1.
Ashford, Kent
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Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Great Stour at the edge of the North Downs. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 74,204, the name comes from the Old English æscet, indicating a ford near a clump of ash trees. It has been a town since the 13th century. Ashford has been a hub and has stood at the centre of five railway lines since the 19th century. The arrival of the railways became a source of employment and contributed to the towns growth, with the opening of the international passenger station it is now a European communications centre, with new lines running between London and the Channel Tunnel. The M20 motorway also links Ashford to those two destinations for road traffic, the town has been marked as a place for expansion since the 1960s and appeared on several Government plans for growth. Changes have included the County Square shopping centre, the redevelopment of the Templer Barracks at Repton Park, and the award-winning Ashford Designer Outlet. In the 1970s, a ring road scheme and construction of the multi storey Charter House building destroyed significant parts of the old town. St Marys Church in Ashford has been a landmark since the 13th century. Today, the functions in a dual role as a centre for worship. Ashford has two schools, the Norton Knatchbull School and Highworth Grammar School. There has been evidence of habitation around Ashford since the Iron Age. Two axes from the Lower Paleolithic period have been found near Ashford, during the construction of the Park Farm estate in the late 1990s, excavation in the area revealed tools from the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period dating back to the 7th century BC. A number of other Mesolithic tools were discovered during construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link through Ashford, during Roman Britain, iron ore was mined in the Weald and transported to Ashford where two ironworks processed the ore into a workable metal. Archaeological studies have revealed the existence of a Roman town to the north of the current centre, roughly at the junction of Albert Road and Wall Road. The present town originates from a settlement established in 893 AD by inhabitants escaping a Danish Viking raid. The name comes from the Old English æscet, indicating a ford near a clump of ash trees, at the time of the Domesday Book of 1086 it was still known by its original Saxon name of Essetesford
2.
Kent
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Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south west, the county also shares borders with Essex via the Dartford Crossing and the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. France can be clearly in fine weather from Folkestone and the White Cliffs of Dover. Hills in the form of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge span the length of the county, because of its relative abundance of fruit-growing and hop gardens, Kent is known as The Garden of England. The title was defended in 2006 when a survey of counties by the UKTV Style Gardens channel put Kent in fifth place, behind North Yorkshire, Devon. Haulage, logistics, and tourism are industries, major industries in north-west Kent include aggregate building materials, printing. Coal mining has played its part in Kents industrial heritage. Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt and its transport connections to the capital. Twenty-eight per cent of the county forms part of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Downs and The High Weald, the area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era, There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley. The modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word Cantus meaning rim or border and this describes the eastern part of the current county area as a border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as Cantium, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC, the extreme west of the modern county was by the time of Roman Britain occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses. East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century and was known as Cantia from about 730, the early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara, or Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital, in 597, Pope Gregory I appointed the religious missionary as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine successfully converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity, the Diocese of Canterbury became Britains first Episcopal See with first cathedral and has since remained Englands centre of Christianity. The second designated English cathedral was in Kent at Rochester Cathedral, in the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning undefeated. This naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy, the Kent peoples continued resistance against the Normans led to Kents designation as a semi-autonomous county palatine in 1067. Under the nominal rule of Williams half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales
3.
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
4.
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
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Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners is a British architectural firm, founded in 1977 and originally known as the Richard Rogers Partnership. Its main offices are located in the Leadenhall Building, London, previously they were at the Thames Wharf Studios. In its various incarnations it is known for important buildings including Lloyds building and the Millennium Dome in London. The firms principal offices are located at Leadenhall Building in London and it also maintains offices in Shanghai and Sydney. As of March 2016 the firm has thirteen partners, including Richard Rogers, Graham Stirk, the practice is run with a profit-share scheme and a limit on the directors salaries in comparison with those of the lowest paid in the office. The practice is focused on sustainability, urban regeneration and social awareness. Celebration of public space and the encouragement of public activities is also a recurring theme and it is owned by a charitable trust, ensuring that no individual owns any share in its value and preventing private trading and inheritance of shares. The practice divides its profits between all of the staff and their charities, according to publicly declared principles. Soon after the Pompidou Centre in Paris was opened in 1977, Richard Rogers formed the Richard Rogers Partnership, if I want to leave something to the future, it has to be able to change – but retain something of the ethos that we built up over 50 years. In November 2015 Rogers Stirk Harbour created five new partners including Tracy Meller who became their first woman partner, founding partner Mike Davies stepped down. In 2006 the practice was awarded the Stirling Prize for their Madrid-Barajas Airport, in 2008, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners was awarded the Manser Medal for Houses and Housing, given for the best one-off house designed by an architect in the UK. In 2009 it was awarded the Stirling Prize for Maggies Centre in London and it won the RIBA National Award 2015 for NEO Bankside luxury apartments in London and was subsequently shortlisted for the Stirling Prize for the second time. This list contains projects from the beginning of the partnership in 1977 through to the present day, for earlier work by Richard Rogers, Team 4, Richard and Su Rogers and Piano + Rogers, see the Richard Rogers page. Rogers first work came when he co-founded Team 4 in 1963 with Su Brumwell, Team 4’s first project was Creek Vean, a residential property in Cornwall. He then established a partnership with Su Rogers, John Young, by July 1971 Rogers had won a design competition to build the Pompidou Centre in Paris with co-partner with Italian architect Renzo Piano. He is a winner of the RIBA Gold Medal, the Thomas Jefferson Medal, the RIBA Stirling Prize, Ivan Harbour Ivan Harbour joined Richard Rogers Partnership in 1985, in 1993 he was made a senior director. In 2007 the practice changed from Richard Rogers Partnership to Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, Harbour led the design team for the Senedd, Terminal 4 Barajas Airport, Madrid, the Law Courts in Antwerp and Bordeaux and the European Court of Human Rights building in Strasbourg. Graham Stirk Graham Stirk joined Richard Rogers Partnership in 1983 and was made a director in 1995
5.
BuroHappold Engineering
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Originally working mainly on projects in the Middle East, the firm now operates worldwide and in almost all areas of engineering for the built environment, with 23 offices around the world. Edmund, or Ted, Happold worked at Arup before founding BuroHappold, where he worked on such as the Sydney Opera House. Ted Happold died in 1996, but the claims to maintain his views on engineering. BuroHappold was founded on 1 May 1976, with its first office on Gay Street in Bath, United Kingdom. The firm started with eight partners, The Kings Office, Council of Ministers and Majlis Al Shura, Central Government Complex in Riyadh, in 1982 BuroHappold started to work with Future Tents Ltd on a variety of temporary and recreational structures. The firms combined their operations in 1992, but split again in 1997, in 1983, BuroHappold opened an office in Riyadh, and has since opened offices around the UK and internationally, By 1993, BuroHappold had 130 employees and eight partners. In 1998 this had grown to 300 employees and 12 partners, in 2006 the partnership stood at 25 with over 1400 employees and 14 offices. SMART also develops Buro Happolds in-house software Tensyl, a finite element analysis and patterning program for fabric structures. Also notable is its group COSA, which undertakes computational modelling and analysis, in 2007 BuroHappold became a limited liability partnership, and in 2008 appointed 18 new partners. The firm is a limited liability partnership with 52 partners, the Mannheim Multihalle was a timber gridshell of 50 by 50 mm lathes of hemlock of irregular form, depending on the elasticity of spring washers at the joints for its flexible form. It was one of the first major uses of structural gridshells, following the development of fabric structures expertise on the projects with Frei Otto, BuroHappold was instrumental in further developing the knowledge and technology of fabric structures. They also designed the, at the time, largest fabric canopy in Europe at the Ashford Designer Outlet in the UK, the expertise in wooden gridshell structures has resulted in the design of structures such as the Weald and Downland Museum and the Savill Building in Windsor Great Park. The firm has worked with Shigeru Ban on a number of other projects, another design in cardboard was the Westborough School cardboard classroom in Westcliff. One Angel Square in Manchester Arsenal F. C. C, United States, a curved steel grid roof clad in square glass overlapping panels. Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, a four-tiered,50,000 seater national football, philippine Arena, in the Philippines is the largest indoor arena in the world in terms of seating capacity. It can hold up to 60,000 seats, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, a new museum in Dallas The Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, a rail and bus transportation hub in Anaheim, California. The High Line Park in New York City, a park occupying a disused elevated railway line, Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof redevelopment, in Stuttgart, Germany, a project to realign the Deutsche Bahns rail lines so they can be joined to the intra-European network. The sub-terranean station will be roofed with a park, with organically shaped, reinforced concrete shells with petal-shaped sections terminating as skylights
6.
Arup Group
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The firm has over 14,000 staff based in 92 offices across 42 countries, and is present in Africa, the Americas, Australasia, East Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Arup has participated in projects in over 160 countries, Arup is owned by trusts, the beneficiaries of which are Arups past and present employees, who receive a share of the firms operating profit each year. The firm was founded in London in 1946, as the Ove N. Arup Consulting Engineers by Ove Arup and he set out to build a firm where professionals of diverse disciplines could work together to produce projects of greater quality than was achievable by them working in isolation. In 1963, together with the architect Philip Dowson, Arup Associates was formed, in 1970, the firm reformed as Ove Arup & Partners. It is best known for its work for the built environment. Projects to which it has contributed include the Sydney Opera House,3, Nevada, USA Druk White Lotus School was built to survive the Ladakhi weather. Kingdom Centre, The third tallest skyscraper in Saudi Arabia, and the second tallest in Riyadh and this group continues to work under the banner of Arup Associates following a streamlining of the Arup brand. Many of Arups modern stadia are designed with a contemporary, distinctive edge, the most notable stadium projects led by Arup remain the City of Manchester Stadium, Allianz Arena, Beijing National Stadium, Donbass Arena and the Singapore Sports Hub. Arups multidisciplinary sports venue design and engineering scope on the Singapore Sports Hub won the 2013 World Architecture Festival Award in the Future Projects, the Casa da Música, Oporto, designed by Arup and Office for Metropolitan Architecture was nominated for the 2007 Stirling Prize. Arup was awarded the Worldaware Award for Innovation for its Vawtex air system in Harare International School, Arup Fire has won the Fire Safety Engineering Design award four times since its creation in 2001. The 2001 inaugural award was won for Arups contribution to the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, in 2004, the design for Londons City Hall was appointed joint winner. In 2005, the Temple Mills Eurostar Depot won, the 2006 winning entry was for Amethyst House, a nine-storey building with an atrium from the ground to the top, in Manchester, UK. Arup was also awarded Royal Town Planning Institute Consultancy of the award in 2008. Mike Glover is the recipient of the 2008 Institution of Structural Engineers Gold Medal, the Evelyn Grace Academy, London designed by Zaha Hadid Architects and Arup won the prestigious RIBA Stirling Prize 2011. Arup was named Tunnel Design Firm of the Year at the 2012 ITA AITES International Tunnelling Awards, Arup Fellow is a lifelong honorary title awarded to selected honorary individuals in the firm. It acknowledges the highest design and technical achievements of people, not only within the firm and they are considered role models who possess world-class expertise who put theory into effective practice. Sir Ove Nyquist Arup, structural engineer and philosopher, founder of the company, recipient of the RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture 1966, peter Dunican, structural engineer, first chairman of Ove Arup Partnership, and President of the Institution of Structural Engineers in 1977 and 1978. Sir Jack Zunz, civil engineer, and principal designer of the Sydney Opera House
7.
Shopping mall
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A shopping arcade is a specific form serving the same purpose. Many early shopping arcades such as the Burlington Arcade in London, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, however, many smaller arcades have been demolished, replaced with large centers or malls, often accessible by vehicle. Technical innovations such as lighting and escalators were introduced from the late 19th century. From the late 20th century, entertainment venues such as movie theaters, as a single built structure, early shopping centers were often architecturally significant constructions, enabling wealthier patrons to buy goods in spaces protected from the weather. In places around the world, the shopping centre is used, especially in Europe, Australia. Mall is a term used predominantly in North America, outside of North America, shopping precinct and shopping arcade are also used. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, malls are commonly referred to as shopping centres, the majority of British shopping centres are located in city centres, usually found in old and historic shopping districts and surrounded by subsidiary open air shopping streets. Large examples include West Quay in Southampton, Manchester Arndale, Bullring Birmingham, Liverpool One, Trinity Leeds, Buchanan Galleries in Glasgow and these centres were built in the 1980s and 1990s, but planning regulations prohibit the construction of any more. Out-of-town shopping developments in the UK are now focused on retail parks, planning policy prioritizes the development of existing town centres, although with patchy success. Bullring, Birmingham is the busiest shopping centre in the UK welcoming over 36.5 million shoppers in its opening year, there are a reported 222 malls in Europe. In 2014, these malls had combined sales of $12.47 billion and this represented a 10% bump in revenues from the prior year. One of the earliest examples of public shopping areas comes from ancient Rome, One of the earliest public shopping centers is Trajans Market in Rome located in Trajans Forum. Trajans Market was probably built around 100-110 CE by Apollodorus of Damascus, the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul was built in the 15th century and is still one of the largest covered shopping centers in the world, with more than 58 streets and 4,000 shops. Numerous other covered shopping arcades, such as the 19th-century Al-Hamidiyah Souq in Damascus, Syria, isfahans Grand Bazaar, which is largely covered, dates from the 10th century. The 10-kilometer-long, covered Tehrans Grand Bazaar also has a lengthy history, the oldest continuously occupied shopping mall in the world is likely to be the Chester Rows. Dating back at least to the 13th century, these covered walkways housed shops, with storage, different rows specialized in different goods, such as Bakers Row or Fleshmongers Row. The Marché des Enfants Rouges in Paris opened in 1628 and still runs today, the Oxford Covered Market in Oxford, England opened in 1774 and still runs today. The Passage du Caire was opened in Paris in 1798, the Burlington Arcade in London was opened in 1819
8.
The Galleria, Hatfield
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The Galleria is a designer outlet centre in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. The centre developed in the 1980s as part of a plan to reduce congestion in Hatfield while increasing retail space, the A1, a bypass of the old Great North Road from London, was built as a cut and cover tunnel, with The Galleria on top. It was a project of Gerald Carrolls Carroll Group and was budgeted at £50 million, Carroll refinanced the project and injected £30 million. It opened in 1991 but bankers Samuel Montagu placed the scheme in receivership in 1992, afterwards, records were found showing the purchase of bugging equipment and the employment of private detectives to watch the bankers involved. The centre was converted to a centre in 1996. Land Securities acquired the centre from Galleria Jersey Ltd in 2005, the centre occupies 29,800 sq m of space. There are more than 80 designer outlets trading at The Galleria including brands such as French Connection, Jaeger, Austin Reed, Ghost, Marks & Spencer, Gant, in addition, other leading brands include, The Body Shop and Waterstone’s. The Galleria incorporates an Odeon Cinema and features 9 restaurants and cafés, including, Chiquito with 334 sq m, the centre is located 6 miles north of Londons orbital motorway, the M25. By public transport, the centre can be accessed from Hatfield railway station or St Albans City railway station, both stations have bus links to the centre. Buses also run from many places, such as Hemel Hempstead and Watford to the west, Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City to the north, Hertford to the east and Barnet and these are provided by the two main operators in the area Uno and Arriva Shires & Essex. National Express coaches also run to The Galleria
9.
Gunwharf Quays
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Gunwharf Quays is an outlet retail destination with 90 outlet stores and 30 restaurants, pubs and cafés located in Portsmouth, UK. It was constructed in the early 21st century on the site of what had once been HM Gunwharf, later known as HMS Vernon, the military site closed in 1995, and opened to the public as Gunwharf Quays after six years of reconstruction. The landmark Spinnaker Tower, which stands on the site, was opened a few years later. Before the Gun Wharf was built the area was nothing more than marshy ground lying below the waterline, the main feature on this particular stretch of shoreline was the sizeable Mill Pond, which served to power a pair of tide mills on the waterfront. An Ordnance Yard began to be established on the present site in the late 17th century, in the 1770s a decision was taken to extend the Yard to the south, so further land was reclaimed, extending the Yard and doubling its size. The original Yard and its extension functioned as two halves of a single operation. Prior to 1855, a ships guns belonged not to the Admiralty or the Navy Board, but to the Board of Ordnance, whose Ordnance Yards were constructed alongside, but independent from, the Royal Dockyards. These Yards were repositories providing armament and ammunition not only for ships but also for land defences, furthermore, in the days of sail warships required periodic checking and maintenance. The ship would therefore offload all of its guns at one of the Gunwharf Quays before being dry docked, most of the area of the 19th-century Gun Wharf, and the majority of its buildings, was given over to storage. On the New Gun Wharf, the prominent Grand Storehouse was designated as a Land Service Store, in addition to these two, a plan dated 1859 indicates more than a dozen other large storehouses all around the site. Alongside the storehouses were a range of workshops, for blacksmiths, carpenters, coopers, a wide range of ordnance-related equipment had to be accommodated within the Yard. Gun carriages in particular took up a lot of space, and were prone to decay if left outside. The balls are formed in pyramids from 42 pounders to the lowest bores, every size in a pyramid by themselves, one item that was not stored at the Gun Wharf was gunpowder, which was kept in the Square Tower and then in magazines at Priddys Hard from 1777. In 1824 a set of storehouses along the edge of the site were converted to form barracks for the Royal Marine Artillery. A wall was built, within the perimeter, which separated the barracks from the rest of the Gunwharf, in 1858 the RMA moved out, the Gunwharf Barracks then began to be occupied by Artillery and other troops until 1888 when they reverted to use as storehouses. After the demise of the Ordnance Board in 1855 the War Office took over responsibility for the Gun Wharves, during the First World War, however, the entire site was taken over by the Navy, and it remained in Navy hands thereafter until its closure in 1995. As ships and armaments developed, the requirement to offload the armament diminished, the site was re-established as the Royal Navy shore establishment HMS Vernon in 1923. Following several naval restructures and mergers, HMS Vernon ceased to be an independent command and was renamed HMS Nelson on 31 March 1986, in 1987 it was renamed again to HMS Nelson although locally it continued to be known as HMS Vernon
10.
Berkshire
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Berkshire is a county in south east England, west of London. It was recognised as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of Windsor Castle by the Queen in 1957, Berkshire is a county of historic origin and is a home county, a ceremonial county and a non-metropolitan county without a county council. Berkshire County Council was the main county governance from 1889 to 1998 except for the separately administered County Borough of Reading, in 1974, significant alterations were made to the countys administrative boundaries although the traditional boundaries of Berkshire were not changed. The towns of Abingdon, Didcot and Wantage were transferred to Oxfordshire, Slough was gained from Buckinghamshire, since 1998, Berkshire has been governed by the six unitary authorities of Bracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead and Wokingham. It borders the counties of Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Greater London, Surrey, according to Asser, it takes its name from a large forest of box trees that was called Bearroc. Berkshire has been the scene of notable battles through its history. Alfred the Greats campaign against the Danes included the Battles of Englefield, Ashdown, Newbury was the site of two English Civil War battles, the First Battle of Newbury in 1643 and the Second Battle of Newbury in 1644. The nearby Donnington Castle was reduced to a ruin in the aftermath of the second battle, another Battle of Reading took place on 9 December 1688. It was the only military action in England during the Glorious Revolution. Reading became the new county town in 1867, taking over from Abingdon, boundary alterations in the early part of the 20th century were minor, with Caversham from Oxfordshire becoming part of the Reading county borough, and cessions in the Oxford area. On 1 April 1974 Berkshires boundaries changed under the Local Government Act 1972, Berkshire took over administration of Slough and Eton and part of the former Eton Rural District from Buckinghamshire. 94 Signal Squadron still keep the Uffington White Horse in their insignia, the original Local Government White Paper would have transferred Henley-on-Thames from Oxfordshire to Berkshire, this proposal did not make it into the Bill as introduced. On 1 April 1998 Berkshire County Council was abolished under a recommendation of the Banham Commission, unlike similar reforms elsewhere at the same time, the non-metropolitan county was not abolished. Berkshire divides into two distinct sections with the boundary lying roughly on a north-south line through the centre of Reading. The eastern section of Berkshire lies largely to the south of the River Thames, in two places the county now includes land to the north of the river. Tributaries of the Thames, including the Loddon and Blackwater, increase the amount of low lying land in the area. Beyond the flood plains, the land rises gently to the county boundaries with Surrey, much of this area is still well wooded, especially around Bracknell and Windsor Great Park. In the west of the county and heading upstream, the Thames veers away to the north of the county boundary, leaving the county behind at the Goring Gap
11.
The Oracle, Reading
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The Oracle is a large indoor shopping and leisure mall on the banks of the River Kennet in Reading, Berkshire, England. On the site of a 17th-century workhouse of the name, it was developed and is owned by a joint venture of Hammerson. The Oracle takes its name from the 17th century Oracle workhouse built by funds from a local man John Kendrick and this once occupied a small part of the site now occupied by the shopping centre. In 1997, Hammerson acquired a 22-acre site of largely derelict, most of this site was previously occupied by Simonds Brewery and by the Reading Transport bus depot. Hammersons strategy was to create a combination of big-name retailers at the new centre, the merchandise mix has strong emphasis on fashion and is slightly higher-end than the average for Readings main street shops. The main shopping malls comprising phase I of The Oracle were opened in September 1999, followed in November by the Riverside restaurants, pubs and cinema that made up phase II. Once phase I was complete, the way was open to relocate the Debenhams department store from its previous location on Broad Street into the centre. This in turn allowed for the redevelopment of the old Debenhams site as phase III of The Oracle, phase III provided The Oracle with its all-important direct link to Broad Street, and was opened in May 2000 by The Princess Royal. The centre contains 90 shops, including department stores from the Debenhams, a third and larger department store, John Lewis, is adjacent to the Minster Street entrance but not part of the centre itself. There are also 22 restaurants, cafés and bars along the riverside of the Kennet, the Oracle increases Readings retail footage by one-third, and it has attracted some retailers who would otherwise not have located in Reading. The Oracle Riverside area, with its restaurants and bars, spans the Brewery Gut, the layout allows space for outdoor tables, and there is granite stadium-style seating and a sail-like canopy. The Free Form Arts Trust were appointed as the agency with responsibility for the appointment. Specially commissioned artworks include the Crystal Beacon, a reflective translucent prism by Welsh artist John Gingell that tops off the car park. The overall centre design concept was created by Haskoll & Co and they were called in to design a retail for leisure concept, linking the site to a heritage trail around the town. The Oracle also provides two large car parks providing 2300 spaces, in line with other car parks in central Reading, charges are comparatively high, especially for long term parkers. In 2002 Reading was named eighth best town centre in the country, in 2007 the Oracle centre was ranked 16th in a league table of best performing retail centres in the UK compiled by economic analyst Experian
12.
Parkway Newbury
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Parkway Newbury is a retail and residential development in Newbury, Berkshire, opened on 27 October 2011. It will have 475,000 sq ft of retail and restaurant accommodation anchored by Debenhams, the mixed-use scheme also consists of 147 luxury residential apartments and 37 affordable housing units being built above the shopping centre. The planning of the 5. 7acre site began in 2004, the development began in March 2009 with the site being cleared of buildings. Before construction began, West Berkshire Council had to take steps to compulsory purchase land for the development. In order for the centre to be joined to the existing streets 35 and 36 Northbrook Street had to be knocked through. According to its website, The shopping centre is anchored by a 77,508 sq ft Debenhams department store and it is also anchored by an extended Marks & Spencer department store. The shopping centre houses approximately 50 stores, cafes and restaurants, options of park views, private terraces and Balconies. Each apartment & penthouse comes with designated parking in the car park
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Media related to Ashford Designer Outlet at Wikimedia Commons
