1.
Borough of Bedford
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Bedford is a unitary authority area with borough status in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. Its council is based at Bedford, the county town of Bedfordshire, the borough contains one large urban area, the 71st largest in the United Kingdom that comprises Bedford and the adjacent town of Kempston, surrounded by a rural area with many villages. 75% of the population live in the Bedford Urban Area and the five large villages which surround it. The borough is also the location of the Wixams new town development, the District of Bedford was formed on 1 April 1974 as a merger of the existing borough of Bedford, along with Kempston urban district and Bedford Rural District. In 1975 the district was granted a charter granting borough status as North Bedfordshire. The borough was renamed as Borough of Bedford in 1992, over half of the former municipal borough of Bedford is unparished. However, Brickhill is a parish, and Queens Park as well as Cauldwell & Kingsbrook elect their own community councils. The rest of the district including Kempston is parished and this means Bedford Borough has assumed responsibility in areas such as education, social services and transport which were previously provided by Bedfordshire County Council. Unlike most English districts, Bedfords council is led by an elected mayor of Bedford. The first elections for the new unitary Bedford Borough Council were held on 4 June 2009 when 36 councillors in addition to the mayor were elected. Since an electoral review which came into effect for the elections in 2011. From 2009 to 2011, Independents were included in the executive committee, while Conservative members sat in opposition on the council
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St Paul's Church, Bedford
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St Pauls Church is a Church of England parish church located on St Pauls Square in the town centre of the market and county town of Bedford, Bedfordshire, England. As well as serving a parish and ministering to a congregation of all ages. Some evidence exists for the founding of St Paul’s Church as a new minster by King Offa to serve the inhabitants of his new fortified urban burgh. Offa is understood to have buried in Bedford and his Minster Church of St Paul has been identified as a possible site of his grave. From the early ninth century the mission was frequently interrupted by the invasions of the heathen Danes which continued at intervals until the arrival of the Normans in 1066. The Danes caused sporadic damage wherever they plundered or settled and they used the river to move inland to Bedford on their way westwards into the Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex, and in 1009-10 destroyed the church in the fighting. The Anglo-Saxon chronicles report that ‘forever they burnt as they went, originally constructed in the early 13th century, the present church building has undergone numerous alterations, extensions, rebuilds and restorations since this time. An Early English south porch survive from the original 13th-century structure, however. The Trinity Chapel of the church was first constructed in 1416, the church has long standing connections with Sir William Harpur and Dame Alice Harper, and the Trinity Chapel holds brasses of the couple. Sir William was the Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1562, other improvements in the 15th century included Misericords in the Quire and two additional porches. The Trinity Chapel was used as an Archdeacon’s Court after the English Reformation, on May 23,1656, John Bunyan, the Christian preacher and author of The Pilgrims Progress, preached at St. Pauls. John Wesley, the Anglican cleric and Christian theologian preached the Assize Sermon at the church on 10 March 1758, during the 19th century St Paul’s adopted the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England, where it remains. As a result, the Sisters of Saint Etheldreda began to be associated with the parish from 1869, architectural work to the church in the 19th century includes the tower and spire, transepts, choir stalls, quire and quire roof. Early 20th-century work to the church includes the Rood screen, the English Altar and altar rails, later in the 20th century, from the mid-1970s to 1982, the church was restored and otherwise improved. In 2014 new work was completed on a Narthex at the west end of the church, St Paul’s moved centre stage nationally to play two special roles at a time when the United Kingdom faced its darkest hour. First, during the Second World War, the BBC moved much of its operations out of London to Bedford. The service was broadcast to all parts of the world, to uplift, the church was also home to a service led by Roman Catholic Cardinal Arthur Hinsley. The present three manual instrument is the result of a rebuild in 2010, although several of the 1985 tonal additions have been retained, the tonal basis of the present instrument is formed by the Norman & Beard pipework of 1900
3.
Bedfordshire
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Bedfordshire is a county in the East of England. It is a county and a historic county, covered by three unitary authorities, Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, and Luton. Bedfordshire is bordered by Cambridgeshire to the east/northeast, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the east/southeast. It is the fourteenth most densely populated county of England, with half the population of the county living in the two largest built-up areas, Luton and the county town, Bedford. The highest elevation point is 243 metres on Dunstable Downs in the Chilterns, the traditional nickname for people from Bedfordshire is Clangers, deriving from a local dish comprising a suet crust pastry filled with meat in one end and jam in the other. The first recorded use of the name in 1011 was Bedanfordscir, meaning the shire or county of Bedford, which itself means Bedas ford. Bedfordshire was historically divided into nine hundreds, Barford, Biggleswade, Clifton, Flitt, Manshead, Redbournestoke, Stodden, Willey, Wixamtree, along with the liberty and borough of Bedford. There have been changes to the county boundary, for example, in 1897 Kensworth. The southern end of the county is on the ridge known as the Chiltern Hills. The remainder is part of the drainage basin of the River Great Ouse. Most of Bedfordshires rocks are clays and sandstones from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, local clay has been used for brick-making of Fletton style bricks in the Marston Vale. The Greensand Ridge is an escarpment across the county from near Leighton Buzzard to near Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire is relatively dry, being situated in the east of England. Average annual rainfall is 597.6 millimetres at Bedford, october is the wettest month with 62.5 millimetres, February the driest with 36.7 millimetres. While there is little difference from month to month there are more wet days in autumn and winter but often heavier individual falls in spring and summer, of note were the 1998 Easter floods. Average temperatures in Bedford range from a low of 0.8 °C overnight in February to a high of 22.1 °C during the day in July, in the last 20 years the highest temperature recorded was 35.9 °C. The lowest temperature on record in Bedfordshire is −20.6 °C at Woburn on 25 February 1947, the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner is Kathryn Holloway who is a member of the Conservative Party. For local government purposes, Bedfordshire is divided into three authorities, the boroughs of Bedford and Luton, and the District of Central Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire County Council was abolished on 1 April 2009, although the three continue to form a county for ceremonial functions such as lieutenancy and High Sheriff
4.
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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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
6.
Points of the compass
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The points of the compass, specifically on the compass rose, mark divisions of a compass, such divisions may be referred to as winds or directions. A compass point allows reference to a heading in a general or colloquial fashion. A compass is primarily divided into the four cardinal points—north, south, east and these are often further subdivided by the addition of the four intercardinal directions—northeast between north and east, southeast, southwest, and northwest —to indicate the eight principal winds. In meteorological usage, further intermediate points between cardinal and ordinal points, such as north-northeast between north and northeast, are added to give the sixteen points of a wind compass, for most applications, the fractional points have been superseded by degrees measured clockwise from North. In ancient China 24 points of the compass were used, measuring fifteen degrees between points. The names of the compass directions follow the 32-point wind compass rose follow these rules, The cardinal directions are north, east, south, west, the ordinal directions are northeast, southeast, southwest and northwest, formed by bisecting the angle of the cardinal winds. The name is merely a combination of the cardinals it bisects, the eight principal winds are the cardinals and ordinals considered together, that is N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. Each principal wind is 45° from its neighbour, the principal winds form the basic eight-wind compass rose. The eight half-winds are the points obtained by bisecting the angles between the principal winds, the half-winds are north-northeast, east-northeast, east-southeast, south-southeast, south-southwest, west-southwest, west-northwest and north-northwest. Notice that the name is constructed simply by combining the names of the winds to either side, with the cardinal wind coming first. The eight principal winds and the eight half-winds together yield a 16-wind compass rose, all of the above named points plus the sixteen quarter winds listed in the next paragraph define the 32 points of the wind compass rose. The sixteen quarter winds are the points obtained by bisecting the angles between the points on a 16-wind compass rose. The name of a quarter-wind is X by Y, where X is a principal wind, so northeast by east means one quarter from NE towards E, southwest by south means one quarter from SW towards S. The eight principal winds, eight half-winds and sixteen quarter winds together yield a 32-wind compass rose, in the mariners exercise of boxing the compass, all thirty-two points of the compass are named in clockwise order. The title of the Alfred Hitchcock 1959 movie, North by Northwest, is not a direction point on the 32-wind compass. The traditional compass rose of eight winds was invented by seafarers in the Mediterranean Sea during the Middle Ages. This Italianate patois was used to designate the names of the winds on the compass rose found in mariner compasses. Tramutana, Gregale, Grecho, Sirocco, Xaloc, Lebeg, Libezo, Leveche, Mezzodi, Migjorn, Magistro, Mestre, etc
7.
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
8.
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
9.
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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East of England
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The East of England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of NUTS for statistical purposes. It was created in 1994 and was adopted for statistics from 1999 and it includes the ceremonial counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Essex has the highest population in the region and its population at the 2011 census was 5,847,000. Bedford, Luton, Basildon, Peterborough, Southend-on-Sea, Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford, the southern part of the region lies in the London commuter belt. The region has the lowest elevation range in the UK, North Cambridgeshire and the Essex Coast have most of the around 5% of the region which is below 10 metres above sea level. The Fens are partly in North Cambridgeshire which is notable for the lowest point in the country in the land of the village of Holme 2.75 metres below sea level which was once Whittlesey Mere. The highest point is at Clipper Down at 817 ft, in the far corner of the region in the Ivinghoe Hills. In the late 1960s, the Roskill Commission considered Thurleigh in Bedfordshire, Nuthampstead in Hertfordshire, the East of England succeeded the standard statistical region East Anglia. The East of England civil defence region was identical to todays region, England between the Wash and Thames Estuary has since post-Roman times been and continues to be known as East Anglia, including the county traversing the west of this line, Cambridgeshire. Essex, despite meaning East-Saxons, previously formed part of the South East England, as did Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, the earliest use of the term is from 1695. Charles Davenant, in An essay upon ways and means of supplying the war, wrote, The Eleven Home Counties, then cited a list including these four. The term does not appear to have used in taxation since the 18th century. East Anglia is one of the driest parts of the United Kingdom with average rainfall ranging from 450 mm to 750 mm. This is usually because low pressure systems and weather fronts from the Atlantic have lost a lot of their moisture over land by the time they reach Eastern England, however the Fens in Cambridgeshire are prone to flooding should a strong system affect the area. Northerly winds can also be cold but are not usually as cold as easterly winds, westerly winds bring milder and, typically, wetter weather. Southerly winds usually bring mild air but chill if coming from further east than Spain, spring is a transitional season that can be chilly to start with but is usually warm by late-April/May. The weather at this time is often changeable and occasionally showery, summer is usually warm and continental air from mainland Europe or the Azores High usually leads to at least a few weeks of hot, balmy weather with prolonged warm to hot weather. The number of storms from the Atlantic, such as the remnants of a tropical storm usually coincides with the location of the jet stream
11.
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
14.
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
16.
Bedfordshire Police
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Its headquarters are based in Kempston, Bedfordshire. A professional police force was established in Bedfordshire in 1839, under the County Police Act 1839 and it initially comprised a chief constable, who was based in Ampthill,6 superintendents and 40 constables. Constables were paid 19 shillings a week, which was twice the typical wage of an agricultural labourer in the county at that time. In 1965, Bedfordshire Constabulary had an establishment of 497 and a strength of 430. On 11 June 2007 PC Jon Henry, was fatally stabbed whilst on duty in the centre of Luton by a Nigerian immigrant. Obih was convicted of his murder, along with the attempted murder, Bedfordshire Police has collaborated several specialist units with Hertfordshire Constabulary and Cambridgeshire Constabulary including Major Crime, Dogs, Firearms and Roads Policing. In June 2015, the force implemented a new operating model – which comprises north and south bases, Bedfordshire Police publish results of cases on their official website such as the drug gang who were jailed for 39 years. Bedfordshire Polices Cadets have recently scooped a National Award for their contribution to helping to reduce crime. In 2014 Bedfordshire Police took the move to allow cameras into the force 24/7 to film a fly-on-the-wall documentary capturing some of the issues faced by police officers today. The last series ended in June 2016 but more episodes are planned for the near future, read more about the documentary 24hrs in Police Custody In July 2015, Bedfordshire Police was the first force in the country to secure a Female Genital Mutilation protection order. The court order allowed officers to seize the passports of two girls who it was thought were being taken to Africa. Source, https, //www. theguardian. com/society/2015/jul/17/police-obtain-first-fgm-protection-order On 15 November 2016, the image accompanying the tweet showed a hand with raised finger - a symbol used by ISIS. The logo was produced by a charity and was used in good faith. As a consequence and to avoid offence, Bedfordshire Police has deleted these posts, the force employs AFOs to deal with firearms incidents in the area. However all officers are equipped with Hiatt Speedcuffs, PAVA incapacitant spray, Velcro fastwrap leg restraints, some officers are also equipped with the TASERX26 electroshock weapon. The first Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner is Olly Martins, who was elected on 15 November 2012, the police and crime commissioner is scrutinised by the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Panel, made up of elected councillors from the local authorities in the police area. Before November 2012 the Bedfordshire Police Authority was the police governance, on 5 May 2016 Kathryn Holloway became the second Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner after winning the vote against Olly Martins. View the Police and Crime Commissioners Police and Crime Plan 2016 Our Force Control Strategy determines our operational priorities, helping us to protect people
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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
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Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service
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Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service provides the Fire and Rescue Service to the area covered and served by Central Bedfordshire Council, Bedford Borough Council and Luton Borough Council. The Service took its current name following the abolition of the County Council, Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service currently employ more than 550 staff on a variety of conditions of service. These include Firefighters on the Wholetime shift system, Firefighters on the Retained Duty System, Fire Officers on the Flexible Duty System, Fire Control Operators, the countys control room was due to move into a regional control centre in Cambridge in 2011 as part of the FiReControl project. The Firefighters currently working at the countys five Wholetime stations are the first in the country to work 24-hour shifts
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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
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East of England Ambulance Service
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These consist of 5.8 million people and 7,500 square miles. It is one of 10 Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency medical services, there is no charge to patients for use of the service, and under the Patients Charter every person in the United Kingdom has the right to the attendance of an ambulance in an emergency. The Trust controls the mobilisation of Immediate Care charities throughout its area and these include Magpas, SARS, NARS and East Anglian Air Ambulance. The result was a service covering an area of over 7,500 square miles with a population of 5.8 million people, the East Anglian Ambulance NHS Trust had been formed in 1994 from the three-way merger of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk Ambulance Services. In 2015/16, the trust received 1,037,119 emergency calls, the trust arrived at 66. 9% of emergency Red 1 calls within eight minutes, and 59. 9% of emergency Red 2 calls within eight minutes. Overall, the trust arrived to 90% of Red 1/2 calls within 19 minutes, EEAST employs more than 4,000 staff and has around 1,500 volunteers. The EEAST uses Mercedes Sprinters as their front-line emergency ambulances, and use Ford Mondeos, renault Masters are used as Patient Transport Service vehicles. Iveco Dailys and Land Rover Discoverys are used as Hazardous Area Response Team vehicles, in 2013-14 the Trust missed all of its targets in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. 73. 6% of red 1 calls for immediately life-threatening situations were met within eight minutes against a target of 75%,69. 4% of red 2 calls, which may be life-threatening but less time critical were responded to within eight minutes against a 75% target. In north Norfolk, rapid responses during one month were as low as 25%, according to the Clinical Commissioning Group performance had deteriorated overall in comparison to prior year at both regional and local level. In August 2014, the Trust was fined £1. 2m over these failures and it was also fined £300,000 over turnaround times at hospitals. The fines were accrued between April and July 2014, EEAST, which handles more than 900,000 emergency 999 calls a year, said it was recruiting hundreds of new staff and investing in new ambulances. In a statement in November 2014, Chief executive Anthony Marsh blamed EEASTS’ continued failure to meet its emergency response time targets on a lack of staff. In October 2014, EEAST apologised after claims were published in a newspaper that a body had been left lying next to dustbins at its station in Ely. Chief executive Anthony Marsh said the Trust was very sorry for what happened and had started a thorough investigation, an EEAST spokesman confirmed the investigation involved the transportation of a deceased patient, but said he could not comment further as inquiries were ongoing. The newspaper which published the claims said it had done so after being approached by a whistleblower
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East of England (European Parliament constituency)
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East of England is a constituency of the European Parliament. It currently elects 7 MEPs using the method of party-list proportional representation. The constituency corresponds to the East of England region of the United Kingdom, comprising the counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire. It was formed as a result of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, elected candidates are shown in bold. Brackets indicate the number of votes per seat won
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Bedford (UK Parliament constituency)
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Bedford /ˈbɛdfᵿd/ is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Richard Fuller of the Conservative Party. 1918-1950, The Municipal Borough of Bedford, the Urban District of Kempston, 1950-1983, The Municipal Borough of Bedford, the Urban District of Kempston, and part of the Rural District of Bedford. 1997-2010, The Borough of Bedford wards of Brickhill, Castle, Cauldwell, De Parys, Goldington, Harpur, Kempston East, Kempston West, Kingsbrook, Newnham, Putnoe, Bedford is a marginal seat between the Labour Party and the Conservatives. The smaller and contiguous town of Kempston is also in the constituency, Bedford was first represented in the Model Parliament of 1295. The constituency was originally a parliamentary borough electing two members of parliament to the House of Commons, and consisted of the five parishes making up the town of Bedford. Before the Reform Act of 1832, the right to vote was exercised by all freemen and burgesses of the town and this was a fairly wide franchise for the period, but potentially subject to abuse since the Corporation of the borough had unlimited power to create freemen. The Corporation was usually under the influence of the Dukes of Bedford, in 1768 a majority of the corporation apparently fell out with the then Duke, and decided to free the borough from his influence. They elected a Huntingdonshire squire, Sir Robert Bernard, as Recorder of the borough, however, in 1789, the young Duke of Bedford managed to regain the Corporations loyalty, and had 350 of his own retainers made freeman. Even at other periods, the influence of the Dukes of Bedford seems sometimes to have been more nominal than real, in 1831, the population of the borough was 6,959, and contained 1,491 houses. This was sufficient for Bedford to retain both its MPs under the Great Reform Act, with its boundaries unaltered, the reformed franchise introduced in 1832 gave the borough 1,572 inhabitants qualified to vote. The town was growing, and Bedford retained its status until the 1918 election, although under the Redistribution of Seats Act,1885. On the eve of the First World War its population was just under 40,000, in 1918 the borough was abolished, but towns name was applied to the county constituency into which it was placed. The new constituency covered the end of the county and included Kempston and Eaton Socon together with the surrounding rural area. The following boundary review, effective from the 1997 general election, in the latest boundary changes, the constituency lost all the rural settlements and villages to the Mid Bedfordshire and North East Bedfordshire constituencies. This means that the Bedford Constituency is now solely formed from the towns of Bedford, Constituency created Reduced to one member endorsed by the Coalition Government General Election 1914/15 Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. A chronological register of both houses of the British Parliament, Volume II
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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
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Kempston
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Kempston is a town and civil parish located in Bedfordshire, England. Once known as the largest village in England, Kempston is now a town with its own town council. It has a population of about 20,000, and together with Bedford, it forms an area with around 100,000 inhabitants. Kempston serves principally as a town for Bedford. Until the 19th century Kempston was a rural parish. It was one of the largest in Bedfordshire with an area of 5,025 acres at the time of enclosure in 1804, and was in Redbournestoke Hundred. Historically there was no village, but instead settlement was divided between a number of hamlets called Ends, for example, Up End, Bell End, Wood End. Kempstons parish church, All Saints, was in Church End, in the 19th century East End, Bell End and Up End began to coalesce into a larger settlement. In 1870 developers began to attempt to land on the road from Kempston to Bedford under the name Kempston New Town. Construction was slow at first, but the new district began to expand steadily. A permanent military presence was established in the town with the completion of Kempston Barracks in 1876, in 1896 the parish was divided into Kempston Urban District 1,255 acres and the civil parish of Kempston Rural 3,770 acres. Kempston Rural was three times larger, but remained sparsely populated, Church End, with its original parish church, remains a small hamlet in the rural part of Kempston. The growth of Kempstons population levelled off in the decades of the 20th century. The 1951 population of just under 10,000 was 60% higher than that of 1931, in the half of the 20th century. In 1974 Kempston Urban District was abolished and Kempston reverted to being a parish, in the Borough of Bedford. For borough election purposes the town is divided into four wards called Kempston Central and East, Kempston North, Kempston South, Kempston Rural remains a civil parish and is part of Turvey Ward for borough election purposes. Note 1,1981 figures are provisional, note 2, The 2001 Kempston Urban figure is the combined total for the three urban wards of Kempston East, Kempston North and Kempston South. The name in its old form is kemestun which includes the Brittonic word cambio meaning bent or curved, therefore, the name meant when coined the enclosed settlement on the bend
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Ford (crossing)
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A ford is a shallow place with good footing where a river or stream may be crossed by wading, or inside a vehicle getting its wheels wet. A ford is mostly a natural phenomenon, in contrast to a low water crossing, a ford is a much cheaper form of river crossing than a bridge, but it may become impassable after heavy rain or during flood conditions. A ford is therefore only suitable for very minor roads. Most modern fords are usually enough to be crossed by cars. In New Zealand, however, fords are a part of major roads, including, until 2010. As most inter-city domestic passengers travel by air and as much cargo goes by sea, long distance road traffic is low, in dry weather, drivers become aware of a ford by crunching across outwash detritus on the roadway. A Bailey bridge may be built off the line of the road to carry emergency traffic during high water. At places where the water is enough, but the material on the riverbed will not support heavy vehicles. In such cases a curb is often placed on the side to prevent vehicles slipping off. Fords may be equipped with a post indicating the water depth. Some have an adjacent footbridge so that pedestrians may cross without getting their feet wet, a road running below the water level of a stream or river is often known as a watersplash. It is a name for a ford or stretch of wet road in some areas. They have become a feature in rallying courses. There are enthusiasts who seek out and drive through these water features, there are many old fords known as watersplashes in the United Kingdom. Examples are at Brockenhurst in Hampshire, Wookey in Somerset, some of these are being replaced by bridges as these are a more reliable form of crossing in adverse weather conditions. The Dean Ford in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, is mentioned in the deeds of this property, the ford has had to be maintained as a property boundary feature, despite several cars a year being washed away. Not just a British phenomenon, some very spectacular versions of the feature can be found in diverse locations. Australia has the Gulf Savannah, and others may be found in Canada, Italy, South Africa and they are also found on some Tennessee backroads, where they are referred to as underwater bridges
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River Great Ouse
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The River Great Ouse is a river in the United Kingdom, the longest of several British rivers called Ouse. From Syresham in central England, the Great Ouse flows into East Anglia before entering the Wash, with a course of 143 miles, mostly flowing north and east, it is the one of the longest rivers in the United Kingdom. Its lower course passes through drained wetlands and fens and has been modified, or channelised, to relieve flooding. Though the unmodified river probably changed course regularly after floods, it now enters the Wash after passing through the port of Kings Lynn, the name Ouse is from the Celtic or pre-Celtic *Udso-s, and probably means simply water or slow flowing river. The lower reaches of the Great Ouse are also known as Old West River and the Ely Ouse, the river has several sources close to the village of Syresham in Northamptonshire. It flows through Brackley and into Buckinghamshire, through Buckingham, Milton Keynes at Stony Stratford, Newport Pagnell, Olney and Kempston in Bedfordshire, passing through Bedford, in to Cambridgeshire through St Neots, Godmanchester, Huntingdon, Hemingford Grey and St Ives, it reaches Earith. Here, the river enters a tidal section before branching in two. The artificial, very straight Old Bedford River and New Bedford River, the old course of the river passes through Hermitage Lock into the Old West River. After joining the Cam near Little Thetford, north of Cambridge, below Denver the river is tidal and passes Downham Market to enter The Wash at Kings Lynn. The river is navigable from the Wash to Kempston Mill, just beyond Bedford and this section includes 17 locks which are maintained by the Environment Agency, which is the navigation authority and who attempt to attract more boaters to the river. It has a catchment area of 3,240 square miles and its course has been modified several times, with the first recorded being in 1236, as a result of flooding. During the 1600s, the Old Bedford and New Bedford Rivers were built to provide a route for the water to reach the sea. In the 20th century, construction of the Cut-Off Channel and the Great Ouse Relief Channel have further altered water flows in the region, improvements to assist navigation began in 1618, with the construction of sluices and locks. Bedford could be reached by river from 1689, a major feature was the sluice at Denver, which failed in 1713, but was rebuilt by 1750 after the problem of flooding returned. Kings Lynn, at the mouth of the river, developed as a port, with the coming of the railways the state of the river declined so that it was unsuitable either for navigation or for drainage. The navigation was declared to be derelict in the 1870s, a repeated problem was the number of authorities responsible for different aspects of the river. The Drainage Board created in 1918 had no powers to address navigation issues, when the Great Ouse Catchment Board was created under the powers of the Land Drainage Act in 1930, effective action could at last be taken. There was significant sugar beet traffic on the river between 1925 and 1959, with the last known commercial traffic occurring in 1974
27.
Offa of Mercia
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Offa was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death in July 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of war following the assassination of Æthelbald. Offa defeated the other claimant, Beornred, in the early years of Offas reign, it is likely that he consolidated his control of Midland peoples such as the Hwicce and the Magonsæte. Taking advantage of instability in the kingdom of Kent to establish himself as overlord, Offa also controlled Sussex by 771, though his authority did not remain unchallenged in either territory. In the 780s he extended Mercian supremacy over most of southern England, allying with Beorhtric of Wessex, who married Offas daughter Eadburh and he also became the overlord of East Anglia and had King Æthelberht II of East Anglia beheaded in 794, perhaps for rebelling against him. Offa was a Christian king who came into conflict with the Church, particularly with Jaenberht, Offa persuaded Pope Adrian I to divide the archdiocese of Canterbury in two, creating a new archdiocese of Lichfield. Offa had a dispute with the Bishop of Worcester, which was settled at the Council of Brentford in 781, many surviving coins from Offas reign carry elegant depictions of him, and the artistic quality of these images exceeds that of the contemporary Frankish coinage. Some of his coins carry images of his wife, Cynethryth – the only Anglo-Saxon queen ever depicted on a coin. Only three gold coins of Offas have survived, one is a copy of an Abbasid dinar of 774 and carries Arabic text on one side, the gold coins are of uncertain use but may have been struck to be used as alms or for gifts to Rome. Many historians regard Offa as the most powerful Anglo-Saxon king before Alfred the Great and his dominance never extended to Northumbria, though he gave his daughter Ælfflæd in marriage to the Northumbrian king Æthelred I in 792. Historians once saw his reign as part of a process leading to a unified England, in the words of a recent historian, Offa was driven by a lust for power, not a vision of English unity, and what he left was a reputation, not a legacy. Offa died in 796, his son, Ecgfrith, succeeded him, in the first half of the 8th century, the dominant Anglo-Saxon ruler was King Æthelbald of Mercia, who by 731 had become the overlord of all the provinces south of the River Humber. The power and prestige that Offa attained made him one of the most significant rulers in Early Medieval Britain, a key source for the period is the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals in Old English narrating the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The Chronicle was a West Saxon production, however, and is thought to be biased in favour of Wessex, hence it may not accurately convey the extent of power achieved by Offa. That power can be seen at work in dating from Offas reign. Charters were documents which granted land to followers or to churchmen and were witnessed by the kings who had the authority to grant the land, a charter might record the names of both a subject king and his overlord on the witness list appended to the grant. Such a witness list can be seen on the Ismere Diploma, for example, Offas Dyke, most of which was probably built in his reign, is a testimony to the extensive resources Offa had at his command and his ability to organise them. Other surviving sources include a document known as the Tribal Hidage
28.
Bedford Castle
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Bedford Castle was a large medieval castle in Bedford, England. Built after 1100 by Henry I, the played a prominent part in both the civil war of the Anarchy and the First Barons War. The castle was extended in stone, although the final plan of the castle remains uncertain. After the surrender of the castle, the king ordered its destruction, today only part of the motte still stands, forming part of an archaeological park built on the site between 2007 and 2009. Bedford Castle was probably built after 1100 by Henry I in the town of Bedford, overlooking the River Great Ouse. The castle was constructed inside the town itself, and many of the older Anglo-Saxon streets had to be destroyed and diverted to make room for it, leaving a permanent mark in the formal grid system. The castle was built in a motte and bailey design and was much smaller than the later castle, just consisting of the motte. By the early 12th century the castle was controlled by the castellan, Simon de Beauchamp. Miles and Payn de Beauchamp, the children of Simons brother, Robert de Beauchamp, declared that the castle was rightfully Miles, meanwhile, civil war had broke out in England between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda, resulting in a period of chaos known as the Anarchy. Matildas uncle, David I of Scotland, invaded England during 1137 in support of her claim, although Miles de Beauchamp declared himself in support of Stephen, the king decided to retake Bedford Castle before marching north. Stephen formed an army to besiege Bedford Castle but Miles gained advance warning of the attack and took in considerable supplies, preparing for a long siege. Stephen was unable to storm the castle and left a force under the command of Hugh to starve it into submission whilst he marched north to tackle the Scots invasion, Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester, intervened in an attempt to produce a negotiated solution. Henry reached an agreement whereby after five weeks, the castle finally surrendered, historians are divided as to whether the castle was besieged at the same time. Early in 1215 tensions grew between King John and a faction of his barons, which would lead to the First Barons War. The rebel barons attempted to besiege Northampton Castle, unsuccessful, they turned to Bedford Castle but the castle withstood the attack, Bedford was held at the time by William de Beauchamp but his loyalty came into question and he rebelled against John. Falkes de Breauté, a key Anglo-Norman leader loyal to John, in return John gave Falkes the Honour of Bedford, and in practical terms the castle as well, although it is unclear whether he gave Falkes the role of castellan or ownership of the castle itself. As the war continued, Falkes took control of Plympton, Christchurch and Carisbrooke castles, whilst continuing to hold onto Bedford. After the death of King John in 1216 the war turned against the barons and the royalist faction, including Falkes, was able to restore his son
29.
Henry I of England
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Henry I, also known as Henry Beauclerc, was King of England from 1100 to his death. Henry was the son of William the Conqueror and was educated in Latin. On Williams death in 1087, Henrys elder brothers Robert Curthose and William Rufus inherited Normandy and England, respectively, Henry purchased the County of Cotentin in western Normandy from Robert, but William and Robert deposed him in 1091. Henry gradually rebuilt his power base in the Cotentin and allied himself with William against Robert, Henry was present when William died in a hunting accident in 1100, and he seized the English throne, promising at his coronation to correct many of Williams less popular policies. Henry married Matilda of Scotland but continued to have a number of mistresses. Robert, who invaded in 1101, disputed Henrys control of England, the peace was short-lived, and Henry invaded the Duchy of Normandy in 1105 and 1106, finally defeating Robert at the Battle of Tinchebray. Henry kept Robert imprisoned for the rest of his life, following Henrys victory at the Battle of Brémule, a favourable peace settlement was agreed with Louis in 1120. Considered by contemporaries to be a harsh but effective ruler, Henry skilfully manipulated the barons in England, Normandy was also governed through a growing system of justices and an exchequer. Many of the officials who ran Henrys system were new men of obscure backgrounds rather than families of high status. Henry encouraged ecclesiastical reform, but became embroiled in a dispute in 1101 with Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury. He supported the Cluniac order and played a role in the selection of the senior clergy in England. Henrys only legitimate son and heir, William Adelin, drowned in the White Ship disaster of 1120, Henry took a second wife, Adeliza, in the hope of having another son, but their marriage was childless. In response to this, Henry declared his daughter, Matilda, his heir, the relationship between Henry and the couple became strained, and fighting broke out along the border with Anjou. Henry died on 1 December 1135 after a week of illness, despite his plans for Matilda, the King was succeeded by his nephew, Stephen of Blois, resulting in a period of civil war known as the Anarchy. Henry was probably born in England in 1068, in either the summer or the last weeks of the year, possibly in the town of Selby in Yorkshire. His father was William the Conqueror, who had originally been the Duke of Normandy and then, following the invasion of 1066, became the King of England, the invasion had created an Anglo-Norman elite, many with estates spread across both sides of the English Channel. These Anglo-Norman barons typically had close links to the kingdom of France, Henrys mother, Matilda of Flanders, was the granddaughter of Robert II of France, and she probably named Henry after her uncle, King Henry I of France. Henry was the youngest of William and Matildas four sons, physically he resembled his older brothers Robert Curthose, Richard and William Rufus, being, as historian David Carpenter describes, short, stocky and barrel-chested, with black hair
30.
Italians in the United Kingdom
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Italians in the United Kingdom, also known as British Italians or colloquially Britalians, are citizens or residents of the United Kingdom of Italian heritage. More specific terms used to describe Italians in the United Kingdom include, Italian English, Italian Scots, the Romans from Italy were the first Italians to settle in the British Isles along with other people from various parts of the Roman Empire. Historian Theodore Mommsen calculated that in the five centuries of Roman presence in the British isles, one of the first Italian communities in England started from the merchants and sailors living in Southampton. The famous Lombard Street in London took its name from the small but powerful community from northern Italy, living there as bankers, in 1303, Edward I negotiated an agreement with the Lombard merchant community that secured custom duties and certain rights and privileges. The revenues from the duty were handled by the Riccardi. This was in return for their service as money lenders to the crown, when the war with France broke out, the French king confiscated the Riccardis assets, and the bank went bankrupt. After this, the Frescobaldi of Florence took over the role as money lenders to the English crown, historian Alwyn Ruddock claimed to have found evidence that Giovanni Cabot received backing from the Italian community in London for his voyage to North America. In particular, she suggested he found a patron in the form of Fr, Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, an Augustinian friar who was also the deputy to the papal tax collector Adriano Castellesi. Beyond this, Ruddock claimed that Cabot received a loan from an Italian banking house in London to go, the fifteenth century also saw the birth of a pivotal Italo-Englishman in the form of John Florio, a famed language teacher, lexicographer, and translator. The Titus family is another significant group that settled in England in the time of the Renaissance, in recent years there have been several news outlets that have covered the possibility that William Shakespeare was born in Messina, Sicily. The arts flourished under the Hanoverian dynasty and this attracted many more Italian artists, all of this developed in the United Kingdom a moderate Italophilia during the late Italian Renaissance. From the 1820s to 1851. accounts for 4000 Italian immigrants in England, the regional origins of most were the valleys around Como, and Lucca. The people from Como were skilled artisans, making barometers and other precision instruments, a railway network had been started by this time and this helped the people from the Liri valley to migrate to the North of Italy, and then on to Britain. Dickens’ Oliver Twist and Gustave Dores prints of London at that time fill in the images, as numbers increased and competition grew fiercer, so Italians spread to the north of England, Wales and Scotland. They were never in great numbers in the northern cities, and that the 500-600 Italians in Manchester included mostly Terrazzo specialists, plasterers and modellers working on the prestigious, new town hall. While in Sheffield 100-150 Italians made cutlery. and most of the rest worked in the coal mines. In 1861. there were 119 Italians in Scotland, by 1901 the Italian population was 4051. By this time the Italian communities were becoming more affluent, the Italian Scottish community was …almost all engaged in small food shops – either ice cream shops or fish restaurants. The Risorgimento hero Mazzini also created an Italian school for poor people, by the time WWI started, the Italian community was well established in London and other areas of the British isles
31.
Midland Main Line
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The Midland Main Line is a major railway line in England from London to Sheffield in the North of England. The line is under the Network Rail description of Route 19, it comprises the lines from Londons St. Pancras station via Leicester, Derby/Nottingham, Express passenger services on the line are operated by East Midlands Trains. The section between St Pancras and Bedford is electrified and forms the northern half of Thameslink, with a fast service to Brighton, a northern part of the route, between Derby and Chesterfield, also forms part of the Cross Country Route operated by CrossCountry. Tracks from Nottingham to Leeds via Barnsley and Sheffield are shared with Northern, East Midlands Local also operates regional and local services using parts of the line. The Midland Main Line was built in stages between the 1830s and the 1870s, the earliest section was opened by the Midland Counties Railway between Nottingham and Derby on 4 June 1839. On 5 May 1840 the section of the route from Trent Junction to Leicester was opened, the line at Derby was joined on 1 July 1840 by the North Midland Railway to Leeds Hunslet Lane via Chesterfield, Rotherham Masborough, Swinton and Normanton. On 10 May 1844 the North Midland Railway, the Midland Counties Railway, without its own route to London, the Midland Railway relied upon a junction at Rugby with the London and Birmingham Railway line for access to the capital at London Euston. By the 1850s the junction at Rugby had become severely congested, the Midland Railway employed Thomas Brassey to construct a new route from Leicester to Hitchin via Kettering, Wellingborough and Bedford. Giving access to London via the Great Northern Railway from Hitchin, the Crimean War resulted in a shortage of labour and finance, and only £900,000 was available for the construction, approximately £15,000 for each mile. To reduce construction costs the railway followed natural contours, resulting in many curves, seven bridges and one tunnel were required, with 60ft cuttings at Desborough and Sharnbrook. There are also major summits at Kibworth, Desbrough and at Sharnbrook where a 1 in 119 gradient from the south over 3 miles takes the line to 340 feet above sea level. This route opened for traffic on 15 April 1857, goods on 4 May and passengers on 8 May. James Allport arranged a deal with the GN to run into Kings Cross for a guaranteed £20,000 a year. Through services to London were introduced in February 1858 and this line met with similar capacity problems at Hitchin as the former route via Rugby, so a new line was constructed from Bedford via Luton to St Pancras which opened on 1 October 1868. The construction of the London extension cost £9,000,000, as traffic built up, the Midland opened a new deviation just north of Market Harborough railway station on 26 June 1885 to remove the flat crossing of the Rugby and Stamford Railway. Plans by the Midland Railway to build a line from Derby to Manchester were thwarted in 1863 by the builders of the Buxton Line who sought to monopolise on the West Coast Main Line. In 1870 the Midland Railway opened a new route from Chesterfield to Rotherham which went through Sheffield, the mid-1870s saw the Midland line extended northwards through the Yorkshire Dales and Eden Valley on what is now called the Settle-Carlisle Railway. Express trains to Leeds and Scotland such as the Thames-Clyde Express mainly used the Midlands corollary Erewash Valley Line, expresses to Edinburgh Waverley, such as The Waverley travelled through Corby and Nottingham
32.
Thameslink and Great Northern
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Thameslink and Great Northern services were merged into one franchise in 2006 due to the Thameslink Programme. In 2012, it was announced that services of First Capital Connect, Southern, the Invitation to Tender was to have been issued in October 2012, with the successful bidder announced in Spring 2013 and TSGN originally due to start in September 2013. However, due to the collapse of the InterCity West Coast re-franchising process, in September 2013 a revised invitation to tender was issued. Govia Thameslink Railway was awarded the franchise on 23 May 2014, on 14 September 2014, Thameslink and Great Northern took over from First Capital Connect, serving 122 stations and operating a fleet of 226 trains. In December 2014, full control was taken of the Sevenoaks Thameslink service, on 21 January 2016 Transport for London announced that it intends to take over the London suburban parts of the franchise in 2021, to form a new suburban metro service. 1, ^ The Northern City Line between Moorgate and Drayton Park is also electrified at 750V DC using third rail, in 2011 the consortium Cross London Trains Ltd. This was a controversial decision as the competing bidder Bombardier Transportation had a train factory in the UK. Both the procurement process and final close of contract were significantly delayed, the trains are known as Class 700s and the £1.6 billion contract to manufacture and provide service depots for the trains was finalised in mid 2013. A fleet of 115 8- and 12-car trains are expected to service between 2016 and 2018. Associated rolling stock depots are being built at Hornsey and Three Bridges, because of the delay in procuring the Class 700 trains,29 Class 387 trains were ordered for the Thameslink route, facilitating the release of existing Class 319 trains to newly electrified routes. Delivery was completed in 2014 and the trains entered service later that year, the order includes provision for an extra 140 vehicles. It was originally planned that once the Class 700s begin entering service, however a change of plans saw GWR order an entirely new fleet of Class 387s with the ex-Thameslink examples expected to be cascaded to the Great Northern routes upon delivery of the Class 700s. This will allow Great Northern to operate fast services at up to 110 mph, something which the old fleet was incapable of. › London Moorgate, in December 2015 it was announced that Siemens would be providing these new trains as a follow-on to the Class 700 order. Former units operated by Thameslink and Great Northern include, This franchise is different from other franchises let since privatisation in 1996, now the operator, in this case Govia, gives all revenue to the government, rather than paying set premiums. The Department for Transport will pay Govia, totalling around £8. 9bn over the period of seven years. With this Govia expects to make a 3% profit, and the risks on costs will be Govias, Govia plans to invest £50m in all 239 stations it will manage. It plans to, Enhance all 239 stations including improving access, replace electronic information screens and working with authorities on the redevelopment of St Albans. Increase staffing hours at many stations, with the 100 busiest stations staffed from first to last train, extension of the key smartcard which Southern has been introducing
33.
East Midlands Trains
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East Midlands Trains is a British train operating company owned by Stagecoach Group. The franchise commenced on 11 November 2007 with the amalgamation of the Midland Mainline, in June 2006 the Department for Transport announced its intention to restructure some rail franchises. Included was an East Midlands franchise combining the Midland Mainline franchise with the East Midlands services of the Central Trains franchise, in September 2006 the Department for Transport announced Arriva, FirstGroup, National Express and Stagecoach had been shortlisted to bid for the franchise. Originally due to end in March 2015, the franchise was extended until March 2018, in March 2017, it was announced by the Department for Transport Arriva, a FirstGroup/Trenitalia joint venture and Stagecoach have been shortlisted to bid for the next franchise. East Midlands Trains initially divided its services between two sub-brands, Mainline InterCity services, and Connect urban and suburban services, which came from the Central Trains franchise. However, from April 2008, the dropped the Mainline and Connect branding in favour of London. It also has four routes for the areas in which it operates, except for the high-speed InterCity services. EMT promised better integration between London and Local services, together with increased punctuality and becoming more user-friendly, helen Southworth also raised the overcrowding issue on the same day. London Services, is the InterCity route on the Midland Main Line, the above table shows the service pattern from the December 2015 timetable change. The service pattern at the start of the franchise was of four departures from London. Sheffield peak-hour trains extended from and to Leeds, with services also extending to York. One peak-hour Derby service was extended to Burton on Trent and one to Barnsley, EMT made no significant changes until the introduction of its December 2008 timetable. From December 2008, EMT used the service pattern. There are five departures from London, two fast, one semi-fast and two stopping. A smaller number of Sheffield peak-hour trains continue to extend from and to Leeds, with services also extending to York. In addition a Nottingham service is extended to start from Lincoln, the Burton on Trent and Barnsley services ceased at the beginning of the December 2008 timetable, when Corby services began. One Corby service was extended to Melton Mowbray at the outset, from December 2009, East Midlands Trains runs two trains per hour between Sheffield and London. Corby benefited from the May 2010 timetable change, which provided an extra daily northbound service, the addition of the Derby service means that passengers now benefit from two daily northbound services, one to Derby and one to Melton Mowbray
34.
History of Bedfordshire
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Bedfordshire is an English shire county which lies between approximately 25 miles and 55 miles north of central London. The Angle invaders were attracted to Bedfordshire by its abundant water supply and suitability for agriculture. With one exception, they all occur south of the Ouse, evidence of Anglian occupation has been found at a cemetery at Kempston, where both male and female graves dating from the fifth century have been discovered as well as a settlement near Biggleswade. Early reference to Bedfordshires political history is scanty, in 571, Cuthwulf inflicted a severe defeat on the Britons at Bedford and took four towns. During the Heptarchy what is now the shire formed part of Mercia, by the Treaty of Wedmore it became Danish territory, the first actual mention of the county comes in 1016 when King Canute laid waste to the whole shire. There was no organised resistance to William the Conqueror within Bedfordshire, a large part of the county was subject to forest law as a royal forest, until 1191. In 1638 ship money was levied on Bedfordshire, and in the English Civil War that followed, clarendon observes that here Charles I had no visible party or fixed quarter. The earliest original parliamentary writ that has been discovered was issued in 1290 when two members were returned for the county, in 1295 in addition to the county members, writs are found for two members to represent Bedford borough. Subsequently until modern times two county and two members were returned regularly. Bedfordshire was divided into nine hundreds, Barford, Biggleswade, Clifton, Flitt, Manshead, Redbornestoke, Stodden, Willey and Wixamtree, until 1574 one sheriff did duty for Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, the shire court of the former being held at Bedford. The jurisdiction of the courts, excepting Flitt, remained in the kings possession. Flitt was parcel of the manor of Luton, and formed part of the portion of Eleanor, sister of Henry III. The burgesses of Bedford and the prior of Dunstable claimed jurisdictional freedom in two boroughs. Following the enactment of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, Bedford was the borough in the county. Charters of incorporation were granted to Dunstable in 1864 and Luton in 1876, in 1837 the county was divided into poor law unions, each consisting of a town and surrounding rural parishes, Ampthill, Bedford, Biggleswade, Leighton Buzzard, Luton and Woburn. In 1875 the county was divided into urban and rural sanitary districts, the boundaries of the districts coincided with those of the boroughs and poor law unions. These, along with municipal boroughs formed the principal subdivisions for local government for the eighty years. The resulting Leighton-Linslade Urban District was included in Bedfordshire, Luton remained part of Bedfordshire for ceremonial purposes
35.
Saxons
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The Saxons were a group of Germanic tribes first mentioned as living near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany, in the late Roman empire. They were soon mentioned as raiding and settling in many North Sea areas, as well as pushing south inland towards the Franks. Significant numbers settled in parts of Great Britain in the early Middle Ages. Many Saxons however remained in Germania, where they resisted the expanding Frankish Empire through the leadership of the semi-legendary Saxon hero, the Saxons earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein. This general area also included the probable homeland of the Angles, Saxons, along with the Angles and other continental Germanic tribes, participated in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain during and after the 5th century. The British-Celtic inhabitants of the isles tended to refer to all of these collectively as Saxons. It is unknown how many Saxons migrated from the Continent to Britain, the Saxons may have derived their name from seax, a kind of knife for which they were known. The seax has a symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex. Their names, along with those of Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the word Saxon. The Elizabethan era play Edmund Ironside suggests the Saxon name derives from the Latin saxa, Their names discover what their natures are, More hard than stones, in the Celtic languages, the words designating English nationality derive from the Latin word Saxones. The most prominent example, a loanword in English, is the Scottish Gaelic Sassenach and it derives from the Scottish Gaelic Sasunnach meaning, originally, Saxon, from the Latin Saxones. Scots- or Scottish English-speakers in the 21st century usually use it as a term for an English person. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English. Sasanach, the Irish word for an Englishman, has the same derivation, as do the words used in Welsh to describe the English people, Cornish terms the English Sawsnek, from the same derivation. In the 16th century Cornish-speakers used the phrase Meea navidna cowza sawzneck to feign ignorance of the English language, England in Scottish Gaelic is Sasainn. Other examples include the Welsh Saesneg, Irish Sasana, Breton saoz, and Cornish Sowson, Sowsnek, the label Saxons was also applied to German settlers who migrated during the 13th century to southeastern Transylvania. From Transylvania, some Saxons migrated to neighbouring Moldavia, as the name of the town, Sas-cut, sascut is located in the part of Moldavia that is today part of Romania. The Finns and Estonians have changed their usage of the term Saxony over the centuries to denote now the country of Germany
36.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
37.
Anglo-Saxons
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The Anglo-Saxons are a people who have inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including government of shires. During this period, Christianity was re-established and there was a flowering of literature, charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, in scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English. The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity and it developed from divergent groups in association with the peoples adoption of Christianity, and was integral to the establishment of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish invasions and occupation of eastern England, this identity was re-established, the visible Anglo-Saxon culture can be seen in the material culture of buildings, dress styles, illuminated texts and grave goods. Behind the symbolic nature of these emblems, there are strong elements of tribal. The elite declared themselves as kings who developed burhs, and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms, above all, as Helena Hamerow has observed, local and extended kin groups remained. the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Use of the term Anglo-Saxon assumes that the words Angles, Saxons or Anglo-Saxon have the meaning in all the sources. Assigning ethnic labels such as Anglo-Saxon is fraught with difficulties and this term began to be used only in the 8th century to distinguish the Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The Old English ethnonym Angul-Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli-Saxones and became the name of the peoples Bede calls Anglorum, Anglo-Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo-Saxons themselves, it is not an autonym. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest. The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, Saxones who attacked the shores of Britain, procopius states that Britain was settled by three races, the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in writing of the 8th century. The name therefore seemed to mean English Saxons, the Christian church seems to have used the word Angli, for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, Non Angli sed angeli. The terms ænglisc and Angelcynn were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people, at other times he uses the term rex Anglorum, which presumably meant both Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex, the term Engla cyningc is used by Æthelred
38.
Wessex
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Wessex was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from 519 until England was unified by Æthelstan in the early 10th century. The Anglo-Saxons believed that Wessex was founded by Cerdic and Cynric, the two main sources for the history of Wessex are the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List, which sometimes conflict. Wessex became a Christian kingdom after Cenwalh was baptised and was expanded under his rule, cædwalla later conquered Sussex, Kent and the Isle of Wight. His successor, Ine, issued one of the oldest surviving English law codes, the throne subsequently passed to a series of kings with unknown genealogies. During the 8th century, as the hegemony of Mercia grew and it was during this period that the system of shires was established. Under Egbert, Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Essex, and Mercia and he also obtained the overlordship of the Northumbrian king. However, Mercian independence was restored in 830, during the reign of his successor, Æthelwulf, a Danish army arrived in the Thames estuary, but was decisively defeated. When Æthelwulfs son, Æthelbald, usurped the throne, the kingdom was divided to avoid war, Æthelwulf was succeeded in turn by his four sons, the youngest being Alfred the Great. Wessex was invaded by the Danes in 871, and Alfred was compelled to pay them to leave and they returned in 876, but were forced to withdraw. In 878 they forced Alfred to flee to the Somerset Levels, during his reign Alfred issued a new law code, gathered scholars to his court and was able to devote funds to building ships, organising an army and establishing a system of burhs. Alfreds son, Edward, captured the eastern Midlands and East Anglia from the Danes and became ruler of Mercia in 918 upon the death of his sister, Edwards son, Æthelstan, conquered Northumbria in 927, and England became a unified kingdom for the first time. Cnut the Great, who conquered England in 1016, created the wealthy and powerful earldom of Wessex, modern archaeologists use the term Wessex culture for a Middle Bronze Age culture in this area. Although agriculture and hunting were pursued during this period, there is little archaeological evidence of human settlements. During the Roman occupation numerous country villas with attached farms were established across Wessex, the Romans, or rather the Romano-British, built another major road that integrated Wessex, running eastwards from Exeter through Dorchester to Winchester and Silchester and on to London. The early 4th century CE was a time in Roman Britain. However, following a previous incursion in 360 that was stopped by Roman forces and they devastated many parts of Britain and laid siege to London. The Romans responded promptly, and Count Theodosius had recovered the land up to the Wall by 368, the Romans temporarily ceased to rule Britain on the death of Magnus Maximus in 388. Stilicho attempted to restore Roman authority in the late 390s, two subsequent Roman rulers of Britain, appointed by the remaining troops, were murdered
39.
Danelaw
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The Danelaw, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, is a historical name given to the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. Danelaw contrasts West Saxon law and Mercian law, the term is first recorded in the early eleventh century as Dena lage. Modern historians have extended the term to a geographical designation, the areas that constituted the Danelaw lie in northern and eastern England. The Danelaw originated from the Viking expansion of the 9th century AD, in 886, the Treaty of Alfred and Guthrum was formalised, defining the boundaries of their kingdoms, with provisions for peaceful relations between the English and the Vikings. The language spoken in England was also affected by this clash of cultures with the emergence of Anglo-Norse dialects. The Danelaw roughly comprised 14 shires, York, Nottingham, Derby, Lincoln, Essex, Cambridge, Suffolk, Norfolk, Northampton, Huntingdon, Bedford, Hertford, Middlesex, from around 800, there had been waves of Danish raids on the coastlines of the British Isles. In 865, instead of raiding, the Danes landed an army in East Anglia. The combined army was described in the annals as the Great Heathen Army, after making peace with the local East Anglian king in return for horses, the Great Heathen Army moved north. In 867, they captured Northumbria and its capital, York, the Danes then placed an Englishman, Ecgberht I of Northumbria, on the throne of Northumbria as a puppet ruler. King Æthelred of Wessex and his brother, Alfred, led their army against the Danes at Nottingham, King Burgred of Mercia then negotiated peace with Ivar, with the Danes keeping Nottingham in exchange for leaving the rest of Mercia alone. Under Ivar the Boneless, the Danes continued their invasion in 869 by defeating King Edmund of East Anglia at Hoxne, once again, the brothers Æthelred and Alfred attempted to stop Ivar by attacking the Danes at Reading. They were repelled with heavy losses, the Danes pursued, and on 7 January 871, Æthelred and Alfred defeated the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown. The Danes retreated to Basing, where Æthelred attacked and was, in turn, Ivar was able to follow up this victory with another in March at Meretum. On 23 April 871, King Æthelred died and Alfred succeeded him as King of Wessex and his army was weak and he was forced to pay tribute to Ivar in order to make peace with the Danes. During this peace, the Danes turned to the north and attacked Mercia, both the Danish leader Ivar and the Mercian leader Burgred died during this campaign. Ivar was succeeded by Guthrum, who finished the campaign against Mercia, in ten years, the Danes had gained control over East Anglia, Northumbria and Mercia, leaving just Wessex resisting. Guthrum and the Danes brokered peace with Wessex in 876, when they captured the fortresses of Wareham, Alfred laid siege to the Danes, who were forced to surrender after reinforcements were lost in a storm. Two years later, Guthrum again attacked Alfred, surprising him by attacking his forces wintering in Chippenham, King Alfred was saved when the Danish army coming from his rear was destroyed by inferior forces at the Battle of Cynuit
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Edward the Elder
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Edward the Elder was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 899 until his death. He became king in 899 upon the death of his father and he captured the eastern Midlands and East Anglia from the Danes in 917 and became ruler of Mercia in 918 upon the death of Æthelflæd, his sister. All but two of his charters give his title as Anglorum Saxonum rex, a title first used by his father, Alfred. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the Kings of Scotland and Strathclyde and the rulers of Northumbria chose as father and lord in 920, Edwards cognomen the Elder was first used in Wulfstans Life of St Æthelwold to distinguish him from the later King Edward the Martyr. Mercia was the dominant kingdom in southern England in the eighth century, thereafter the two kingdoms became allies, which was to be an important factor in English resistance to the Vikings. In 865 the Danish Viking Great Heathen Army landed in East Anglia, the East Anglians were forced to buy peace and the following year the Vikings invaded Northumbria, where they appointed a puppet king in 867. They then moved on Mercia, where spent the winter of 867–868. The following year, the Danes conquered East Anglia, and in 874 they expelled King Burgred, in 877 the Vikings partitioned Mercia, taking the eastern regions for themselves and allowing Ceolwulf to keep the western ones. The situation was transformed the following year when Alfred won a victory over the Danes at the Battle of Edington. He was thus able to prevent the Vikings from taking Wessex and western Mercia, although they still occupied Northumbria, East Anglia, Alfred the Great married his Mercian queen Ealhswith in 868. Her father was Æthelred Mucel, Ealdorman of the Gaini, and her mother, Alfred and Ealhswith had five children who survived childhood. Their first child was Æthelflæd, who married Æthelred, Lord of the Mercians, Edward was next, and the second daughter, Æthelgifu, became abbess of Shaftesbury. The third daughter, Ælfthryth, married Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and this would usually suggest that he was intended for the church, but it is unlikely in Æthelweards case as he had sons. There were also a number of children who died young. Æthelflæd was probably born about a year after her parents marriage, yorke argues that he was therefore probably nearer in age to Ælfthryth than Æthelflæd. However, he led troops in battle in 893, and he must have been of age in that year as his oldest son Æthelstan was born about 894. They were taught the courtly qualities of gentleness and humility, and Asser wrote that they were obedient to their father and this is the only known case of an Anglo-Saxon prince and princess receiving the same upbringing. As a son of a king, Edward was an ætheling, however, even though he had the advantage of being the eldest son of the reigning king, his accession was not assured, as he had cousins who had a strong claim to the throne
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William II of England
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William II, the third son of William I of England, was King of England from 1087 until 1100, with powers over Normandy, and influence in Scotland. He was less successful in extending control into Wales, William is commonly known as William Rufus or William the Red, perhaps because of his red-faced appearance. He was a figure of complex temperament, capable of both bellicosity and flamboyance and he did not marry, nor did he produce any offspring, legitimate or otherwise. He died after being struck by an arrow while hunting, under circumstances that remain murky, circumstantial evidence in the behaviour of those around him raise strong but unproven suspicions of murder. His younger brother Henry hurriedly succeeded him as king, on the other hand, he was a wise ruler and victorious general. Barlow finds that, His chivalrous virtues and achievements were all too obvious and he had maintained good order and satisfactory justice in England and restored good peace to Normandy. He had extended Anglo-Norman rule in Wales, brought Scotland firmly under his lordship, recovered Maine, Williams exact date of birth is not known, but it was some time between the years 1056 and 1060. He was the third of four born to William the Conqueror and Matilda of Flanders, the eldest being Robert Curthose, the second Richard. William succeeded to the throne of England on his fathers death in 1087, Richard had died around 1075 while hunting in the New Forest. William had five or six sisters, records indicate strained relations between the three surviving sons of William I. A brawl broke out, and their father had to intercede to restore order, the division of William the Conquerors lands into two parts presented a dilemma for those nobles who held land on both sides of the English Channel. The only solution, as they saw it, was to unite England, in 1091 he invaded Normandy, crushing Roberts forces and forcing him to cede a portion of his lands. The two made up their differences and William agreed to help Robert recover lands lost to France, William Rufus was thus secure in what was then the most powerful kingdom in Europe, given the contemporary eclipse of the Salian emperors. Less than two years after becoming king, William II lost his father William Is adviser and confidant, after Lanfrancs death in 1089, the king delayed appointing a new archbishop for many years, appropriating ecclesiastical revenues in the interim. The English clergy, beholden to the king for their preferments, in 1095 William called a council at Rockingham to bring Anselm to heel, but the archbishop remained firm. In October 1097, Anselm went into exile, taking his case to the Pope, the diplomatic and flexible Urban II, a new pope, was involved in a major conflict with the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, who supported an antipope. Reluctant to make another enemy, Urban came to a concordat with William Rufus, whereby William recognised Urban as pope, Anselm remained in exile, and William was able to claim the revenues of the archbishop of Canterbury to the end of his reign. Lanfranc retorted that you will not seize the bishop of Bayeux and it seems reasonable to suppose that such details are indicative of William IIs personal beliefs
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Henry II of England
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Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mothers efforts to claim the throne of England, then occupied by Stephen of Blois and he inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to Louis VII of France had recently been annulled. Stephen agreed to a treaty after Henrys military expedition to England in 1153. Henry was an energetic and sometimes ruthless ruler, driven by a desire to restore the lands and privileges of his royal grandfather, Henrys desire to reform the relationship with the Church led to conflict with his former friend Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. This controversy lasted for much of the 1160s and resulted in Beckets murder in 1170, Henry soon came into conflict with Louis VII and the two rulers fought what has been termed a cold war over several decades. By 1172, he controlled England, large parts of Wales, the half of Ireland and the western half of France. Henry and Eleanor had eight children, as they grew up, tensions over the future inheritance of the empire began to emerge, encouraged by Louis and his son King Philip II. In 1173 Henrys heir apparent, Young Henry, rebelled in protest, he was joined by his brothers Richard and Geoffrey and by their mother, France, Scotland, Flanders, and Boulogne allied themselves with the rebels. The Great Revolt was only defeated by Henrys vigorous military action and talented local commanders, many of them new men appointed for their loyalty, Young Henry and Geoffrey revolted again in 1183, resulting in Young Henrys death. The Norman invasion of Ireland provided lands for his youngest son John, Philip successfully played on Richards fears that Henry would make John king, and a final rebellion broke out in 1189. Decisively defeated by Philip and Richard and suffering from an ulcer, Henry retreated to Chinon in Anjou. Henrys empire quickly collapsed during the reign of his youngest son John, many of the changes Henry introduced during his long rule, however, had long-term consequences. Historical interpretations of Henrys reign have changed considerably over time, in the 18th century, scholars argued that Henry was a driving force in the creation of a genuinely English monarchy and, ultimately, a unified Britain. Late-20th-century historians have combined British and French historical accounts of Henry, Henry was born in France at Le Mans on 5 March 1133 as the eldest child of the Empress Matilda and her second husband, Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou. In theory, the county answered to the French king, but royal power over Anjou weakened during the 11th century, Henrys mother, firstly married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, was the eldest daughter of Henry I, King of England and Duke of Normandy. She was born into a ruling class of Normans, who traditionally owned extensive estates in both England and Normandy. Geoffrey took advantage of the confusion to attack the Duchy of Normandy but played no role in the English conflict, leaving this to Matilda and her half-brother. The war, termed the Anarchy by Victorian historians, dragged on, Henry probably spent some of his earliest years in his mothers household, and accompanied Matilda to Normandy in the late 1130s
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Unreformed House of Commons
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The unreformed House of Commons is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832. From 1707 to 1801 the term refers to the House of Commons of Great Britain, until the Act of Union of 1801 joining the Kingdom of Ireland to Great Britain, Ireland also had its own Parliament. From 1801 to 1832, therefore, the term refers to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, in medieval political theory it was believed that sovereignty flowed from God, not from the people, and that monarchy was the form of government ordained by God. The King was the Lords anointed, and it was the duty of the people to obey the King as Gods representative, to this idea was added the practical consideration that it was easier for the King to collect the taxes he needed if the people consented to pay them. The House of Commons consisted entirely of men, mostly of substantial property, women could neither vote nor stand for election. Members of Parliament were not paid, which meant that men of wealth could serve. Candidates had to be electors, which meant that in most places they had to have substantial property, virtually all members representing county seats were landed gentry. Many were relatives or dependents of peers, while others were independent squires and these independent country gentlemen were often the only source of opposition to the government of the day, since they had no need to gain government favour through their votes in the House. Members for borough seats were also local squires, but were more frequently merchants or urban professionals such as lawyers. Some borough members were men of means, sometimes in debt or insolvent. All 18th century governments depended on this element to maintain their majorities. Some boroughs were under the control of particular ministers or government departments, the members representing the Cinque Ports, for example, were traditionally dependants of the Admiralty and spoke for the interests of the Royal Navy. Even after 1778, eligibility for election to the House of Commons was restricted by the fact that members had to take an Anglican oath to take their seats and this excluded Catholics, non-Anglican Protestants, Jews and atheists from the House. It is a widely held view that the quality of members of the House of Commons declined over the 250 years before its reform in 1832, in the boroughs, he wrote, competition tended to eliminate the less vigorous, less intelligent and unambitious. What did not change was the dominance of country gentlemen in the House. In 1584 they comprised 240 members in a House of 460, two hundred years later this proportion had hardly changed, even though the social composition of Britain had changed radically over that time. But the proportion of independent members had declined, the proportion of these members who were sons or close relatives of peers rose considerably over this period. In 1584 only 24 members were sons of peers, by the end of the 18th century this number had risen to about 130, in the 18th century about 50 members of the House held ministerial or similar government offices
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Bedfordshire lace
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Bedfordshire lace is a style of bobbin lace originating from Bedfordshire in the 19th century, and made in the English Midlands lacemaking area. It was worked as a continuous width on a bolster pillow and it is a guipure style of lace. In the early years of the 16th century Catherine of Aragon was imprisoned in Ampthill, local tradition says that she taught the villagers lacemaking. Lace-makers from Flanders settled in Bedfordshire as early as the 16th century, by the mid-18th century, Newport Pagnell was a centre of Bedfordshire lace production. The highpoint of lacemaking was from the late 17th century through the 18th century, however, the invention of the bobbinet machine in nearby Nottingham meant that machine-made lace could be made far cheaper. The patterns of the hand-made lace changed to simpler styles to compete, lace was made throughout Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and beyond. The styles of the lace made would have varied at different periods, in the 19th century, English lacemakers started to copy Maltese lace which became popular after it was exhibited in The Great Exhibition, but adapted it to produce their own style. This style, now described as Bedfordshire or Beds lace, often has a plaited headside known as nine pin, plaits, sometimes with picots, and tallies are common. There are flowing lines, called cloth trails, Bedfordshire lace can be viewed at the Higgins Art Gallery & Museum in Bedford and at the Copwer and Newton Museum in Olney. Examples of Bedfordshire lace at the Cowper and Newton Museum
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Bedford
