. Henrys eldest son, Edward, escaped captivity to defeat de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham the following year. Henry initially enacted a harsh revenge on the rebels, but was persuaded by the Church to mollify his policies through the Dictum of Kenilworth. Reconstruction was slow and Henry had to acquiesce to various measures, including suppression of the Jews, to maintain baronial. Henry died in 1272, leaving Edward as his successor and he was buried in Westminster Abbey, which he had rebuilt in the second half of his reign, and was moved to his current tomb in 1290. Some miracles were declared after his death but he was not canonised, Henry was born in Winchester Castle on 1 October 1207. He was the eldest son of King John and Isabella of Angoulême, little is known of Henrys early life
28.
Amesbury Priory
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Amesbury /ˈeɪmzbəri/ is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is most famous for the monument of Stonehenge which is in its parish. It has been confirmed by archaeologists that it is the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the United Kingdom, King Alfred the Great left it in his will, a copy of which is in the British Library, to his youngest son Aethelweard. Eleanor of Provence, queen of England, died in Amesbury on 24 or 25 June 1291, the parish includes the hamlets of Ratfyn and West Amesbury, and most of Boscombe Down military airfield. Amesbury is located in southern Wiltshire,7 miles north of Salisbury on the A345 and it sits in the River Avon valley on the southern fringes of Salisbury Plain and has historically been considered an important river crossing area on the road from London to Warminster and Exeter. This has continued into the present with the building of the A303 across the Avon next to the town, the nearest railway station is located at nearby Grateley, on the London to Salisbury line. The land around Amesbury has been settled since prehistoric times, evidenced by the monument of Stonehenge and they are now on display at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum. Amesbury is recognized as the oldest continuously occupied UK settlement, during the Iron Age a large hill fort now known as Vespasians Camp was built alongside the Avenue and overlooking the River Avon. The fort could easily have catered for up to 1000 people and it is likely that there was a large Romano-British settlement overlooking the River Avon at this point. It has been suggested that the name of Amesbury is derived from Ambrosius Aurelianus, if this is the case he is likely to have used the hill fort as a stronghold. It is possible that an order of monks established a monastery in the area that was destroyed by the Saxons before they settled the area in the 7th century. Amesbury is also associated with the Arthurian legend, the convent to which Guinevere retired was said to have been the one at Amesbury. In 979 AD a Benedictine abbey, the Abbey of St Mary, in 1177 the abbey was dissolved by Henry II and replaced with a double priory of the Fontevrault order. Eleanor of Provence was buried in the abbey on 11 September 1291, Amesbury became an estate and was given to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford by the crown. On John Speeds map of Wiltshire, the name is spelt both Amesbury and Ambersbury. The Seymour family held Amesbury estate until 1675 and had several homes built, including Kent and Diana houses. The estate subsequently passed to the Bruce family, and then to Lord Carleton and it remained in the Queensberry family until 1824. The mansion remained in their hands until 1979, by a decree in Chancery of 1831, the freedom of the grammar school was extended to children of mechanics, artisans, and small tradesmen
29.
MoD Boscombe Down
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MoD Boscombe Down is an aircraft testing site located at Amesbury in Wiltshire, England. It is run and managed by QinetiQ, the created as part of the breakup of the Defence Evaluation. It is the home of the Empire Test Pilots School, the site was formerly known as RAF Boscombe Down and since 1939 has evaluated aircraft for the British armed forces. The following squadrons were based here between 1930 and 1939, No.9 Squadron RAF between 1930 and 1935 with the Vickers Virginia, No.10 Squadron RAF between 1931 and 1937 with the Virginia and the Handley Page Heyford. No.51 Squadron RAF between 1937 and 1938 with the Virginia, Avro Anson and the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, No.58 Squadron RAF between 1937 and 1938 with the Anson and the Whitley. No.78 Squadron RAF between 1936 and 1937 with the Heyford, No.88 Squadron RAF between 1937 and 1939 with the Hawker Hind and the Fairey Battle. No.97 Squadron RAF between 1935 and 1937 with the Heyford, No.150 Squadron RAF between 1938 and 1939 with the Battle. No.166 Squadron RAF between 1936 and 1937 with the Heyford, No.214 Squadron RAF between 1935 and 1935 with the Virginia. No.217 Squadron RAF between 1937 and 1937 with the Anson, No.218 Squadron RAF between 1938 and 1939 with the Battle. No.224 Squadron RAF between 1937 and 1937 with the Anson, No.35 Squadron RAF during 1940 with the Handley Page Halifax I. No.56 Squadron RAF during 1940 with the Hawker Hurricane I, No.109 Squadron RAF between 1940 and 1942 with the Whitley, Anson and Vickers Wellington. No.249 Squadron RAF during 1940 with the Hurricane.1067, Westland Wyvern and it was also formerly home to the School of Aviation Medicine. In 1992 the site was renamed the Aircraft and Armament Evaluation Establishment when experimental work moved to the Defence Research Agency. Responsibility for the site passed from the MoD Procurement Executive to the Defence Test and Evaluation Organisation in 1993, following the creation of QinetiQ in 2001, a 25-year Long Term Partnering Agreement was established with the MOD. Boscombe Down remains a government airfield but operated by QinetiQ on behalf of the MOD, the Joint Test and Evaluation Group was established under the control of RAF Air Command and together with QinetiQ forms the Aircraft Test and Evaluation Centre. This unique partnership is charged with the test and evaluation of future, the military personnel of the JTEG play a central role in the test and evaluation process alongside their QinetiQ colleagues. A small part of Boscombes history is being preserved in the US, the Anglo American Lightning Organisation are returning to flight the former ETPS English Electric Lightning, XS422. The group is basing the restoration in the US as the CAA is expected to refuse permission for the aircraft to fly in the UK
30.
Salisbury
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Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England, and the only city within the county. It is the third-largest settlement in the county, after Swindon and Chippenham, with a population of 40,302, the city is located in the southeast of Wiltshire, near the edge of Salisbury Plain. Its cathedral was located to the north at Old Sarum, following its relocation. The new town received its city charter in 1227 under the name New Sarum, which continued to be its name until 2009. It sits at the confluence of five rivers, the Nadder, Ebble, Wylye, and Bourne are tributary to the Hampshire Avon, which flows to the south coast and into the sea at Christchurch in Dorset. Salisbury railway station serves the city and is a regional interchange, Stonehenge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is about 8 miles northwest of Salisbury and greatly aids the local economy. The city itself, Old Sarum, the present cathedral and the ruins of the one also attract visitors. The first part of the name is of obscure origin, the form Sarum is a Latinization of Sar, a medieval abbreviation for Sarisberie. Salisbury appeared in the Welsh Chronicle of the Britons as Caer-Caradog, Caer-Gradawc, cair-Caratauc, one of the 28 British cities listed in the History of the Britons, has also been identified with Salisbury. The hilltop at Old Sarum lies near the Neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury and it commanded a salient between the River Bourne and the Hampshire Avon near a crossroads of several early trade routes. During the Iron Age, a hillfort was constructed around it sometime between 600 and 300 BC, the Romans may have occupied the site or left it in the hands of an allied tribe. Amid the Saxon invasions, Old Sarum fell to King Cynric of Wessex in 552, preferring settlements in bottomland like nearby Wilton, the Saxons largely ignored Old Sarum until the Viking invasions led King Alfred to restore its fortifications. Along with Wilton, however, it was abandoned by its residents to be sacked and burned by the Dano-Norwegian king Sweyn Forkbeard in 1003 and it subsequently became the site of Wiltons mint. Following the Norman invasion, a castle was constructed by 1070. The castle was directly by the Norman kings, its castellan was generally also the sheriff of Wiltshire. Hermann and his successor Saint Osmund began the construction of the first Salisbury cathedral, the cathedral was consecrated on 5 April 1092 but suffered extensive damage in a storm, traditionally said to have occurred only five days later. Bishop Roger was an ally of Henry I who served as his viceroy during the kings absence to Normandy and directed the royal administration. He refurbished and expanded Old Sarums cathedral in the 1110s and began work on a palace during the 1130s
31.
A345 road
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The A345 is a secondary A road in Wiltshire, England running from Salisbury to Marlborough and the A4. The road is a main link across Salisbury Plain, which is renowned for its rich archaeology. At this point it passes within 2 miles of the World Heritage Site at Stonehenge, continuing north, the road passes near to Woodhenge and the Ministry of Defence Royal School of Artillery base at Larkhill. This part of the route can be hazardous as there are often tanks crossing, the next significant places are Netheravon, and then Upavon where the road briefly separates into a one-way system around the village, running concurrently with the A342 to Devizes. From here the A345 goes to Pewsey, where the Pewsey White Horse is best viewed, originally the A345 extended north from Marlborough to a junction with the A419 at Commonhead, south east of Swindon. From there it went through Swindon to meet the A419 again at Blunsdon, when the M4 motorway was opened, the section from Marlborough to the motorway junction 15 became a northern extension of the A346. From the motorway to Commonhead, the became part of the A419. Between Amesbury and Durrington a 0, the southern terminus was originally further south along Castle Street at Salisbury market square, but with the opening of the Salisbury Inner Ring Road in 1969 the southern section was declassified
32.
River Avon, Hampshire
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The River Avon is a river in the south of England. It is sometimes known as the Salisbury Avon or the Hampshire Avon in order to distinguish it from the various other River Avons in England and it is one of the rivers in Britain in which the phenomenon of anchor ice has been observed. The Avon is thought to more species of fish than any other river in Britain. The rivers name is a tautology, Avon is derived from the Proto-Brythonic word meaning river, the Avon begins as two separate rivers. The western Avon rises to the east of Devizes, draining the Vale of Pewsey, and these two merge at Upavon, flowing southwards across Salisbury Plain through Durrington, Amesbury and Salisbury. All the significant direct and indirect tributaries of the Avon, including the Nadder, Wylye, Bourne and Ebble, about half of the length of the river is within Wiltshire, and only relatively short proportions are entirely within the current boundaries of Hampshire or Dorset. As there are two rivers with the name Avon in Wiltshire, this led to the river being popularly known as the Hampshire Avon or the Salisbury Avon, the Avon Valley Path runs parallel with the river from Salisbury to Christchurch. Court cases were brought in the 18th century concerning the loss of navigation of the river, one was in 1737 and another was in 1772. Canoeists seeking legitimate access to the Avon have recently identified a long-forgotten Act in their favour, the Act for making the River Avon navigable from Christchurch to the city of New Sarum was enacted in 1664 under Charles II. This act has not been repealed, hence remains in force, there is also a sister project called Living River which runs from 2006 to 2010. This is providing access and recreation, as well as biodiversity. The prize for 2009 was awarded to Lake Simcoe, in 1993 the Avon Valley between Bickton and Christchurch was designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Other Rivers Avon Rivers of the United Kingdom
33.
Salisbury Plain
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Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in central southern England covering 300 square miles. It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies within the county of Wiltshire, the plain is famous for its rich archaeology, including Stonehenge, one of Englands best known landmarks. Additionally the plain has arable land, and a few areas of beech trees. Its highest point is Easton Hill, the boundaries of Salisbury Plain have never been truly defined, and there is some difference of opinion as to its exact area. The river valleys surrounding it, and other downs and plains beyond them loosely define its boundaries, to the north the scarp of the downs overlooks the Vale of Pewsey, and to the north west the Bristol Avon. The River Wylye runs along the south west, and the Bourne runs to the east, the Hampshire Avon runs through the eastern half of the plain and to the south the plain peters out as the river valleys close together before meeting at Salisbury. From here the Avon continues south to the English Channel at Christchurch, the Hampshire Downs and the Berkshire Downs are chalk downland to the east and north of Salisbury Plain, and the Dorset Downs is to the south west. In the west and north west the geology is mainly of the clays and limestones of the Blackmore Vale, the A303 road runs along the southern area of the plain, while the A345 and the A360 cut across the centre. Salisbury Plain is famous for its history and archaeology, in the Neolithic period Stone Age man began to settle on the plain, most likely centred around the causewayed enclosure of Robin Hoods Ball. Large long barrows like White Barrow and other earthworks were built across the plain, by 2500 BC areas around Durrington Walls and Stonehenge had become a focus for building, and the southern part of the plain continued to be settled into the Bronze Age. Roman roads are visible features, probably serving a settlement near Old Sarum, villas are sparse, however, and Anglo-Saxon place names suggest that the plain was mostly a grain-producing imperial estate. In the 6th century Anglo-Saxon incomers built planned settlements in the valleys surrounded by strip lynchets, the cathedral is evidence of the prosperity the wool and cloth trade brought to the area. In the mid-19th century the wool and cloth industry began to decline, leading to a decline in the population and change in use from sheep farming to agriculture. Wiltshire became one of the poorest counties in England during this period of decline, there are a number of chalk carvings on the plain, of which the most famous is the Westbury White Horse. The Kennet and Avon Canal was constructed to the north of the plain, in 1896, George Kemp and Guglielmo Marconi experimented with wireless telegraphy on Salisbury Plain, and achieved good results over a distance of 1.75 miles. Media related to Army Training Estate Salisbury Plain at Wikimedia Commons The military training area covers roughly half of the plain, the army first conducted exercises on the plain in 1898. From that time, the Ministry of Defence bought up large areas of land until the Second World War, the MoD now own 150 square miles of land, making it the largest military training area in the United Kingdom. Of this, around 39 square miles are permanently closed to the public, as of 2016, the largest camps and barracks are at Larkhill, Bulford, Tidworth, Trenchard Lines and Warminster
34.
Warminster
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Warminster is a town and civil parish in western Wiltshire, England, by-passed by the A36 and the partly concurrent A350 between Westbury and Blandford Forum. It has a population of about 17,000, the River Were runs through the town and can be seen running through the middle of the town park. The Minster Church of St Denys sits on the River Were, the name Warminster first occurs in the early 10th century. Two Roman Villas have also discovered in the area, as have caches of Roman coins. By the 10th century, Warminster included a manor and an Anglo-Saxon Minster. The royal manor was passed to new lords in the 12th century, during the 13th century, a market was set up at Warminster, and by 1377 the town had 304 poll-tax payers, the tenth largest in Wiltshire. The towns name has evolved over time, known as Worgemynstre in approximately 912, the rivers name, Were may derive from the Old English worian to wander. During the English Civil War, between 1642 and 1645, the town was the site of a few incidents, a major for the Roundheads, Henry Wansey was besieged in Warminster, while a force under Edmund Ludlow entered a skirmish on Warminster Common whilst trying to relieve him. By 1646, the town had suffered £500 worth of damages by supporting the Roundheads, the market also included a significant corn trade throughout the period and was regarded as the second largest corn market in the west of England in 1830. The town had an amount of accommodation for visitors to the market. By 1710 there were approximately fifty inns and alehouses in the town, the town was an early adopter of the Turnpikes Act to improve the roads around the town. Unlike many roads improved at the time which would link to towns, Warminster chose to improve seven roads around the town, despite the prosperity, one settlement of houses near Warminster Common had a poor reputation. William Daniell wrote in 1781 that people were living in unplastered hovels with earth floors, the people were considered rude and drunk criminals. Daniell and members of the clergy were keen to help the residents, the town was significantly redesigned in after 1807 when George Wansey, who was from a family of clothiers in Warminster, left £1,000 to improve the town, provided it could be matched by fundraising. The money was spent on demolishing houses to widen roads, allowing for new houses to be built, in 1851, a railway line from West In 1907, a committee was put together to advertise the town, creating a town guide and advertising in national publications. Unfortunately the committee could not come to an agreement with Lord Bath over the location of a new hotel, between 1937 and 1961, a military presences formed at Warminster, with the addition of camps, a permanent Barracks at Battlesbury, married quarters and workshops for vehicle repairs. Warminster falls under two levels of government, Wiltshire Council and Warminster Town Council. The town council was established in April 1974, after the reorganisation which removed the Warminster Urban District Council which had established in 1894
35.
Exeter
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Exeter is a cathedral city in Devon, England with a population of 127,300. It lies within the county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council, currently, the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district and is therefore under the administration of the County Council. The city is on the River Exe about 37 miles northeast of Plymouth and 70 miles southwest of Bristol, Exeter was the most south-westerly Roman fortified settlement in Britain, although there is evidence a Cornish tribe existed in Exeter before the Roman invasion. Exeter became a centre during the Middle Ages and into the Tudor times, Exeter Cathedral, founded in the mid 11th century. During the late 19th century, Exeter became an affluent centre for the wool trade, after the Second World War, much of the city centre was rebuilt and is now considered to be a centre for modern business and tourism in Devon and Cornwall. The name Exe is a development of the Brittonic name—meaning water or, more exactly, full of fish —that also appears in the English Axe and Esk, the Welsh Usk. Exeter began as settlements on a dry ridge ending in a spur overlooking a navigable river teeming with fish, although there have been no major prehistoric finds, these advantages suggest the site was occupied early. Coins have been discovered from the Hellenistic kingdoms, suggesting the existence of a settlement trading with the Mediterranean as early as 250 BC. Such early towns had been a feature of pre-Roman Gaul as described by Julius Caesar in his Commentaries, the Romans established a 42-acre playing-card shaped fort named Isca around AD55. To distinguish the two, the Romans also referred to Exeter as Isca Dumnoniorum, Watertown of the Dumnonii, a small fort was also maintained at Topsham, a supply depot on the route between the two was excavated at St Loyes on Topsham Road in 2010. The presence of the built up an unplanned civilian community of natives. This area was excavated in the 1970s, but could not be maintained for public view owing to its proximity to the present-day cathedral, in January 2015, it was announced that Exeter Cathedral had launched a bid to restore the baths and open an underground centre for visitors. In the late 2nd century, the ditch and rampart defences around the old fortress were replaced by a bank and wall enclosing a much larger area, although most of the visible structure is older, the course of the Roman wall was used for Exeters subsequent city walls. Thus about 70% of the Roman wall remains, and most of its route can be traced on foot, the dating of the coins so far discovered, however, suggests a rapid decline, virtually none have been discovered dated after the year 380. By that time, the city was held by the Saxons, Exeter was known to the Saxons as Escanceaster. In 876, it was attacked and briefly captured by Danish Vikings, alfred the Great drove them out the next summer. Over the next few years, he elevated Exeter to one of the four burhs in Devon and these permitted the city to fend off another attack and siege by the Danes in 893. King Athelstan again strengthened the walls around 928, and at the time drove out the remaining Britons from the city
36.
A303 road
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The A303 is a trunk road in southern England, running between Basingstoke in Hampshire and Honiton in Devon via Stonehenge. Connecting the M3 and the A30, it is part of one of the routes from London to South West England. It is a primary A road throughout its length, passing through five counties, the road has evolved from historical routes, some of which are thousands of years old including the Harrow Way and the Fosse Way. The modern route was first laid out in the early 19th century as the New Direct Road and it was initially in demand but fell into disuse as railways became popular from the 1840s onwards. It was not thought of as a significant through route when roads were initially numbered, since then, the A303 has gradually been upgraded to modern standards, though there are still several unimproved parts. As a primary route to southwestern England, the A303 is frequently congested on its single carriageway sections, as it passes through the Stonehenge World Heritage Site and the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, attempts to upgrade the road in those areas have been controversial. In particular, the Stonehenge tunnel, which would see the A303 rerouted underground, has proposed and delayed several times. Nevertheless, the remains a popular alternative to motorway driving. The A303 is about 93 miles long and it starts at the M3 motorway south of Basingstoke at Junction 8, as a dual carriageway. It heads south west, crossing the A34 near Bullington before passing south of Andover, the road then passes by Solstice Park and Bulford Camp before bypassing Amesbury and entering the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. The route then becomes single carriageway before passing Stonehenge itself, the presence of the road through a World Heritage Site has been controversial for decades. After Winterbourne Stoke the route again becomes dual carriageway from Yarnbury Castle and across the Wylye valley. Continuing west, it passes south of Wincanton and then north of Sparkford to a roundabout where the road once more to single carriageway. The road then bypasses Ilchester and RNAS Yeovilton and widens to dual carriageway again, between Ilchester and Shores Bridge the road follows the course of the Roman Fosse Way. At Yeovilton the road becomes dual two lane again, and connects with the A37 which joins it until it reaches the end of the bypass and this final section of dual carriageway ends at South Petherton. It runs north of Ilminster as a road where it meets the A358. The A303 is of a lower standard west of Ilminster and is no longer considered part of the road network. It passes through the Blackdown Hills as a road following the contours of the land
37.
Water-meadow
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A water-meadow is an area of grassland subject to controlled irrigation to increase agricultural productivity. Water-meadows were mainly used in Europe from the 16th to the early 20th centuries, derelict water-meadows are often of importance as wetland wildlife habitats. Water-meadows should not be confused with flood-meadows, which are covered in shallow water by seasonal flooding from a river. Water-meadow is sometimes used loosely to mean any level grassland beside a river. Two main types of water-meadow were used and these were used for fields on slopes, and relatively little engineering skill was required to construct them. Water from a stream or spring was fed to the top of a sloping field, the water could be used again for fields lower down the slope. Bedwork or floated water-meadows were built on almost-level fields along river valleys. A leat, called a main, carrier or top carrier, was used to water from the river and carry it down the valley at a gentler slope than the river. Mains were often along the edge of the valley, each main supplying up to about 1 km of the valley, the water from the main was used to supply many smaller carriers, on the crests of ridges built across the fields. The channel on the crest of each ridge would overflow slowly down the sides of the ridge, the seeping water would then be collected between the ridges, in drains or drawns, these joining to form a bottom carrier or tail drain which returned the water to the river. The ridges and the made a interlocking grid, but the ridge-top channels. A by-carrier took any water not needed for irrigation straight from the back to the river. The ridges varied in height depending on the available head – usually from around 10 to 50 cm. The pattern of carriers and drains was generally regular, but it was adapted to fit the natural topography of the ground, the water flow was controlled by a system of hatches and stops. Irrigation could be provided separately for each section of water-meadow, sometimes aqueducts took carriers over drains, and causeways and culverts provided access for wagons. The working or floating and maintenance of the water-meadow was done by a skilled craftsman called a drowner or waterman. The terminology used for watermeadows varied considerably with locality and dialect, water-meadow irrigation did not aim to flood the ground, but to keep it continuously damp – a working water-meadow has no standing water. Irrigation in early spring kept frosts off the ground and so allowed grass to grow several weeks earlier than otherwise, the grass was used both for making hay and for grazing by livestock
38.
Bluestonehenge
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Bluestonehenge or Bluehenge is a prehistoric henge and stone circle monument that was discovered by the Stonehenge Riverside Project about 1 mile south-east of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. All that currently remains of the site is the ditch of the henge, the site was excavated in August 2008 and again in August 2009 and is considered to be an important find by archaeologists. Full details of the discovery were published in the 2010 January / February edition of British Archaeology, mike Parker Pearson and his team of researchers played a key role in the discovery of a new henge site along the River Avon that links to Stonehenge. The term “henge” is often thought to mean a circular structure of stone. This would imply that Stonehenge is actually named, as its ditch is located on the outside of the bank which means that it is not really a henge by the original definition. Tests on an antler pick found at the bottom of a stonehole have so far failed due to inadequate collagen in the sample and it is estimated that there may have been as many as 27 stones in a circle 33 feet wide. Charcoal was found in holes, suggesting that burning may have taken place there. One suggestion is that the henge was a site for cremations, within the stone circle there were imprints of the bases from the original stones, which have been compared to the bluestones located in Stonehenge and have been found to have matching dimensions. The name Bluestonehenge is derived from the discovery of stone chips in some of the stone settings. These bluestones are also found in Stonehenge and consist of a range of rock types originally from Pembrokeshire West Wales. The stone circle settings were surrounded by a henge, comprising an 82-foot-wide ditch, unlike Stonehenge, there do not appear to be any significant solar or lunar orientations within the monument. The henge is located beside the River Avon in West Amesbury, immediately beside it is the Avenue, a linear ditch and bank route that leads to Stonehenge. Mike Parker Pearson has suggested that the site may have used for ceremonial purposes – possibly as a stopping place along a routeway between Durrington Walls and Stonehenge. This final resting place of Stonehenge theory can be supported by the cremation burials that have been uncovered during excavation work around Stonehenge. Analysis of these remains also leads researchers to believe it was a ceremony for the wealthier in the region, or of royal lineage and this select group of individuals was believed to be male adults who were 25–40 years old and whom seemed quite healthy. Mike Parker Pearson’s past experience working with a colleague from Madagascar also helped to shape his theory, Parker Pearson believes that Durrington Walls may have been a land of the living while Stonehenge was a domain of the dead. Excavations at Stonehenge Theories about Stonehenge Woodhenge Digital Digging feature about the reconstruction of Bluestonehenge. Digital Digging downloadable digital reconstruction of Bluestonehenge, english Heritage – Interactive Map of Stonehenge Landscape
39.
Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites
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Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Wiltshire, England. The WHS covers two areas of land separated by nearly 30 miles, rather than a specific monument or building. The sites were inscribed as co-listings in 1986, more than 700 individual archaeological features have been identified. There are 160 separate Scheduled Monuments, covering 415 items or features, the Stonehenge area of the WHS is located in south Wiltshire. It covers an area of 26 square km and is centred on the monument of Stonehenge. Ownership is shared between English Heritage, the National Trust, the Ministry of Defence, the RSPB, Wiltshire Council and it covers an area of 22.5 square km and is centred on the prehistoric Avebury Henge. Other archives include the English Heritage Archive in Swindon, the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, UNESCO, Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites Website of Stonehenge & Avebury World Heritage Site Alexander Keiller Museum website Salisbury Museum website Wiltshire Heritage Museum website
40.
Durrington Walls
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Durrington Walls is the site of a large Neolithic settlement and later henge enclosure located in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. It lies 2 miles north-east of Stonehenge in the parish of Durrington, between 2004 and 2006, excavations on the site by a team led by the University of Sheffield revealed seven houses. It has been suggested that the settlement may have originally had up to 1000 houses and perhaps 4,000 people, the period of settlement was probably short, between 15 and 45 years starting sometime between 2525 and 2470 BC. It may have been the largest village in northern Europe for a brief period, at 500 metres in diameter, the henge is the largest in Britain and recent evidence suggests that it was a complementary monument to Stonehenge. The name comes from the parish in which the site is located – Durrington, meaning the farm of doers people. What visibly remains of Durrington Walls today is the walls of the henge monument – in fact the remains of the inner slope of the bank. This now appears as a ridge surrounding a central basin, on the eastern side the separate ditch and bank are much more discernible although badly eroded by ploughing. Originally the ditch was some 5.5 metres deep,7 metres wide at its bottom and 18 metres wide at the top, the bank was in some areas 30 metres wide. There were two entrances through the bank and ditch – at the western and south eastern ends. There may also have been an entrance to the south and the north east, the henge enclosed several timber circles and smaller enclosures – not all of which have been excavated. Several Neolithic house floors have been next to and under the eastern bank of the henge. Their density suggests that there was a large village on the sloping river bank on this side. The henge sits on ground that slopes south east toward a bend in the River Avon. The south eastern entrance is roughly 60 metres from the riverbank, the henge has two roads passing through it – an old toll road, and a modern banked road constructed in 1967. In the past military barracks were constructed at the eastern end of the henge. The land on the side of the toll road is owned by the National Trust. Although there is evidence of some early Neolithic activity at the site, at some point c.2600 BC, a large timber circle was constructed. It is now known as the Southern Circle, the circle was oriented southeast towards the sunrise on the midwinter solstice and consisted of four large concentric circles of postholes, which would have held extremely large standing timbers
41.
Durrington, Wiltshire
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Durrington is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village lies about 2 miles north of the town of Amesbury,10 miles north of the city of Salisbury and it is on the eastern part of Salisbury Plain, the largest remaining area of chalk grassland in northwest Europe. The parish includes the hamlet of Hackthorn, on the outskirts of Durrington. Durrington has a history, dating back to the Neolithic era. Two ancient sites lie in the parish, Durrington Walls and Woodhenge, the parish is in the Upper Avon valley, with the River Avon forming its eastern boundary, Durrington village is close to the river. The toponym is derived from the Old English Deor ingtūn, meaning farm or settlement connected with Deor, Deor being a personal name. The villages population of about 5,000 is served by several shops, the area had been occupied since Neolithic times but not necessarily continuously. The parish contains two important Neolithic sites, Durrington Walls and Woodhenge, recent archaeological excavations indicate that the Neolithic inhabitants of the village kept a large number of pigs, with bone evidence suggesting that the pigs were unusually large for the time. This may be because inhabitants fattened them up to them to visitors to nearby Stonehenge. There is little evidence of Saxon occupation, but this may be because buildings and utensils of that time were made of wood, the Domesday Book recorded two estates in 1086, having land for one plough team and with 5 acres of meadow. These two estates may represent the two manors. West End manor was part of the estate of Amesbury until 1120 but East End manor had different origins. At this time each manor was using the field system. The population also increasing and in 1377 there were 139 poll tax payers making Durrington one of the most populous villages in the hundred of Amesbury. In 1390, Durringtons manors had an income of £40 which gradually decreased to £29 8s 6d in 1521. In 1399 the West End manor was given as an endowment of the newly created Winchester College, and they have also provided the name for College Road. In 1405 the Durrington Fire occurred, the cause of which is unknown and it is widely theorised that a lamp falling onto a bale of hay caused it to ignite, or possibly that a house fire got out of control. Whatever the cause, the resulted in the destruction of most of the West End because most of the houses were built in an unusually close proximity to one another
