1.
Westminster
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Westminster is an area of central London within the City of Westminster, part of the West End, on the north bank of the River Thames. Historically the area lay within St Margarets parish, City & Liberty of Westminster and it has been the home of the permanent institutions of Englands government continuously since about 1200 and is now the seat of British government. In a government context, Westminster often refers to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the closest tube stations are Westminster, St Jamess Park on the Jubilee, Circle, and District lines. Within the area is Westminster School, a public school which grew out of the Abbey. Bounding Westminster to the north is Green Park, a Royal Park of London, the area has a substantial resident population, indeed most of its listed buildings are residential. A proportion of residents are people of limited means, living in council, hotels, large Victorian homes and barracks exist nearer to Buckingham Palace. The name describes an area no more than 1 mile from Westminster Abbey, the settlement grew up around the palace and abbey, as a service area for them. The need for a church, St Margarets Westminster for the servants of the palace. It became larger and in the Georgian period became connected through urban development with the City along the Strand. It did not become a local government unit until created as a civil parish. Indeed, the Cathedral and diocesan status of the church lasted only from 1539 to 1556, as such it is first known to have had two Members of Parliament in 1545 as a new Parliamentary Borough, centuries after the City of London and Southwark were enfranchised. The historic core of Westminster is the former Thorney Island on which Westminster Abbey was built, the abbey became the traditional venue of the coronation of the kings and queens of England from that of Harold Godwinson onwards. From about 1200, near the abbey, the Palace of Westminster became the royal residence, marked by the transfer of royal treasury. Later the palace housed the developing Parliament and Englands law courts, thus London developed two focal points, the City of London and Westminster. The monarchs later moved to St James Palace and the Palace of Whitehall a little towards the north-east, the main law courts have since moved to the Royal Courts of Justice. The Westminster area formed part of the City and Liberty of Westminster in Middlesex, the ancient parish was St Margaret, after 1727 this became the civil parish of St Margaret and St John, the latter a new church required for the increasing population. The area around Westminster Abbey formed the extra-parochial Close of the Collegiate Church of St Peter surrounded by —, until 1900 the local authority was the combined vestry of St Margaret and St John, which was based at Westminster City Hall in Caxton Street from 1883. The Liberty of Westminster, governed by the Westminster Court of Burgesses, also included St Martin in the Fields, Westminster had its own quarter sessions, but the Middlesex sessions also had jurisdiction
2.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
3.
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
4.
NW postcode area
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The NW postcode area, also known as the London NW postcode area, is a group of postcode districts covering part of northwest London, England. It is the successor of the NW sector, originally created as part of the London postal district in 1856, the district names are no longer included in the postal address because the first part of the postcode contains equivalent sorting information. The boundaries of the area and its districts have changed over time and are the result of the working requirements of Royal Mail. They are not tied to those of the local authority areas served, the NW7 district extends to the Greater London boundary with Hertfordshire and follows that boundary for a short distance near Scratch Wood. The remainder of northwest Greater London is covered by the HA, UB, part of the EN, list of postcode areas in the United Kingdom London postal district Postcode Address File Royal Mails Postcode Address File A quick introduction to Royal Mails Postcode Address File
5.
London Underground
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The London Underground is a public rapid transit system serving London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. The network has expanded to 11 lines, and in 2015–16 carried 1.34 billion passengers, the 11 lines collectively handle approximately 4.8 million passengers a day. The system has 270 stations and 250 miles of track, despite its name, only 45% of the system is actually underground in tunnels, with much of the network in the outer environs of London being on the surface. In addition, the Underground does not cover most southern parts of Greater London, the current operator, London Underground Limited, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London, the statutory corporation responsible for the transport network in Greater London. As of 2015, 92% of operational expenditure is covered by passenger fares, the Travelcard ticket was introduced in 1983 and Oyster, a contactless ticketing system, in 2003. Contactless card payments were introduced in 2014, the LPTB was a prominent patron of art and design, commissioning many new station buildings, posters and public artworks in a modernist style. Other famous London Underground branding includes the roundel and Johnston typeface, to prepare construction, a short test tunnel was built in 1855 in Kibblesworth, a small town with geological properties similar to London. This test tunnel was used for two years in the development of the first underground train, and was later, in 1861, the worlds first underground railway, it opened in January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon using gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives. It was hailed as a success, carrying 38,000 passengers on the opening day, the Metropolitan District Railway opened in December 1868 from South Kensington to Westminster as part of a plan for an underground inner circle connecting Londons main-line termini. The Metropolitan and District railways completed the Circle line in 1884, built using the cut and this opened in 1890 with electric locomotives that hauled carriages with small opaque windows, nicknamed padded cells. The Waterloo and City Railway opened in 1898, followed by the Central London Railway in 1900, the Metropolitan Railway protested about the change of plan, but after arbitration by the Board of Trade, the DC system was adopted. When the Bakerloo was so named in July 1906, The Railway Magazine called it an undignified gutter title, by 1907 the District and Metropolitan Railways had electrified the underground sections of their lines. In January 1913, the UERL acquired the Central London Railway, the Bakerloo line was extended north to Queens Park to join a new electric line from Euston to Watford, but World War I delayed construction and trains reached Watford Junction in 1917. During air raids in 1915 people used the stations as shelters. An extension of the Central line west to Ealing was also delayed by the war, the Metropolitan promoted housing estates near the railway with the Metro-land brand and nine housing estates were built near stations on the line. Electrification was extended north from Harrow to Rickmansworth, and branches opened from Rickmansworth to Watford in 1925, the Piccadilly line was extended north to Cockfosters and took over District line branches to Harrow and Hounslow. In 1933, most of Londons underground railways, tramway and bus services were merged to form the London Passenger Transport Board, the Waterloo & City Railway, which was by then in the ownership of the main line Southern Railway, remained with its existing owners. In the same year that the London Passenger Transport Board was formed, in the following years, the outlying lines of the former Metropolitan Railway closed, the Brill Tramway in 1935, and the line from Quainton Road to Verney Junction in 1936
6.
Baker Street tube station
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Baker Street is a station on the London Underground at the junction of Baker Street and the Marylebone Road. The station is in Travelcard Zone 1 and is served by five different lines and it is one of the original stations of the Metropolitan Railway, the worlds first underground railway, opened in 1863. On the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines it is between Great Portland Street and Edgware Road, on the Metropolitan line it is between Great Portland Street and Finchley Road. On the Bakerloo line it is between Regents Park and Marylebone, and on the Jubilee line it is between Bond Street and St. Johns Wood, the station has entrances on Baker Street, Chiltern Street and Marylebone Road. Nearby attractions include Regents Park, Lords Cricket Ground, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, the station layout is rather complex. The sub-surface station is connected to the open-air Metropolitan line station, below this is a deep-level tube station for the Bakerloo and Jubilee lines. These are arranged in a cross-platform interchange layout and there are connections between the two lines just to the north of the station, access to the Bakerloo and Jubilee lines is only via escalators. With ten platforms overall, Baker Street has the most London Underground platforms of any station on the network, of the MRs original stations, now the Circle and Hammersmith & City line platforms five and six are the best preserved dating from the stations opening in 1863. Plaques of the Metropolitan Railways coat of arms along the platform and old plans and photographs depict the station which has changed little in over a hundred. Restoration work in the 1980s on the oldest portions of Baker Street station brought it back to something similar to its 1863 appearance. The Metropolitan lines platforms one to four were largely the result of the rebuild in the 1920s to cater for the increase in traffic on its outer suburban routes. All Metropolitan line platforms can function as terminating tracks however under normal circumstance only dead ended platforms one, the Bakerloo line uses platforms eight and nine date from 10th March 1906 when the Baker Street & Waterloo railway opened between here and Lambeth North. The contraction of the name to Bakerloo rapidly caught on, by the mid-1930s, the Metropolitan line was suffering from congestion caused by the limited capacity of its tracks between Baker Street and Finchley Road stations. The Bakerloo line also took over the Metropolitan lines service to Stanmore on 20 November 1939, following refurbishment in the 1980s the original tiling scheme was replaced with tiles depicting the silhouette of Sherlock Holmes who lived at 221B, Baker Street. In 1999 the Jubilee line was extended from Green Park to Stratford, the design of the Jubilee line platforms at Baker Street has changed little since being opened with illustrations depicting famous scenes from Sherlock Holmes cases. Cross platform interchange is provided between Bakerloo and Jubilee lines in both directions, in 2008 TfL proposed a project to provide step-free access to the sub-surface platforms. The project was a TfL-funded Games-enabling project in its investment programme, the project was included in the strategy on accessible transport published by the London 2012 Olympic Delivery Authority and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Access to the Metropolitan line platforms 1–4 would be provided by a bridge from the Bakerloo and Jubilee line ticket hall, through a passage from platforms 1–2, this would also give step-free access to platform 5
7.
221B Baker Street
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221B Baker Street is the London address of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, created by author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In the United Kingdom, postal addresses with a number followed by a letter may indicate an address within a larger. Baker Street in Holmes time was a residential district. At the time the Holmes stories were published, addresses in Baker Street did not go as high as 221, Baker Street was later extended, and in 1932 the Abbey National Building Society moved into premises at 219–229 Baker Street. For many years, Abbey National employed a secretary to answer mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes. Since the closure of Abbey House in 2005, ownership of the address by the Holmes Museum has not been challenged and we met next day as he had arranged, and inspected the rooms at No. 221B, Baker Street, of which he had spoken at our meeting and they consisted of a couple of comfortable bed-rooms and a single large airy sitting-room, cheerfully furnished, and illuminated by two broad windows. When the Sherlock Holmes stories were first published, street numbers in Baker Street did not go as high as 221, the section north of Marylebone Road near Regents Park – now including 221 Baker Street – was known in Conan Doyles lifetime as Upper Baker Street. In his first manuscript, Conan Doyle put Holmes house in Upper Baker Street, sherlockian experts have also held to alternative theories as to where the original 221B was located and have maintained that it was further down Baker Street. A bronze plaque on the front of Abbey House carried a picture of Holmes and a quotation, in 1999, Abbey National sponsored the creation of a bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes that now stands at the entrance to Baker Street tube station. The Sherlock Holmes Museum is situated within an 1815 townhouse very similar to the 221B described in the stories and is located between 237 and 241 Baker Street. It displays exhibits in period rooms, wax figures and Holmes memorabilia, the description of the house can be found throughout the stories, including the 17 steps leading from the ground-floor hallway to the first-floor study. According to the stories, 221B Baker Street was a suite of rooms on the first floor of a lodging house above a flight of 17 steps. She was invited to renumber the museums building to coincide with its official opening, a long-running dispute over the number arose between the Sherlock Holmes Museum, the building society Abbey National and subsequently the local Westminster City Council. After the closure of Abbey House in 2005, the Royal Mail recognised the museums exclusive right to mail addressed to Sherlock Holmes. Another version of Sherlock Holmes apartment is at the Sherlock Holmes pub in Northumberland Street near Charing Cross railway station and this was originally a small hotel, the Northumberland Arms, but was refurbished and reopened under its present name in December 1957. Its owners, Whitbread & Co, were fortunate to own the entire Sherlock Holmes exhibit put together by Marylebone Borough Library, the pub was restored to a late Victorian form and the exhibit, a detailed replica of Holmes fictional apartment, was installed on the upstairs floor. In the United States, there is a pub/restaurant chain named Baker Street Pub, some locations even have the iconic British red phone booth outside
8.
Baker Street (song)
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Baker Street is a song written and recorded by Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty. Released as a single in 1978, it reached #1 in Cash Box and #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, additionally, it hit #1 in Canada, No.3 in the United Kingdom, #1 in Australia and the top 10 in the Netherlands. Rafferty received the 1978 Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically, the arrangement is known for its haunting saxophone riff. In October 2010, the song was recognised by BMI for surpassing five million performances worldwide and it was awarded Gold Certification on two occasions, on 1 April 1978 and 22 July 2013 by the BPI in the UK. In the intervening three years, Rafferty had been unable to release any material because of disputes about the remaining contractual recording obligations. As Rafferty put it, everybody was suing each other, so I spent a lot of time on the train from Glasgow to London for meetings with lawyers. I knew a guy who lived in a flat off Baker Street. Wed sit and chat or play guitar there through the night, Raffertys daughter Martha has said that the book that inspired the song more than any other was Colin Wilsons The Outsider. Rafferty was reading the book, which explores ideas of alienation and of creativity, born out of a longing to be connected, the album City to City, including Baker Street, was co-produced by Rafferty and Hugh Murphy. In addition to a solo, played by Hugh Burns. Rafferty claimed that he wrote the hook with the intention that it be sung. Ravenscroft remembered things differently, saying that he was presented with a song that contained several gaps, in fact, most of what I played was an old blues riff, stated Ravenscroft. If youre asking me, Did Gerry hand me a piece of music to play, however, the 2011 reissue of City To City included the demo of Baker Street which included the saxophone part played on electric guitar by Rafferty. Ravenscroft, a musician, was in the studio to record a brief soprano saxophone part. The part led to what became known as the Baker Street phenomenon, in January 2011, radio presenter Simon Lederman revealed that Ravenscroft thought the solo was out of tune. When asked during a radio interview on BBC Radio London. Ravenscroft replied, Im irritated because its out of tune, yeah its flat, by enough of a degree that it irritates me at best and he added that he had not been able to re-record the take, as he was not involved when the song was mixed. The sax track sounds to be about 11 cents flat from standard tuning, however, the bouncing cheque story was denied by Ravenscroft during an interview on BBC Radio 2s Simon Mayo Drivetime show on 9 February 2012
9.
Marylebone
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Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, England, located within the City of Westminster and part of the West End. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone, Marylebone is roughly bounded by Oxford Street to the south, Marylebone Road to the north, Edgware Road to the west and Great Portland Street to the east. The area east of Great Portland Street up to Cleveland Street and this stream rose further north in what is now Swiss Cottage, eventually running along what is now Marylebone Lane, which preserves its curve within the grid pattern. The church and the area later became known as St Mary at the Bourne which, over time, became shortened to its present form. It is a common misunderstanding that the name is a corruption of Marie la Bonne, the manor of Tyburn is mentioned in the Domesday Book as a possession of Barking Abbey valued at 52 shillings, with a population no greater than 50. Early in the 13th century it was held by Robert de Vere, 3rd Earl of Oxford. Tyburn manor remained with the Crown until the part was sold in 1611 by James I, who retained the deer park, to Edward Forest. Forests manor of Marylebone then passed by marriage to the Austen family, the deer park, Marylebone Park Fields, was let out in small holdings for hay and dairy produce. The Harley heiress Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley married William, 2nd Duke of Portland, such place names in the neighbourhood as Cavendish Square and Portland Place reflect the Dukes of Portland landholdings and Georgian-era developments there. In 1879 the fifth Duke died without issue and the estate passed through the line to his sister, Lucy Joan Bentinck. A large part of the area directly to the west was constructed by the Portman family and is known as the Portman Estate, both estates have aristocratic antecedents and are still run by members of the aforementioned families. The Crown repurchased the northern part of the estate in 1813, mansfield Street is a short continuation of Chandos Street built by the Adam brothers in 1770, on a plot of ground which had been underwater. Most of its houses are fine buildings with exquisite interiors, which if put on the market now would have a price in excess of £10 million. Immediately across the road at 61 New Cavendish Street lived Natural History Museum creator Alfred Waterhouse, Queen Anne Street is an elegant cross-street which unites the northern end of Chandos Street with Welbeck Street. The painter JMW Turner moved to 47 Queen Anne Street in 1812 from 64 Harley Street, now divided into numbers 22 and 23, the building is one of the finest surviving Adam houses in London, and now lets rooms. Wimpole Street runs from Henrietta Place north to Devonshire Street, becoming Upper Wimpole en route – the latter where Arthur Conan Doyle opened his practice at number 2 in 1891. Today, at the end of Wimpole at Wigmore can be found a sandwich shop named Barretts. Bentinck Street leaves Welbeck Street and touches the middle of winding Marylebone Lane, more recently, Cambridge spies Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess lived at 5 Bentinck Street during the Second World War
Baker Street
