1.
Counties of England
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Counties of England are areas used for the purposes of administrative, geographical, cultural or political demarcation. For administrative purposes, England outside Greater London and the Isles of Scilly is divided into 83 metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties and these counties may consist of a single district or be divided into several districts. As of April 2009,27 of these counties are divided into districts and have a county council, all of England is also divided into 48 ceremonial counties, which are also known as geographic counties. Most ceremonial counties correspond to a metropolitan or non-metropolitan county of the same name, the current arrangement is the result of incremental reform. Many of the counties have their origins in the Middle Ages, although the larger counties of Yorkshire, the geographic counties which existed before the local government reforms of 1965 and 1974 are referred to as ancient counties or historic counties. From 1889 to 1974 areas with county councils were known as administrative counties, from 1974 to 1996 the metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties, some of which were established only in 1974, corresponded directly with the ceremonial counties. For the purpose of sorting and delivering mail, England was divided into 48 postal counties until 1996, in these counties most services are provided by the county council and the district councils have a more limited role. Their areas each correspond exactly to ceremonial counties and they are Greater Manchester, Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands and West Yorkshire. In these counties the district councils provide the majority of services, similarly, Berkshire is a non-metropolitan county with no county council and multiple districts and maps directly to a ceremonial county. Bristol, Herefordshire, Isle of Wight, Northumberland and Rutland are ceremonial counties consisting of a county of a single district. In total, there are 39 unitary authorities that do not share the names of any of the ceremonial counties, bedfordshire and Cheshire are counties that consist of a number of unitary authorities, none of which has the same name as the ceremonial county. The City of London and Greater London are anomalous as ceremonial counties that do not correspond to any metropolitan or non-metropolitan counties, large ceremonial counties often correspond to a single police force. For example, the four unitary authorities which make up Cheshire correspond to the area as the Cheshire Constabulary. Some counties are grouped together for this purpose, such as Northumberland with Tyne, in other areas a group of unitary authorities in several counties are grouped together to form police force areas, such as the Cleveland Police and Humberside Police. Greater London and the City of London each have their own forces, the Metropolitan Police Service. The fire service is operated on a basis, and the ambulance service is organised by the regions of England. Most ceremonial counties form part of a region, although Lincolnshire. Economic development is delivered using the regions, as is strategic planning, as of 2009, the largest county by area is North Yorkshire and the smallest is the City of London
2.
Flag of Bedfordshire
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The Bedfordshire flag is the flag of the county of Bedfordshire. It is a based on the banner of the arms of the, now defunct, Bedfordshire County Council. The banner of arms are described in terms as Quarterly Or and Gules a Fess wavy barry way of four Argent. The arms were granted to the county council in 1951, and adopted as the flag of the modern day historic, when flying, the top corner, nearest the flagpole, should be gold. Bedfordshire County Council had its coat of arms created in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain celebrations, the coat of arms became the symbol of the county being placed on many public buildings and signs. The council used the banner of arms as a flag until it was abolished in 2009, in 2014 The Friends of Bedfordshire Society began a successful campaign to have a slightly updated version of the councils flag registered with the Flag Institute. They also constructed Bedford Castle and were granted a barony at Bedford, the vertical black stripe which takes the center of the flag containing three shells, or escallops. This comes from the coat of arms of the Duke of Bedford, the horizontal blue and white wavy lines. These represent the river Great Ouse which passes through the county, the county councils original design was at odds with the apparent Rule of Tincture, showing a white and yellow section next to one another. Also to add to the contrast, a lighter shade of blue was chosen. The pantone colours for the flag are, Yellow 109 Red 485 Blue 300 White Black Flag Institute - Bedfordshire The Friends of Bedfordshire Society
3.
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
4.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
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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
6.
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
7.
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
8.
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
9.
Historic counties of England
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The historic counties of England were established for administration by the Normans, in most cases based on earlier kingdoms and shires established by the Anglo-Saxons and others. They ceased to be used for administration with the creation of the counties in 1889. They are alternatively known as ancient counties or traditional counties, where they are not included among the modern counties of England they are also known as former counties. Counties were used initially for the administration of justice, collection of taxes and organisation of the military and they continue to form the basis of modern local government in many parts of the country away from the main urban areas, although sometimes with considerably altered boundaries. The name of a county often gives a clue to how it was formed, either as a division took its name from a centre of administration. The majority of English counties are in the first category, with the name formed by combining the central town with the suffix -shire, for example Yorkshire. Former kingdoms, which became earldoms in the united England did not feature this formulation, so for Kent, Counties ending in the suffix -sex are also in this category and are former Saxon kingdoms. Many of these names are formed from compass directions, the third category includes counties such as Cornwall and Devon where the name corresponds to the tribes who inhabited the area. County Durham is anomalous in terms of naming and origin, not falling into any of the three categories, instead it was a diocese that was turned into the County Palatine of Durham, ruled by the Bishop of Durham. The expected form would otherwise be Durhamshire, but it was rarely used, there are customary abbreviations for many of the counties. In most cases these consist of simple truncation, usually with an s at the end signifying shire, some abbreviations are not obvious, such as Salop for Shropshire, Oxon for Oxfordshire, Hants for Hampshire and Northants for Northamptonshire. Counties were often prefixed with County of in official contexts, such as County of Kent and those counties named after central towns lost the -shire suffix, for example Yorkshire would be known as County of York. This usage was sometimes followed even where there was no town by that name, the -shire suffix was also appended for some counties, such as Devonshire, Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, despite their origin. There is still a Duke of Devonshire, Great Britain was first divided into administrative areas by the Romans, most likely following major geographical features such as rivers. Before their arrival there were distinct tribal areas, but they were in a constant state of flux as territory was gained, the areas that would later form the English counties started to take shape soon afterwards, with the Kingdom of Kent founded by settlers around 445. Once the Kingdom of England was united as a whole in 927 it became necessary to subdivide it for convenience and to this end. The whole kingdom was divided into shires by the time of the Norman conquest, robert of Gloucester accounts for thirty-five shires and William of Malmesbury thirty-two, Henry of Huntingdon, thirty-seven. In most cases the counties or shires in medieval times were administered by a sheriff on behalf of the monarch, after the Norman conquest the sheriff was replaced and the shires became counties, or areas under the control of a count, in the French manner
10.
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
11.
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
12.
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
13.
Central Bedfordshire
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Central Bedfordshire is a unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire, England. It was created from the merger of Mid Bedfordshire and South Bedfordshire District Councils on 1 April 2009, the county of Bedfordshire was abolished on 1 April 2009. The term of office of councillors of Bedfordshire County Council and of Mid, a new county and a new district, both from that date to be known as Central Bedfordshire, were created for the same area as the existing districts of Mid and South Bedfordshire. A new district council, the Central Bedfordshire Council, was created for the new district, there was to be no county council for the new county. In 2006 the Department for Communities and Local Government considered reorganising Bedfordshires administrative structure as part of the 2009 structural changes to government in England. The four proposals considered were, Proposal 1, Abolish the three districts within the county and create a Bedfordshire County unitary authority, Proposal 2, Create two unitary authorities, one based on Bedford Borough and one as Central Bedfordshire, combining Mid and South Bedfordshire Districts. Proposal 3, Create two unitary authorities, one a combination of Bedford Borough and Mid Beds District and the other of Luton Borough, Proposal 4, Form an enhanced two-tier authority, with the four local councils under the control of the county council, but with different responsibilities. On 6 March 2008 the DCLG, under Labour Party Secretary of State, Hazel Blears and this meant that from 1 April 2009 there would be three unitary authorities in Bedfordshire, Bedford, Luton and Central Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire County Council challenged this decision in the High Court but on 4 April 2008 it was announced the Judicial Review had failed, the inaugural meeting of the shadow council was held on 10 April 2008. A shadow Executive for the council was formed consisting of four members of each council, Central Bedfordshire Council is made up of 59 Councillors. It includes the towns and villages. List of places in Bedfordshire Central Bedfordshire Council Website
14.
Luton
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Luton is a large town, borough and unitary authority area of Bedfordshire, England. Luton and its neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 258,000. It is located 20 miles east of Aylesbury,14 miles west of Stevenage,30 miles north-northwest of London, and 22 miles southeast of Milton Keynes. Luton is home to League Two team Luton Town Football Club and they play at Kenilworth Road stadium, which has been their home since 1905. London Luton Airport, opened in 1938, is one of Britains major airports, during the Second World War it doubled as an RAF base. The University of Bedfordshire is based in the town, the Luton Carnival, which was traditionally been held on the Whitsun May bank holiday, is the largest one-day carnival in Europe. In 2012, it was moved to July to coincide with the Olympic Torch Relay, the town was for many years famous for hat-making, and also had a large Vauxhall Motors factory. Car production at the plant began in 1905 and continued until 2002, production of commercial vehicles continues, and the head office of Vauxhall Motors is still situated in the town. Luton derives its name from Saxon -tun, and the Brittonic element -lug, the joint linguistic heritage may indicate the towns foundation as an early Anglo-Saxon outpost in a newly conquered area. The earliest settlements in the Luton area were at Round Green and Mixes Hill, settlements re-appeared after the ice had retreated in the Mesolithic period around 8000 BC. Traces of these settlements have found in the Leagrave area of the modern town. Remains from the Neolithic period are more common. A particular concentration of Neolithic burials occurs at Galley Hill, the most prominent Neolithic structure is Wauluds Bank – a henge dating from around 3000 BC. From the Neolithic onwards, the area seems to have been populated, Luton itself is believed to have been founded as Lea-tun by the Anglo-Saxons sometime in the 6th century. And then very soon after that, as the one force came home, the Domesday Book records Luton as Loitone and also as Lintone. Agriculture dominated the economy at that time, and the towns population was around 700 to 800. But this number could represent a reduced population as a direct result of the Norman Invasion. The Domesday Book records the value of King Williams English possessions 20 years after his victory at Hastings, during which period, as the book would suggest, much destruction and death took place
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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
16.
Greenwich Mean Time
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Greenwich Mean Time is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. GMT was formerly used as the civil time standard, now superseded in that function by Coordinated Universal Time. Today GMT is considered equivalent to UTC for UK civil purposes and for navigation is considered equivalent to UT1, consequently, the term GMT should not be used for precise purposes. Due to Earths uneven speed in its orbit and its axial tilt, noon GMT is rarely the exact moment the sun crosses the Greenwich meridian. This event may occur up to 16 minutes before or after noon GMT, noon GMT is the annual average moment of this event, which accounts for the word mean in Greenwich Mean Time. Originally, astronomers considered a GMT day to start at noon while for almost everyone else it started at midnight, to avoid confusion, the name Universal Time was introduced to denote GMT as counted from midnight. Astronomers preferred the old convention to simplify their observational data, so each night was logged under a single calendar date. Today Universal Time usually refers to UTC or UT1, in some countries Greenwich Mean Time is the legal time in the winter and the population uses the term. For an explanation of why this is, see GMT in legislation below, synchronisation of the chronometer on GMT did not affect shipboard time, which was still solar time. Most time zones were based upon GMT, as an offset of a number of hours ahead of GMT or behind GMT and it was gradually adopted for other purposes, but a legal case in 1858 held local mean time to be the official time. On 14 May 1880, a signed by Clerk to Justices appeared in The Times, stating that Greenwich time is now kept almost throughout England. For example, our polling booths were opened, say, at 813 and closed at 413 PM. This was changed later in 1880, GMT was adopted on the Isle of Man in 1883, Jersey in 1898 and Guernsey in 1913. Ireland adopted GMT in 1916, supplanting Dublin Mean Time, hourly time signals from Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast on 5 February 1924, rendering the time ball at the observatory redundant in the process. The daily rotation of the Earth is irregular and constantly slows, on 1 January 1972, GMT was superseded as the international civil time standard by Coordinated Universal Time, maintained by an ensemble of atomic clocks around the world. Indeed, even the Greenwich meridian itself is not quite what it used to be—defined by the centre of the instrument at the Observatory at Greenwich. Nevertheless, the line in the old observatorys courtyard today differs no more than a few metres from that line which is now the prime meridian of the world. Historically GMT has been used two different conventions for numbering hours. The long-standing astronomical convention dating from the work of Ptolemy, was to refer to noon as zero hours and this contrasted with the civil convention of referring to midnight as zero hours dating from the Romans
17.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
18.
Unitary authorities of England
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Unitary authorities of England are local authorities that are responsible for the provision of all local government services within a district. They are constituted under the Local Government Act 1992, which amended the Local Government Act 1972 to allow the existence of counties that do not have multiple districts, unitary authorities do not cover all of England. Most were established during the 1990s and a further tranche were created in 2009, unitary authorities have the powers and functions that are elsewhere separately administered by councils of non-metropolitan counties and the non-metropolitan districts within them. Strictly speaking, the term does not necessarily mean a single level of government within an area. Although the term was not applied to them, county boroughs between 1889 and 1974 were effectively unitary authorities, that is, single-tier administrative units. Before 1889, local government authorities had different powers and functions, some smaller settlements also enjoyed some degree of autonomy from regular administration as boroughs or liberties. The Local Government Act 1972 created areas for local government where large towns, a review in the 1990s was initiated in order to select non-metropolitan areas where new unitary authorities could be created. The resulting structural changes were implemented between 1995 and 1998, the changes caused the ceremonial counties to be defined separately, as they had been before 1974. The review caused 46 unitary authorities to be created, a further review was initiated in 2007 and was enacted in 2009. The review caused nine unitary authorities to be created, unitary authorities combine the powers and functions that are normally delivered separately by the councils of non-metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan districts. The exceptions, which are divided into electoral divisions as in county elections, are Cornwall, County Durham. Unitary authority areas can additionally have the status of borough or city, the Council of the Isles of Scilly is a sui generis unitary authority, created in 1890 and since 1930 has held the powers, duties and liabilities of a county council. The 36 metropolitan borough councils are also the elected local government units in their areas
19.
Cambridgeshire
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The city of Cambridge is the county town. It contains most of the known as Silicon Fen. Local government is divided between Cambridgeshire County Council and Peterborough City Council, which is a unitary authority. Cambridgeshire is noted as the site of Flag Fen in Fengate, one of the earliest-known Neolithic permanent settlements in the United Kingdom, compared in importance to Balbridie in Aberdeen, Scotland. A great quantity of archaeological finds from the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, most items were found in Isleham. Cambridgeshire was recorded in the Domesday Book as Grantbridgeshire, covering a large part of East Anglia, Cambridgeshire today is the result of several local government unifications. In 1965, these two counties were merged to form Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely. Under the Local Government Act 1972 this merged with the county to the west, Huntingdon, the resulting county was called simply Cambridgeshire. Since 1998, the City of Peterborough has been a separately administered area and it is associated with Cambridgeshire for ceremonial purposes such as Lieutenancy, and joint functions such as policing and the fire service. In 2002, the conservation charity Plantlife unofficially designated Cambridgeshires county flower as the Pasqueflower, the Cambridgeshire Regiment, the county-based army unit, fought in the Boer War of South Africa, the First World War and Second World War. Due to the flat terrain and proximity to the continent, during the Second World War the military built many airfields here for RAF Bomber Command, RAF Fighter Command. In recognition of this collaboration, the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial is located in Madingley and it is the only WWII burial ground in England for American servicemen who died during that event. Most English counties have nicknames for their people, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire, the traditional nicknames for people from Cambridgeshire are Cambridgeshire Camel or Cambridgeshire Crane, referring to the wildfowl that were once abundant in the fens. The term Fenners was often applied to those who come from the country to the north of Cambridge. Since the late 20th century, this term is considered to be derogatory and has been discouraged in use, original historical documents relating to Cambridgeshire are held by Cambridgeshire Archives and Local Studies. See also Geology of Cambridgeshire Large areas of the county are extremely low-lying, the highest point is in the village of Great Chishill at 146 m above sea level. Other prominent hills are Little Trees Hill and Wandlebury Hill in the Gog Magog Downs, Rivey Hill above Linton, Rowleys Hill, AWG plc is based in Huntingdon. The RAF has several stations in the Huntingdon and St Ives area, RAF Waterbeach,6 miles north of Cambridge, is a former RAF airfield, now used as an army barracks
20.
Northamptonshire
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Northamptonshire, archaically known as the County of Northampton, is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2011, it had a population of 629,000, the county is administered by Northamptonshire County Council and seven non-metropolitan district councils. Northamptonshire is the southernmost county in the East Midlands region, apart from the county town of Northampton, other large population centres include Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Rushden and Daventry. Northamptonshires county flower is the cowslip, there are two more possible hill-forts at Arbury Hill and Thenford. In the 1st century BC, most of what later became Northamptonshire became part of the territory of the Catuvellauni, a Belgic tribe, the Catuvellauni were in turn conquered by the Romans in 43 AD. The Roman road of Watling Street passed through the county, there were other Roman settlements at Northampton, Kettering and along the Nene Valley near Raunds. A large fort was built at Longthorpe, after the Romans left, the area eventually became part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, and Northampton functioned as an administrative centre. The Mercians converted to Christianity in 654 AD with the death of the pagan king Penda, Northamptonshire was conquered again in 940, this time by the Vikings of York, who devastated the area, only for the county to be retaken by the English in 942. Consequently, it is one of the few counties in England to have both Saxon and Danish town-names and settlements, the county was first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, as Hamtunscire, the scire of Hamtun. The North was added to distinguish Northampton from the other important Hamtun further south, Rockingham Castle was built for William the Conqueror and was used as a Royal fortress until Elizabethan times. In 1460, during the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of Northampton took place, the now-ruined Fotheringhay Castle was used to imprison Mary, Queen of Scots, before her execution. George Washington, the first President of the United States of America, was born into the Washington family who had migrated to America from Northamptonshire in 1656. George Washingtons ancestor, Lawrence Washington, was Mayor of Northampton on several occasions and it was George Washingtons great-grandfather, John Washington, who emigrated in 1656 from Northants to Virginia. Before Washingtons ancestors moved to Sulgrave, they lived in Warton, King Charles I was imprisoned at Holdenby House in 1647. In 1823 Northamptonshire was said to a pure and wholesome air because of its dryness. Its livestock were celebrated, Horned cattle, and other animals, are fed to extraordinary sizes, in summer, the county hosted a great number of wealthy families. Country seats and villas are to be seen at every step, Northamptonshire is still referred to as the county of spires and squires because of the numbers of stately homes and ancient churches. In the 18th and 19th centuries, parts of Northamptonshire and the area became industrialised
21.
Buckinghamshire
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Development in this region is restricted by the Metropolitan Green Belt. Other large settlements include the county town of Aylesbury, Marlow in the south near the Thames and Princes Risborough in the west near Oxford. Some areas without rail links to London, such as around the old county town of Buckingham. The largest town is Milton Keynes in the northeast, which with the area is administered as a unitary authority separately to the rest of Buckinghamshire. The remainder of the county is administered by Buckinghamshire County Council as a non-metropolitan county, in national elections, Buckinghamshire is considered a reliable supporter of the Conservative Party. A large part of the Chiltern Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, runs through the south of the county and attracts many walkers, in this area older buildings are often made from local flint and red brick. Chequers, an estate owned by the government, is the country retreat of the incumbent Prime Minister. To the north of the county lies rolling countryside in the Vale of Aylesbury, the Thames forms part of the county’s southwestern boundary. Notable service amenities in the county are Pinewood Film Studios, Dorney rowing lake, many national companies have offices in Milton Keynes. Heavy industry and quarrying is limited, with agriculture predominating after service industries, the name Buckinghamshire is Anglo-Saxon in origin and means The district of Buccas home. Buccas home refers to Buckingham in the north of the county, the county has been so named since about the 12th century, however, the county has existed since it was a subdivision of the kingdom of Mercia. Historically, the biggest change to the county came in the 19th century, Buckinghamshire is a popular home for London commuters, leading to greater local affluence, however, some pockets of relative deprivation remain. As a result, most county institutions are now based in the south of the county or Milton Keynes, the county can be split into two sections geographically. The county includes parts of two of the four longest rivers in England, the River Thames forms the southern boundary with Berkshire, which has crept over the border at Eton and Slough so that the river is no longer the sole boundary between the two counties. The River Great Ouse rises just outside the county in Northamptonshire and flows east through Buckingham, Milton Keynes, the main branch of the Grand Union Canal passes through the county as do its arms to Slough, Aylesbury, Wendover and Buckingham. The canal has been incorporated into the landscaping of Milton Keynes, the southern part of the county is dominated by the Chiltern Hills. The two highest points in Buckinghamshire are Haddington Hill in Wendover Woods at 267 metres above sea level, quarrying has taken place for chalk, clay for brickmaking and gravel and sand in the river valleys. Flint, also extracted from quarries, was used to build older local buildings
22.
Hertfordshire
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Hertfordshire is a county in southern England, bordered by Bedfordshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Buckinghamshire to the west and Greater London to the south. For government statistical purposes, it is placed in the East of England region, in 2013, the county had a population of 1,140,700 living in an area of 634 square miles. Four towns have between 50,000 and 100,000 residents, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Watford and St Albans. Hertford, once the market town for the medieval agricultural county derives its name from a hart. Elevations are high for the region in the north and west and these reach over 240m in the western projection around Tring which is in the Chilterns. The countys borders are approximately the watersheds of the Colne and Lea, hertfordshires undeveloped land is mainly agricultural and much is protected by green belt. The countys landmarks span many centuries, ranging from the Six Hills in the new town of Stevenage built by local inhabitants during the Roman period, Leavesden filmed much of the UK-based $7.7 Bn box office Harry Potter film series and has the countrys studio tour. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill and his martyrs cross of a yellow saltire on a blue background is reflected in the flag and coat of arms of Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire is well-served with motorways and railways, providing access to London. The largest sector of the economy of the county is in services, Hertfordshire was the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder in 913. Hertford is derived from the Anglo-Saxon heort ford, meaning deer crossing, the name Hertfordshire is first recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011. Deer feature in many county emblems, there is evidence of humans living in Hertfordshire from the Mesolithic period. It was first farmed during the Neolithic period and permanent habitation appeared at the beginning of the Bronze Age and this was followed by tribes settling in the area during the Iron Age. 293 the first recorded British martyrdom is believed to have taken place. Saint Alban, a Romano-British soldier, took the place of a Christian priest and was beheaded on Holywell Hill. His martyrs cross of a saltire on a blue background is reflected in the flag. He is the Patron Saint of Hertfordshire, with the departure of the Roman Legions in the early 5th century, the now unprotected territory was invaded and colonised by the Anglo-Saxons. By the 6th century the majority of the county was part of the East Saxon kingdom
23.
Bedford
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Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, England. It had a population of 166,252 in 2015 together with Kempston, Bedford was founded at a ford on the River Great Ouse, and is thought to have been the burial place of Offa of Mercia. Bedford Castle was built by Henry I, although it was destroyed in 1224, Bedford was granted borough status in 1165 and has been represented in Parliament since 1265. It is well known for its population of Italian descent. Bedford is on the Midland Main Line, with stopping services to London and Brighton operated by Thameslink, and express services to London and the East Midlands operated by East Midlands Trains. The name of the town is thought to derive from the name of a Saxon chief called Beda, and a ford crossing the River Great Ouse. Bedford was a town for the surrounding agricultural region from the early Middle Ages The Anglo-Saxon King Offa of Mercia was buried in the town in 796. In 886 it became a boundary town separating Wessex and Danelaw and it was the seat of the Barony of Bedford. In 919 Edward the Elder built the towns first known fortress, on the side of the River Great Ouse. This fortress was destroyed by the Danes, William II gave the barony of Bedford to Paine de Beauchamp who built a new, strong castle. Bedford traces its borough charter in 1166 by Henry II and elected two members to the unreformed House of Commons and it remained a small agricultural town, with wool being an important industry in the area for much of the Middle Ages. The new Bedford Castle was razed in 1224 and today only a mound remains, in 1660 John Bunyan was imprisoned for 12 years in Bedford Gaol. It was here that he wrote The Pilgrims Progress, the River Great Ouse became navigable as far as Bedford in 1689. Wool declined in importance with brewing becoming an industry in the town. The 19th century saw Bedford transform into an important engineering hub, in 1832 gas lighting was introduced, and the railway reached Bedford in 1846. The first corn exchange was built 1849, and the first drains, Bedford is the largest settlement in Borough of Bedford. The borough council is led by an elected mayor who holds the title Mayor of Bedford. The current Mayor of Bedford is Dave Hodgson from the Liberal Democrat Party, Bedford itself is divided into 10 wards, Brickhill, Castle, Cauldwell, De Parys, Goldington, Harpur, Kingsbrook, Newnham, Putnoe and Queens Park
24.
Elevation
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GIS or geographic information system is a computer system that allows for visualizing, manipulating, capturing, and storage of data with associated attributes. GIS offers better understanding of patterns and relationships of the landscape at different scales, tools inside the GIS allow for manipulation of data for spatial analysis or cartography. A topographical map is the type of map used to depict elevation. In a Geographic Information System, digital models are commonly used to represent the surface of a place. Digital terrain models are another way to represent terrain in GIS, USGS is developing a 3D Elevation Program to keep up with growing needs for high quality topographic data. 3DEP is a collection of enhanced elevation data in the form of high quality LiDAR data over the conterminous United States, Hawaii, there are three bare earth DEM layers in 3DEP which are nationally seamless at the resolution of 1/3,1, and 2 arcseconds. This map is derived from GTOPO30 data that describes the elevation of Earths terrain at intervals of 30 arcseconds and it uses color and shading instead of contour lines to indicate elevation. Hypsography is the study of the distribution of elevations on the surface of the Earth, the term originates from the Greek word ὕψος hypsos meaning height. Most often it is used only in reference to elevation of land, related to the term hypsometry, the measurement of these elevations of a planets solid surface are taken relative to mean datum, except for Earth which is taken relative to the sea level. In the troposphere, temperatures decrease with altitude and this lapse rate is approximately 6.5 °C/km. S
25.
Dunstable Downs
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Dunstable Downs are part of the Chiltern Hills, in southern Bedfordshire in England. They are a chalk escarpment forming the north-eastern reaches of the Chilterns, at 797 ft, Dunstable Downs are the highest point of the county of Bedfordshire. Whipsnade Zoo has cut an enormous lion shape into the chalk into the side of one of the hills, the lion can be seen from the B489. The downs are used by gliders, kite fliers, hang gliders and paragliders in the area because of their height, the London Gliding Club is based at the foot of the downs. Much of the downs is managed by the National Trust as part of the Dunstable Downs, central Bedfordshire Council and the National Trust commissioned Architype architects to build a visitor centre known as the Chilterns Gateway Centre, on the very top of Dunstable Downs. This circuit can be extended to take in the top of Five Knolls. The hill can also be ascended from Dunstable to the north, the Icknield Way Trail, a horse rider and off-road cycle route, has been established following a similar route to the Icknield Way Path which passes over the Dunstable Downs. The downs are home to a variety of wildlife including many rare wild flowers, such as the Bee Orchid, and different butterfly species, like the Marbled White. Areas of the slope were notified in 1987 under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 as a Site of Special Scientific Interest called Dunstable. Blows Down is a continuation of the Dunstable Downs escarpment on the side of Dunstable. It is also an SSSI and most of it is managed by the Wildlife Trust for Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire, Dunstable Geology of Hertfordshire Luton Dunstable Downs, Countryside Centre & Whipsnade Estate at the National Trust London Gliding Club
26.
Chiltern Hills
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The Chiltern Hills form a chalk escarpment in South East England. They are known locally as the Chilterns, a large portion of the hills was designated officially as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1965. The Chilterns cover an area of 833 km2, the boundary of the hills is clearly defined on the north west side by the scarp slope. The dip slope is by definition more gradual, and merges with the landscape to the south east, the Thames is a clear end point to the south west, whereas north east of Luton the hills decline slowly in prominence. The chalk escarpment of the Chiltern Hills overlooks the Vale of Aylesbury, the beds of the Chalk Group were deposited over the buried northwestern margin of the Anglo-Brabant Massif during the Upper Cretaceous. During this time, sources for siliciclastic sediment had been eliminated due to the high sea level. The Chalk Group, like the underlying Gault Clay and Upper Greensand, is diachronous and this phase of deformation tilted the chalk strata to the southeast in the area of the Chiltern Hills. The gently dipping beds of rock were eroded, forming an escarpment, the chalk strata are frequently interspersed with layers of flint nodules which apparently replaced chalk and infilled pore spaces early in the diagenetic history. Flint has been mined for millennia from the Chiltern Hills and they were first extracted for fabrication into flint axes in the Neolithic period, then for knapping into flintlocks. Nodules are to be everywhere in the older houses as a construction material for walls. The highest point is at 267 m above sea level at Haddington Hill near Wendover in Buckinghamshire, the nearby Ivinghoe Beacon is a more prominent hill, although its altitude is only 249 m. To the east of Ivinghoe Beacon is Dunstable Downs, a section of the Chiltern scarp. Near Wendover is Coombe Hill,260 m above sea level, the more gently sloping country – the dip slope – to the southeast of the Chiltern scarp is also generally referred to as part of the Chilterns, it contains much beech woodland and many villages. Enclosed fields account for almost 66% of the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty area, the next most important, and archetypal, landscape form is woodland, covering 21% of the Chilterns, which is thus one of the most heavily wooded areas in England. Other rivers arising near the Chilterns include the Mimram, Ver, Gade, Bulbourne, Chess, Misbourne and these are classified as chalk streams, although the Lea is degraded by water from road drains and sewage treatment works. The River Thames flows through a gap between the Berkshire Downs and the Chilterns, portions of the northern and north-eastern Chilterns around Leighton Buzzard and Hitchin are drained by the Ouzel, Flit and Hiz, all of which ultimately lead to the River Great Ouse. A number of routes pass through the Chilterns in natural or man-made corridors. There are also over 2,000 km of footpaths in the Chilterns, including long-distance trackways such as the Icknield Way
27.
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
28.
Hundred (county division)
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It is still used in other places, including South Australia. Other terms for the hundred in English and other languages include wapentake, herred, herad, hérað, härad or hundare, Harde, Satakunta or kihlakunta, kihelkond and cantref. In Ireland, a subdivision of counties is referred to as a barony. The name hundred may be derived from the number 100, it may once have referred to an area liable to provide 100 men under arms and it was a traditional Germanic system described as early as AD98 by Tacitus. Similar systems were used in the traditional administrative regimes of China, the term hundred is first recorded in the laws of Edmund I as a measure of land and the area served by a hundred court. The Hundred Ordinance, which dates to the middle of the century, provides that the court is to meet monthly, the name of the hundred was normally that of its meeting-place. During Norman times, the hundred would pay geld based on the number of hides. To assess how much everyone had to pay, a clerk and a knight were sent by the king to each county, they sat with the shire-reeve, of the county, there would be two knights from each hundred. After it was determined what geld had to be paid, the bailiff and knights of the hundred were responsible for getting the money to the sheriff, above the hundred was the shire, under the control of a sheriff. Hundred boundaries were independent of both parish and county boundaries, although often aligned, meaning that a hundred could be split between counties, or a parish could be split between hundreds. Exceptionally, in the counties of Kent and Sussex, there was a sub-division between that of the hundred and the shire, several hundreds were grouped together to form lathes in Kent and rapes in Sussex. At the time of the Norman conquest of England, Kent was divided into seven lathes, the system of hundreds was not as stable as the system of counties being established at the time, and lists frequently differ on how many hundreds a county had. In many parts of the country, the Domesday Book contained a different set of hundreds from that which later became established. The numbers of hundreds in each county varied wildly, Leicestershire had six, whereas Devon, nearly three times the size, had 32. Over time, the functions of the hundred became the administration of law. By the 12th century, the court was held twelve times a year. This was later increased to fortnightly, although an ordinance of 1234 reduced the frequency to every three weeks. In some hundreds, courts were held at a place, while in others
29.
Hundred of Biggleswade
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Biggleswade was a historic hundred of English county of Bedfordshire. The hundred consisted of the town of Biggleswade and its surrounding area, the name Biggleswade comes from a concatenation of the Anglo Saxon words Biceil and Waed. Evidence suggests that the area which Biggleswade now occupies was inhabited as early as 10,000 BC, coins dated to the 1st century BC have also been found, and traced back to the Celtic chief Taseiovanus, who resided in what is now St Albans, Hertfordshire. During the 5th century AD Saxons named the river Ivel and built settlements which evolved into the present day villages of Northill and Southill, the Domesday Survey records the manor of Biggleswade as being governed by Ralph de Insula, on behalf of the monarch. Later, in the 12th century, Henry I transferred custody of Biggleswade to the Bishop of Lincoln, successive bishops maintained significant influence until the mid 16th century, when Edward IV obtained direct control over the town and its surrounding area. In 1785 the great fire swept through the town of Biggleswade, the subsequent rebuilding effort, along with other factors, encouraged more people to settle in the town, triggering a significant population growth during the first half of the 19th century. This culminated in 1850, when Biggleswade became the first town in Bedfordshire to gain a mainline train station, the River Ivel runs along the northern and western boundaries of the town of Biggleswade. The surrounding area is flat and open, with the occasional small wooded area. There is some higher ground to the west of the town. The hundred of Biggleswade is located to the south east of Bedford, the town of Biggleswade is steadily growing market town with a strong market gardening presence and a growing light industrial sector. The town is smaller than other towns and cities in the county, but retains a valuable place in the countys history. Recent statistics record Biggleswade and the area as having a population of about 16,100 people. Biggleswade is twinned with the German town of Erlensee, Biggleswade is served by the A1 road, which went right through the heart of the town until a bypass was built in the 1960s. It is also accessible via rail lines connect it to London Kings Cross, Stevenage and Hitchin to the south and St. Neots, Huntingdon. Service cutbacks by Stagecoach and funding problems by Bedfordshire County Council have seen the loss of services to other local towns including Stevenage and Cambridge over the years
30.
Clifton, Bedfordshire
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Clifton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Bedfordshire. The original hundred of Clifton is named after it, the first recorded reference to Clifton is in 944 when it is referred to as Cliftune. Clifton is also mentioned in the Domesday Book, the entry reads, Cliftone, William de Cairon from Bishop of Lincoln, Eudo FitzHubert and Nigel dAubigny, Leofwin from St. Benedicts of Ramsey, Alwin from Countess Judith. All Saints Church, built in the 14th and 15th centuries was heavily restored in the nineteenth, Clifton village is now a popular place to live as a consequence of its good transport links and proximity to the railway station at Arlesey. Clifton was voted Bedfordshire Village of the Year in 2003,2005 and 2009 and it is today largely residential, but in the past it was a centre for straw plaiting. The original All Saints school was a Straw Plait School where children were expected to learn to plait straw from as young as four years of age and they would also be taught to read. There was also once a factory producing bottled drinks. Harwoods Mineral Water Factory operated from 1880 until 1947, harwoods produced Hops Bitters, Cherry Cider, Stone Ginger Beer, Lime Juice and Soda, and Ginger Ale and sold them to the pubs and shops of all the surrounding villages. Samuel Whitbread Academy is also located in the village of Clifton, Clifton was visited by the Queen and Prince Philip on 17 November 2006 as part of a visit to reopen the school. Amongst the facilities in Clifton there are a school, a butcher. There is also an Indian restaurant, garage and petrol station, a hairdresser, at the northern edge of the village is Clifton Cricket Club. There is a pond in the middle of the village. A community centre has been built at the corner of the playing field. English actor Ben Whishaw was born and grew up in Clifton, Clifton pages at the Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service Village Web site Clifton Weather Residents Association
31.
Flitton
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Flitton is a small village in Bedfordshire, England which forms part of the parish of Flitton and Greenfield. The village derives its name from river Flit which flows close by it and it is notable primarily as the home of the De Grey Mausoleum adjacent to St John the Baptist church. Richard Milward, the editor of Selden’s Table Talk was born at Flitton in 1609, there are two pubs, The White Hart by the church hall and Jolly Coopers at Wardhedges. The church, which stands on a mound on the west side of the village, was probably built by Edmund Grey, Earl of Kent. It has a 27-foot chancel, nave 39 feet long with aisles, south porch and west three-stage tower with a rood stair turret. On the walls of the aisle are three fragmentary brasses commemorating, Eleanor Conquest, Elizabeth, wife of Thomas Waren and Alice. There are six bells, by Bowell of Ipswich, they replaced five by Richard Chandler of Drayton Parslow, the natural philosopher George Hadley is buried in the chancel
32.
Manshead
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Manshead was a hundred of Bedfordshire in England. It covered an area in the south-west of the county stretching from Salford to Studham and from Leighton Buzzard to Houghton Regis, the hundred was named after a site in Eversholt parish. By the early 14th century, these areas had effectively incorporated into Manshead hundred. Manshead School gained the name after much discussion in 1972 when comprehensive schools were introduced in Dunstable, since 2002, the Manshead electoral ward of South Bedfordshire has covered part of Dunstable near to Manshead School
33.
Hundreds of Bedfordshire
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Between Anglo-Saxon times and the nineteenth century Bedfordshire was divided for administrative purposes into 9 hundreds, plus the borough of Bedford. Each hundred had a council that met each month to rule on local judicial. Until 1574 one sheriff covered Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, the court of the former being held at Bedford. The jurisdiction of the courts, with the exception of Flitt. Flitt was parcel of the manor of Luton, and formed part of the portion of Eleanor, sister of Henry III. Eaton Socon fell into Barford hundred, Everton in Biggleswade hundred, history of Bedfordshire List of hundreds of England and Wales
34.
Hundred of Willey
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The Hundred of Willey is a historical land division, a hundred in northwest corner of Bedfordshire, England. Its northwestern boundary is the county border with Northamptonshire, and its southwestern boundary the border with Buckinghamshire, some of its parishes and settlements lay on the River Great Ouse which flows through the hundred. Later the hundred also included the parishes of, Biddenham, Bletsoe, Bromham, Pavenham, Souldrop, Stagsden, in 1934 the parishes of Carlton and Chellington merged to become one parish, Carlton with Chellington. Farndish also ceased to be its own parish and was absorbed into the Podington with Hinwick parish, in the 13th century the two were royal hundreds recorded as The bailiwick of Wilie and half bailiwick of Bukkelowe. A man named Hugh de Willey was recorded as The keeper of the bailiwick of Wilie and half bailiwick of Bukkelowe, at his death in 1278 his son Roger succeeded him, making the title appear hereditary. Although there are small settlements the majority of land in the hundred remains rural and is still used for farming. There is a line running close to the northeast border, however some stations on this line are now closed such as Sharnbrook closed in 1960. Today the area of the Hundred of Willey is within the Borough of Bedford
35.
Chalk
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Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is a salt called calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the accumulation of minute calcite shells shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores. Flint is very common as bands parallel to the bedding or as embedded in chalk. It is probably derived from sponge spicules or other organisms as water is expelled upwards during compaction. Flint is often deposited around larger fossils such as Echinoidea which may be silicified, Chalk as seen in Cretaceous deposits of Western Europe is unusual among sedimentary limestones in the thickness of the beds. Most cliffs of chalk have very few obvious bedding planes unlike most thick sequences of such as the Carboniferous Limestone or the Jurassic oolitic limestones. This presumably indicates very stable conditions over tens of millions of years, Chalk has greater resistance to weathering and slumping than the clays with which it is usually associated, thus forming tall steep cliffs where chalk ridges meet the sea. Chalk hills, known as chalk downland, usually form where bands of chalk reach the surface at an angle, because chalk is well jointed it can hold a large volume of ground water, providing a natural reservoir that releases water slowly through dry seasons. Chalk is mined from chalk deposits both above ground and underground, Chalk mining boomed during the Industrial Revolution, due to the need for chalk products such as quicklime and bricks. Abandoned chalk mines remain a popular tourist attraction due to their massive expanse, the Chalk Group is a European stratigraphic unit deposited during the late Cretaceous Period. It forms the famous White Cliffs of Dover in Kent, England, the Champagne region of France is mostly underlain by chalk deposits, which contain artificial caves used for wine storage. Some of the highest chalk cliffs in the occur at Jasmund National Park in Germany. Ninety million years ago what is now the chalk downland of Northern Europe was ooze accumulating at the bottom of a great sea. Chalk was one of the earliest rocks made up of particles to be studied under the electron microscope. Their shells were made of calcite extracted from the rich sea-water, as they died, a substantial layer gradually built up over millions of years and, through the weight of overlying sediments, eventually became consolidated into rock. Later earth movements related to the formation of the Alps raised these former sea-floor deposits above sea level, the chemical composition of chalk is calcium carbonate, with minor amounts of silt and clay. It is formed in the sea by plankton, which fall to the sea floor and are then consolidated and compressed during diagenesis into chalk rock
36.
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
37.
Clay
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Clay is a fine-grained natural rock or soil material that combines one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure. Clays are plastic due to water content and become hard, brittle. Depending on the content in which it is found, clay can appear in various colours from white to dull grey or brown to deep orange-red. Although many naturally occurring deposits include both silts and clay, clays are distinguished from other fine-grained soils by differences in size, silts, which are fine-grained soils that do not include clay minerals, tend to have larger particle sizes than clays. There is, however, some overlap in size and other physical properties. The distinction between silt and clay varies by discipline, geologists and soil scientists usually consider the separation to occur at a particle size of 2 µm, sedimentologists often use 4–5 μm, and colloid chemists use 1 μm. Geotechnical engineers distinguish between silts and clays based on the plasticity properties of the soil, as measured by the soils Atterberg limits, ISO14688 grades clay particles as being smaller than 2 μm and silt particles as being larger. These solvents, usually acidic, migrate through the rock after leaching through upper weathered layers. In addition to the process, some clay minerals are formed through hydrothermal activity. There are two types of deposits, primary and secondary. Primary clays form as residual deposits in soil and remain at the site of formation, secondary clays are clays that have been transported from their original location by water erosion and deposited in a new sedimentary deposit. Clay deposits are associated with very low energy depositional environments such as large lakes. Depending on the source, there are three or four main groups of clays, kaolinite, montmorillonite-smectite, illite, and chlorite. Chlorites are not always considered to be a clay, sometimes being classified as a group within the phyllosilicates. There are approximately 30 different types of clays in these categories. Varve is clay with visible annual layers, which are formed by deposition of those layers and are marked by differences in erosion. This type of deposit is common in glacial lakes
38.
Sandstone
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Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earths crust, like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, quartz-bearing sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure, usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. They are formed from cemented grains that may either be fragments of a rock or be mono-minerallic crystals. The cements binding these grains together are typically calcite, clays, grain sizes in sands are defined within the range of 0.0625 mm to 2 mm. The formation of sandstone involves two principal stages, first, a layer or layers of sand accumulates as the result of sedimentation, either from water or from air. Typically, sedimentation occurs by the settling out from suspension. The most common cementing materials are silica and calcium carbonate, which are derived either from dissolution or from alteration of the sand after it was buried. Colours will usually be tan or yellow, a predominant additional colourant in the southwestern United States is iron oxide, which imparts reddish tints ranging from pink to dark red, with additional manganese imparting a purplish hue. Red sandstones are seen in the Southwest and West of Britain, as well as central Europe. The regularity of the latter favours use as a source for masonry, either as a building material or as a facing stone. These physical properties allow the grains to survive multiple recycling events. Quartz grains evolve from rock, which are felsic in origin. Feldspathic framework grains are commonly the second most abundant mineral in sandstones, Feldspar can be divided into two smaller subdivisions, alkali feldspars and plagioclase feldspars. The different types of feldspar can be distinguished under a petrographic microscope, below is a description of the different types of feldspar. Alkali feldspar is a group of minerals in which the composition of the mineral can range from KAlSi3O8 to NaAlSi3O8. Plagioclase feldspar is a group of solid solution minerals that range in composition from NaAlSi3O8 to CaAl2Si2O8. Lithic framework grains are pieces of ancient source rock that have yet to weather away to individual mineral grains, accessory minerals are all other mineral grains in a sandstone, commonly these minerals make up just a small percentage of the grains in a sandstone
39.
Jurassic
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The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that spans 56.3 million years from the end of the Triassic Period 201.3 million years ago to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period 145 Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic Era, also known as the Age of Reptiles, the start of the period is marked by the major Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. The Jurassic is named after the Jura Mountains within the European Alps, by the beginning of the Jurassic, the supercontinent Pangaea had begun rifting into two landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. This created more coastlines and shifted the continental climate from dry to humid, on land, the fauna transitioned from the Triassic fauna, dominated by both dinosauromorph and crocodylomorph archosaurs, to one dominated by dinosaurs alone. The first birds also appeared during the Jurassic, having evolved from a branch of theropod dinosaurs, other major events include the appearance of the earliest lizards, and the evolution of therian mammals, including primitive placentals. Crocodilians made the transition from a terrestrial to a mode of life. The oceans were inhabited by marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, the chronostratigraphic term Jurassic is directly linked to the Jura Mountains. The name Jura is derived from the Celtic root jor, which was Latinised into juria, the Jurassic period is divided into the Early Jurassic, Middle, and Late Jurassic epochs. The Jurassic System, in stratigraphy, is divided into the Lower Jurassic, Middle, the separation of the term Jurassic into three sections goes back to Leopold von Buch. The Jurassic North Atlantic Ocean was relatively narrow, while the South Atlantic did not open until the following Cretaceous period, the Tethys Sea closed, and the Neotethys basin appeared. Climates were warm, with no evidence of glaciation, as in the Triassic, there was apparently no land over either pole, and no extensive ice caps existed. In contrast, the North American Jurassic record is the poorest of the Mesozoic, the Jurassic was a time of calcite sea geochemistry in which low-magnesium calcite was the primary inorganic marine precipitate of calcium carbonate. Carbonate hardgrounds were thus very common, along with calcitic ooids, calcitic cements, the first of several massive batholiths were emplaced in the northern American cordillera beginning in the mid-Jurassic, marking the Nevadan orogeny. Important Jurassic exposures are found in Russia, India, South America, Japan, Australasia. As the Jurassic proceeded, larger and more groups of dinosaurs like sauropods and ornithopods proliferated in Africa. Middle Jurassic strata are well represented nor well studied in Africa. Late Jurassic strata are also poorly represented apart from the spectacular Tendaguru fauna in Tanzania, the Late Jurassic life of Tendaguru is very similar to that found in western North Americas Morrison Formation. During the Jurassic period, the primary living in the sea were fish
United Kingdom
England
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Bedford Castle
Cecil Higgins Art Gallery & Bedford Museum
Chicksands Priory
Chiltern Hills
Dunstable Downs
Elstow Moot Hall
Harrold-Odell Country Park
Leighton Buzzard Light Railway
Whipsnade Wildlife Park
Bedfordshire
