1.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
2.
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
3.
Rothschild family
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During the 19th century, the Rothschild family possessed the largest private fortune in the world, as well as the largest private fortune in modern world history. The Rothschild family has frequently been the subject of conspiracy theories, the first member of the family who was known to use the name Rothschild was Izaak Elchanan Rothschild, born in 1577. The name is derived from the German zum rothen Schild, meaning with the red sign, the familys ascent to international prominence began in 1744, with the birth of Mayer Amschel Rothschild in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. He was the son of Amschel Moses Rothschild, a money changer who had traded with the Prince of Hesse, the family motto appears below the shield, Concordia, Integritas, Industria. Paul Johnson writes he Rothschilds are elusive, there is no book about them that is both revealing and accurate. Libraries of nonsense have been written about them, a woman who planned to write a book entitled Lies about the Rothschilds abandoned it, saying, ‘It was relatively easy to spot the lies, but it proved impossible to find out the truth. Their assets were held in financial instruments, circulating through the world as stocks, bonds, changes made by the Rothschilds allowed them to insulate their property from local violence, Henceforth their real wealth was beyond the reach of the mob, almost beyond the reach of greedy monarchs. Another essential part of Mayer Rothschilds strategy for success was to control of their banks in family hands. By this means, Jewish financiers obtained a share of international finance during the middle. The head of the group was the Rothschild family. It also states, Of more recent years, non-Jewish financiers have learned the same method, and, on the whole. Mayer Rothschild successfully kept the fortune in the family with carefully arranged marriages, by the late 19th century, however, almost all Rothschilds had started to marry outside the family, usually into the aristocracy or other financial dynasties. The surname Rothschild is rare in Germany, the German surname Rothschild is not related to the Protestant surname Rothchilds from the United Kingdom. Another line, of the British branch of the family, was elevated by Queen Victoria, research conducted by GreatGameIndia Magazine has revealed that the Rothschild family was one of the controller families of the East India Company. The Rothschilds already possessed a significant fortune before the start of the Napoleonic Wars, in 1815 alone, the Rothschilds provided £9.8 million in subsidy loans to Britains continental allies. The brothers helped coordinate Rothschild activities across the continent, and the family developed a network of agents, in one instance, the family network enabled Nathan to receive in London the news of Wellingtons victory at the Battle of Waterloo a full day ahead of the governments official messengers. It was then repeated in popular accounts, such as that of Morton. The basis for the Rothschilds most famously profitable move was made after the news of British victory had made public
4.
Nature reserve
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Nature reserves may be designated by government institutions in some countries, or by private landowners, such as charities and research institutions, regardless of nationality. Nature reserves fall into different IUCN categories depending on the level of protection afforded by local laws, early reservations often had a religious underpinning, such as the evil forest areas of West Africa which were forbidden to humans, who were threatened with spiritual attack if they went there. Sacred areas taboo from human entry to fishing and hunting are known by ancient cultures worldwide. The worlds first modern nature reserve was established in 1821 by the naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton around his estate in Walton Hall and he spent £9000 on the construction of a 3 mile long,9 ft tall wall to enclose his park from poachers. He tried to encourage birdlife by planting trees and hollowing out trunks for owls to nest in and he also invented artificial nest boxes to house starlings, jackdaws and sand martins and unsuccessfully attempted to introduce little owls from Italy. Drachenfels was protected as the first state-designated nature reserve in modern-day Germany, in Australia, a nature reserve is the title of a type of protected area used in the jurisdictions of the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia. The term “nature reserve” is defined in the relevant statutes used in those states and territories rather than by a national statute. As of 2014,1767 out of a total of 10339 protected areas listed within the Australian National Reserve System used the term “nature reserve in their names, in Brazil, nature reserves are classified as ecological stations or biological reserves by the National System of Conservation Units. Their main objectives are preserving fauna and flora and other natural attributes, visits are allowed only with permission, and only for educational or scientific purposes. Changes to the ecosystems in both types of reserve are allowed to restore and preserve the balance, biological diversity. Ecological stations are allowed to change the environment within strictly defined limits for the purpose of scientific research. A wildlife reserve in Brazil is also protected, and hunting is not allowed, there are 30 nature reserves in Egypt which cover 12% of Egyptian land. Those nature reserves were built according to the laws no, 102/1983 and 4/1994 for protection of the Egyptian nature reserve. Egypt announced a plan from to build 40 nature reserves from 1997 to 2017, to protect the natural resources. The largest nature reserve in Egypt is Gebel Elba in the southeast, denmark has three national parks and several nature reserves, some of them inside the national park areas. The largest single reserve is Hanstholm Nature Reserve, which covers 40 km2 and is part of Thy National Park, in Sweden there are 29 national parks. The first of them were established in 1909, in fact, Sweden was the first European country that established 9 national parks. There are almost 4,000 nature reserves in Sweden and they comprise about 85% of the surface that is protected by the Swedish Enironmental Code
5.
Harrow School
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Harrow School /ˈhæroʊ/ is an independent boarding school for boys in Harrow, London, England. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243, Harrow is one of the original nine public schools that were regulated by the Public Schools Act 1868. For the academic year 2016/17, Harrow charges boarders up to £12,450 per term, being the fourth most expensive boarding school in the Headmasters, the school has an enrolment of 805 boys spread across twelve boarding houses, all of whom board full-time. It remains one of four all-boys, full-boarding schools in Britain, harrows uniform includes straw hats, morning suits, top hats and canes. The school in its current form was founded in February 1572 under a Royal Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I to John Lyon, a wealthy local farmer. In the original charter, six governors were named, including two members of the Gerard family of Flambards, and two members of the Page family of Wembley and Sudbury Court. It was only after the death of Lyons wife in 1608 that the construction of the first school building began and it was completed in 1615 and remains to this day, however it is now much larger. Lyon died in 1592, leaving his assets to two causes, the lesser was the School, and by far the greater beneficiary was the maintenance of a road to London,10 miles away. The school owned and maintained road for many years following Lyons death. At first the subject taught was Latin, and the only sport was archery. Both subjects were compulsory, archery was dropped in 1771, although most boys were taught for free, their tuition paid for by Lyons endowment, there were a number of fee-paying foreigners. It was their presence that amplified the need for boarding facilities, by 1701 for every local there were two foreign pupils, these generated funds for the School as fees increased. It is now known as The John Lyon School and is a prominent independent school and it maintains close links with Harrow. The majority of the boarding houses were constructed in Victorian times. The 20th century saw the innovation of a dining hall. Presently there are about 800 boys boarding at Harrow, according to a 2009 article, the school has expanded overseas, opening additional schools in Beijing, China, Shanghai, China, Bangkok, Thailand, and New Territories, Hong Kong. Boys at Harrow have two uniforms, the photograph was placed on the front cover of the News Chronicle the next morning under the tagline Every picture tells a story. The picture was reproduced in other national publications and became
6.
RSA Insurance Group
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RSA Insurance Group plc is a British multinational general insurance company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. RSA has major operations in the UK & Ireland, Scandinavia and Canada and provides insurance products, RSA was formed by the merger of Sun Alliance and Royal Insurance in 1996. RSA is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index, RSA was formed following the merger of Sun Alliance and Royal Insurance in 1996. Sun Alliance was itself a product of the merger in 1959 of The Sun, which was founded in 1710, with The Alliance, Sun Alliance went on to acquire London Assurance in 1965 and Phoenix Assurance in 1984. Royal Insurance was founded in 1845 and it acquired Liverpool & London and Globe Insurance Company in 1919. The company formally changed its name from Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance Group plc to RSA Insurance Group on 20 May 2008, on 4 February 2014, it was announced that Stephen Hester, former CEO of RBS Group would become CEO of RSA with immediate effect. RSA operates in 28 countries and provides products and services in more than 140 through a global network of local partners. It has over 20 million customers around the world, RSA is the second-largest general insurer in the United Kingdom. Its global headquarters are in the City of London on 20 Fenchurch Street occupying floors 15-17 of the walkie-talkie building and its UK registered office is 20 Fenchurch St, London. Other key UK offices are located in Liverpool, Bristol, Manchester, Chelmsford, Glasgow, Cardiff, Sunderland, Belfast, Peterborough, Halifax, Birmingham, and Horsham. RSA, including its More Th>n brand, announced itself to be the first carbon neutral company in the UK on 2 December 2006. RSA owns the More Than direct car, home, pet and travel insurance brand in the United Kingdom, More Than also sells van, business car, shops and offices and business insurance through its More Than Business operation. In September 2015, RSA divested all its Latin American insurance operations to the Colombian insurance company Grupo Sura for £403 Million. R&SA put up seven of its subsidiaries for sale in an attempt to raise a further £800 million to cover liabilities for asbestos insurance claims in the United States, Friends Ivory & Sime subsequently acquired R&SAs UK asset management subsidiary in May 2002 for £240 million. The situation was compounded by R&SA having to reserve £1. Two months later Friends Provident acquired R&SAs offshore life unit International Financial Services Limited, based on the Isle of Man, in July 2002 R&SA sold its group risk business to Canada Life for £60 million. R&SA was forced to close its business, with the loss of 1,200 jobs. In an effort to reduce costs, R&SA chairman Sir Patrick Gillam said it would sell its US business RSUI and float most of its Asia Pacific operations, the case was heard at the High Court of Justice in January 2003
7.
Flea
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Fleas are small flightless insects that form the order Siphonaptera. As external parasites of mammals and birds, they live by consuming the blood of their hosts, adults are up to about 3 mm long and usually brown. Bodies flattened sideways enable them to move through their hosts fur or feathers and they lack wings, and have mouthparts adapted for piercing skin and sucking blood and hind legs adapted for jumping. The latter enable them to leap a distance of some 50 times their body length, larvae are worm-like with no limbs, they have chewing mouthparts and feed on organic debris. Over 2,500 species of fleas have been described worldwide, the Siphonaptera are most closely related to the snow scorpionflies, placing them within the endopterygote insect order Mecoptera. Fleas arose in the early Cretaceous, most likely as ectoparasites of mammals and marsupials, each species of flea is more or less a specialist on its host animal species, many species never breed on any other host, though some are less selective. The oriental rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis, is a vector of Yersinia pestis, the disease was spread by rodents such as the black rat, which were bitten by fleas that then infected humans. Major outbreaks included the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death, both of which killed a sizeable fraction of the worlds population. Fleas appear in human culture in such forms as flea circuses, poems like John Donnes erotic The Flea, works of music such as by Modest Mussorgsky. Flea legs end in strong claws that are designed to grasp a host, unlike other insects, fleas do not possess compound eyes but instead only have simple eyespots with a single biconvex lens, some species lack eyes altogether. Their bodies are compressed, permitting easy movement through the hairs or feathers on the hosts body. The flea body is covered with hard plates called sclerites and these sclerites are covered with many hairs and short spines directed backward, which also assist its movements on the host. The tough body is able to withstand great pressure, likely an adaptation to survive attempts to eliminate them by scratching, fleas lay tiny, white, oval eggs. The larvae are small and pale, have bristles covering their bodies, lack eyes. The larvae feed on organic matter, especially the feces of mature fleas, adults feed only on fresh blood. Immediately before the jump, muscles contract and deform the resilin pad, to prevent premature release of energy or motions of the leg, the flea employs a catch mechanism. Early in the jump, the tendon of the primary jumping muscle passes slightly behind the coxa-trochanter joint, generating a torque which holds the joint closed with the leg close to the body. To trigger jumping, another muscle pulls the tendon forward until it passes the joint axis, generating the opposite torque to extend the leg, the actual take off has been shown by high-speed video to be from the tibiae and tarsi rather than from the trochantera
8.
Natural History Museum, London
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The Natural History Museum in London is a museum of natural history that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum, the Natural History Museums main frontage, however, is on Cromwell Road. The museum is home to life and earth science specimens comprising some 80 million items within five main collections, botany, the museum is a world-renowned centre of research specialising in taxonomy, identification and conservation. Given the age of the institution, many of the collections have great historical as well as scientific value, the museum is recognised as the pre-eminent centre of natural history and research of related fields in the world. Although commonly referred to as the Natural History Museum, it was known as British Museum until 1992. Originating from collections within the British Museum, the landmark Alfred Waterhouse building was built and opened by 1881, the Darwin Centre is a more recent addition, partly designed as a modern facility for storing the valuable collections. Like other publicly funded museums in the United Kingdom, the Natural History Museum does not charge an admission fee. The museum is a charity and a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge is a patron of the museum, there are approximately 850 staff at the Museum. The two largest strategic groups are the Public Engagement Group and Science Group and this purchase was funded by a lottery. Sloanes collection, which included dried plants, and animal and human skeletons, was housed in Montagu House, Bloomsbury, in 1756. Most of the Sloane collection had disappeared by the decades of the nineteenth century. Dr George Shaw sold many specimens to the Royal College of Surgeons and had periodic cremations of material in the grounds of the museum and his successors also applied to the trustees for permission to destroy decayed specimens. In 1833 the Annual Report states that, of the 5,500 insects listed in the Sloane catalogue, the inability of the natural history departments to conserve its specimens became notorious, the Treasury refused to entrust it with specimens collected at the governments expense. The huge collection of the conchologist Hugh Cuming was acquired by the museum and that collection is said never to have recovered. The Principal Librarian at the time was Antonio Panizzi, his contempt for the history departments. The general public was not encouraged to visit the Museums natural history exhibits, in 1835 to a Select Committee of Parliament, Sir Henry Ellis said this policy was fully approved by the Principal Librarian and his senior colleagues. Many of these faults were corrected by the palaeontologist Richard Owen and his changes led Bill Bryson to write that by making the Natural History Museum an institution for everyone, Owen transformed our expectations of what museums are for
9.
Pandemic
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A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that has spread through human populations across a large region, for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic. Further, flu pandemics generally exclude recurrences of seasonal flu, throughout history, there have been a number of pandemics, such as smallpox and tuberculosis. One of the most devastating pandemics was the Black Death, killing over 75 million people in 1350, the most recent pandemics include the HIV pandemic as well as the 1918 and 2009 H1N1 pandemics. A pandemic is an epidemic occurring on a scale which crosses international boundaries, the World Health Organization has a six-stage classification that describes the process by which a novel influenza virus moves from the first few infections in humans through to a pandemic. A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people, for instance, cancer is responsible for many deaths but is not considered a pandemic because the disease is not infectious or contagious. Then you might ask yourself, What is a global outbreak, global outbreak means that we see both spread of the agent … and then we see disease activities in addition to the spread of the virus. The 2009 revision, including definitions of a pandemic and the leading to its declaration, were finalized in February 2009. The pandemic H1N12009 virus was neither on the horizon at that time nor mentioned in the document, all versions of this document refer to influenza. The phases are defined by the spread of the disease, virulence and mortality are not mentioned in the current WHO definition, HIV originated in Africa, and spread to the United States via Haiti between 1966 and 1972. AIDS is currently a pandemic, with rates as high as 25% in southern and eastern Africa. In 2006, the HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women in South Africa was 29. 1%, infection rates are rising again in Asia and the Americas. The AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90–100 million by 2025, there have been a number of significant pandemics recorded in human history, generally zoonoses which came about with domestication of animals, such as influenza and tuberculosis. There have been a number of particularly significant epidemics that deserve mention above the mere destruction of cities, possibly typhoid fever killed a quarter of the Athenian troops, and a quarter of the population over four years. This disease fatally weakened the dominance of Athens, but the sheer virulence of the disease prevented its wider spread, the exact cause of the plague was unknown for many years. In January 2006, researchers from the University of Athens analyzed teeth recovered from a mass grave underneath the city, possibly smallpox brought to the Italian peninsula by soldiers returning from the Near East, it killed a quarter of those infected, and up to five million in all. At the height of an outbreak, the Plague of Cyprian. Plague of Justinian, from 541 to 750, was the first recorded outbreak of the bubonic plague and it started in Egypt, and reached Constantinople the following spring, killing 10,000 a day at its height, and perhaps 40% of the citys inhabitants
10.
Oriental rat flea
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The Oriental rat flea, also known as the tropical rat flea, is a parasite of rodents, primarily of the genus Rattus, and is a primary vector for bubonic plague and murine typhus. This occurs when the flea has fed on an infected rodent, the Oriental rat flea has no genal or pronotal combs. This characteristic can be used to differentiate the oriental rat flea from the cat flea, dog flea, the fleas body is only about one tenth of an inch long. A fleas body is constructed to make it easier to jump long distances, the fleas body consists of three regions, head, thorax, and abdomen. The head and the thorax have rows of bristles, and the abdomen consists of eight visible segments, a fleas mouth has two functions, one for squirting saliva or partly digested blood into the bite, and one for sucking up blood from the host. This process mechanically transmits pathogens that may cause diseases the flea might have, fleas smell exhaled carbon dioxide from humans and animals and jump rapidly to the source to feed on the newly found host. A flea is wingless so it can not fly, but it can jump long distances with the help of small, a fleas leg consists of four parts, the part that is closest to the body is the coxa, next are the femur, tibia, and tarsus. A flea can use its legs to jump up to 200 times its own body length, there are four stages in a fleas life. The first stage is the egg stage, microscopic white eggs fall easily from the female to the ground or from the animal she lays on. If they are laid on an animal, they fall off in the dust or in the animals bedding. If the eggs do fall immediately on the ground, then fall into crevices on the floor where they will be safe until they hatch one to ten days later. They hatch into a larva that looks similar to a worm and is about two millimeters long. It only has a body and a mouth part. At this stage, the flea does not drink blood, instead it eats dead skin cells, flea droppings, when the larva is mature it makes a silken cocoon around itself and pupates. The flea remains a pupa from one week to six months changing in a process called metamorphosis, when the flea emerges, it begins the final cycle, called the adult stage. A flea can now suck blood from host and mate with other fleas, a single female flea can mate once and lay eggs every day with up to 50 eggs per day. Experimentally, it has shown that the fleas flourish in dry climatic conditions with temperatures of 20–25 °C. They can live up to a year and can stay in the stage for up to a year if the conditions are not favourable
11.
Wicken Fen
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Wicken Fen is a 254.5 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of Wicken in Cambridgeshire. It is also a National Nature Reserve, a Special Area of Conservation, a Ramsar wetland site of international importance, a large part of it is owned and managed by the National Trust. It is one of Britains oldest nature reserves, and was the first reserve cared for by the National Trust, the first parcel of land for the reserve was donated to the Trust by Charles Rothschild in 1901. The reserve includes fenland, farmland, marsh, and reedbeds, Wicken Fen is one of only four wild fens which still survive in the enormous Great Fen Basin area of East Anglia, where 99. 9% of the former fens have now been replaced by arable cultivation. Much of the management tries to recreate the old systems of fen working which persisted for hundreds of years, for example, the sedge plant, Cladium mariscus, is harvested every year and sold for thatching roofs. The first recorded sedge harvest at Wicken was in 1414, and ever since then, the sedge-cutting has allowed an array of plants and animals to colonize the area that depend on regular clearance of the sedge in order to survive. As part of the management plan for Wicken Fen, Konik ponies, the present appearance of Wicken Fen is the result of centuries of management by human beings. Many of the practices now undertaken have changed little since medieval times, in surrounding areas, the landscape has changed so completely that it is almost impossible to imagine how it must once have all looked. Only a very few places survive where it is possible to experience this primitive landscape first hand, tracks in and around Wicken Fen became visible on Google Street View before many towns and urban areas in Britain were covered. Wicken Fen features the last surviving wooden windpump in the Fens and it is a small smock wind pump, which was probably built about 1912 at Adventurers Fen for land drainage. The pump was moved to its present site and restored in 1956 by the National Trust, the Windpump now pumps water from the drainage channel up into the Fen to maintain a high water table. The nearby museums, Stretham Old Engine and Prickwillow Museum tell the story of how windpumps were succeeded by steam engines in the nineteenth century, the Fen has been long associated with natural history. Many eminent Victorian naturalists collected beetles, moths and butterflies at Wicken Fen, from the 1920s onwards the fathers of modern ecology and conservation, the Cambridge botanists Sir Arthur Tansley and Sir Harry Godwin carried out their pioneering work on the reserve. One of the worlds longest running science experiments, the Godwin Plots, a Bibliography can be downloaded from the Wicken website and the latest Newsletter. The Fen is open to the public, the site is open all year round from dawn to dusk except for Christmas Day. Some paths are closed in wet weather, and some areas are inaccessible. However, there is a boardwalk, leading to two bird hides that is all of the time. There are several hides and many miles of trails for visitors to follow
