1.
Great North Road (Great Britain)
–
The Great North Road was the main highway between London and Scotland. It became a route used by mail coaches travelling between London, York and Edinburgh. The modern A1 mainly parallels the route of the Great North Road, Coaching inns, many of which survive, were staging posts providing accommodation, stabling for horses and replacement mounts. Nowadays virtually no surviving coaching inns can be seen driving on the A1. The traditional starting point of the Great North Road was Smithfield Market in Clerkenwell and its site continued to be used for this purpose even after the building was demolished soon after 1778. The route followed St John Street to the junction of City Road and Pentonville Road in the north, the Red Bull Theatre was on the street between 1604 and 1666, when it was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. James Burnett, Lord Monboddo lived at 13 St John Street and he held learned suppers at his house, with guests including James Boswell, Robert Burns and Samuel Johnson. The Angel Inn itself was an important staging post, the next important stages were at Highgate, Barnet, Hatfield, Baldock, Biggleswade and Alconbury, all replete with traditional coaching inns. At Alconbury, the Great North Road joined the Old North Road, here a milestone records mileages to London via both routes,65 by the Old North Road and 68 by the Great North Road. From Alconbury the Great North Road follows the line of Ermine Street north, Ermine Street crossed the River Welland about a mile to the west of what is now the town of Stamford. The Great North Road passed through the centre of Stamford, with two sharp bends, re-joined the alignment of Ermine Street just before Great Casterton and continued as far as Colsterworth. Inns on this section included the George at Stamford and the Bell Inn at Stilton, at Colsterworth the Great North Road diverges west of the Roman road and continues through Grantham, Newark, Retford and Bawtry to Doncaster. North of Doncaster the Great North Road again follows a section of Ermine Street. A road forked to the left at the bridge in Boroughbridge to follow Dere Street, part of this route was the original A1, with a local road from Scotch Corner via Barton to Darlington making the link back to the old Great North Road. In the first era of stage coaches York was the terminus of the Great North Road, along the route Doncaster–Selby–York was superseded by the route Doncaster–Ferrybridge–Wetherby–Boroughbridge–Northallerton–Darlington, the more direct way to Edinburgh, the final destination. The first recorded stage coach operating from London to York was in 1658 taking four days, faster mail coaches began using the route in 1786, stimulating a quicker service from the other passenger coaches. In the Golden Age of Coaching, between 1815 and 1835, coaches could travel from London to York in 20 hours, in the mid-nineteenth century coach services could not compete with the new railways. The last coach from London to Newcastle left in 1842 and the last from Newcastle to Edinburgh in July 1847, the highwayman Dick Turpins flight from London to York in less than 15 hours on his mare Black Bess is the most famous legend of the Great North Road
2.
Whetstone, London
–
Whetstone /ˈwɛtstoʊn/ is a place in the London Borough of Barnet, bearing the postcode N20. It is to the east of Totteridge, and these areas are together as Totteridge & Whetstone. This combined area is the 63rd richest area in the UK, an acclamation which can be credited to Totteridge Lane, the High Road, the main road in the area, is the A1000 and part of the traditional Great North Road from London to Edinburgh. It was an important staging post for coaches going north from London, there has been an inn on the site of the present Griffin pub for centuries, though the present building dates from 1928. The buildings to the left of the pub are late 15th century and it is thought that Whetstone was named after the whetstone used to sharpen knives and other tools, a chunk of which is located on the High Road, on the pavement outside the Griffin pub. Some question this and suggest the stone was placed there as a block for climbing on to horses as the Griffin was a coaching inn. It is also said that the name Whestone is merely a corruption of an old Anglo-Saxon name, legend has it that it was used by soldiers about to fight in the Battle of Barnet. There were early 19th century buildings opposite the Griffin pub on the corner of Totteridge Lane, late British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse moved to the area of Whetstone in 1991, after living in Southgate since 1983. Winehouse lived in Whetstone for six years, Whetstone may have been the location of a Soviet spy base. Tass, the Soviet news agency, had a monitoring station at The Lodge,13 Oakleigh Park North. Despite this concern, the Soviets were subsequently granted permission to use specialist radio equipment which was used to spy on the British. The matter was escalated to Prime Minister Clement Attlee and was discussed by members of the cabinet. Stations in the area are, Totteridge and Whetstone Station The Green Man Media related to Whetstone, London at Wikimedia Commons
3.
London Borough of Barnet
–
The London Borough of Barnet is a suburban London borough in North London, England, forming part of Outer London. It is the second largest London borough by population with 331,500 inhabitants and covers an area of 86.74 square kilometres, the fourth highest. It borders Hertfordshire to the north and five other London boroughs, Harrow and Brent to the west, Camden and Haringey to the south-east, the borough was formed in 1965 from parts of the counties of Middlesex and Hertfordshire. The local authority is Barnet London Borough Council, based in Hendon, the Act did not include a name for the new borough. A joint committee of the due to be amalgamated suggested Northgate or Northern Heights. Keith Joseph, the Minister of Housing and Local Government, eventually chose Barnet, the place name Barnet is derived from the Old English bærnet meaning Land cleared by burning. The area covered by the borough has a long history. Evidence of 1st-century Roman pottery manufacturing has been found at Brockley Hill and Roman coins from the 3rd, both sites are on the Roman road Watling Street from London and St Albans which now forms the western border of the borough. Hendon is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, but the districts of Barnet, Edgware, in 1471 the Battle of Barnet was fought in Monken Hadley, just within the present boroughs boundary. It was here that Yorkist troops led by King Edward IV killed the Kingmaker Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and his brother, John Neville, individual articles describe the history and development of the districts of Church End, East Finchley, Edgware, Golders Green and North Finchley. The residents of London Borough of Barnet are represented at Westminster by Members of Parliament for three parliamentary constituencies, Chipping Barnet is represented by Theresa Villiers. Finchley and Golders Green is represented by Mike Freer, Hendon, in 2010 the most marginal Conservative-held seat in London with a majority of 106 votes, is represented by Matthew Offord. The borough is divided into 21 wards, each with 3 councillors, following the local government election on 4 May 2006 the Conservative party gained a working majority and full control of the council. Mike Freer became leader of the council on 11 May 2006, replacing Brian Salinger as Conservative group leader, Barnet had £27.4 million invested in Icelandic banks Glitnir and Landsbanki when they collapsed October 2008. A report showed that Barnet Council failed to correct procedures when depositing the money. Campaigning on parking, he beat Conservative politician Brian Coleman at the 2012 London Assembly election overturning a 20,000 vote deficit and turning this into a 21,000 vote majority. In 2009, the authority started to introduce a new model of local government delivery in the borough, called Future Shape, the first stages of Future Shape were agreed by the councils cabinet in July 2009. The mainly public-sector union UNISON commissioned its own report on the involved in Future Shape
4.
Geographic coordinate system
–
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
Media related to 1255 High Road at Wikimedia Commons