Slough
Slough is a large town in Berkshire, within the Greater London Urban Area, 20 miles west of Charing Cross, central London and 17 miles north-east of the county town of Reading. It is at the intersection of the M4, M40 and M25 motorways; the A4 and the Great Western Main Line pass through the town, part of neighbouring Buckinghamshire. From 2019 the Elizabeth line is expected to allow faster journeys to central London; as of 2011 Slough's population was one of the most ethnically diverse in the United Kingdom, with the highest proportion of religious adherents in England. The town has attracted people from across the country and the world for labour since the 1920s, which has helped shape it into a major trading centre; as of 2017 unemployment stood at 1.4%, circa one-third the UK average of 4.5%. Slough has the highest concentration of global corporate HQs outside London; the Slough Trading Estate is the largest industrial estate in single private ownership in Europe. Blackberry, McAfee, Burger King and Lego have head offices in the town.
The Slough Trading Estate provides over 17,000 jobs in 400 businesses. Slough has the second highest gross value added per worker of cities in UK; the name, which means "soil", was first recorded in 1195 as Slo. It first seems to have applied to a hamlet between Upton to the east and Chalvey to the west around the "Crown Crossroads" where the road to Windsor met the Great West Road; the Domesday Survey of 1086 refers to Upton, a wood for 200 pigs, worth £15. During the 13th century, King Henry III had a palace at Cippenham. Parts of Upton Court were built in 1325, while St Mary the Virgin Church in Langley was built in the late 11th or early 12th century, though it has been rebuilt and enlarged several times. From the mid-17th century, stagecoaches began to pass through Slough and Salt Hill, which became locations for the second stage to change horses on the journey out from London. By 1838 and the opening of the Great Western Railway, Upton-cum-Chalvey's parish population had reached 1,502. In 1849, a branch line was completed from Slough to Windsor & Eton Central, opposite Windsor Castle, for the Queen Victoria's convenience.
Slough has 96 listed buildings. There are Four Grade I: St Laurence's Church, St Mary the Virgin Church, Baylis House and Godolphin Court Seven Grade II: St Mary's Church, Upton Court, the Kederminster and Seymour Almshouses in Langley, St Peter's Church, Ostrich Inn and King John's Palace Grade II listed structures include four milestones: Beech and Linden Houses at Upton Hospital and Slough railway station1918 saw a large area of agricultural land to the west of Slough developed as an army motor repair depot, used to store and repair huge numbers of motor vehicles coming back from the battlefields of the First World War in Flanders. In April 1920, the Government sold its contents to the Slough Trading Co. Ltd.. Repair of ex-army vehicles continued until 1925, when the Slough Trading Company Act was passed allowing the company to establish an industrial estate. Spectacular growth and employment ensued, with Slough attracting workers from many parts of the UK and abroad. During the Second World War, Slough experienced a series of air raids in October 1940, an emergency hospital treating casualties from London was set up in Slough.
Local air raid deaths and deaths at the hospital account for the 23 civilian lives recorded lost in the borough area. After the war, several further large housing developments arose to take large numbers of people migrating from war-damaged London. In the 21st century, Slough has seen major redevelopment of the town centre. Old buildings are being replaced with new offices and shopping complexes. Tesco has replaced an existing superstore with a larger Tesco Extra; the Heart of Slough Project is a plan for the large-scale redevelopment of the town centre as a focus and cultural quarter for the creative media and communications industries. It will create a mixed-use complex, multi-functional buildings, visual landmarks and a public space in the Thames Valley. Recommendations for the £400 million project have been approved, planning approval was given by Slough Borough Council's planning committee on 9 July 2009. Work began in 2010 for completion in 2018. In December 2009, two key components of the project were signed: the Homes and Communities Agency signed its agreement to provide £11m of funding for infrastructure and Thames Valley University courses which are due to remain in the town have found a new home at the Centre in Farnham Road, Slough.
In parallel to the town centre redevelopment plan, Segro plans to spend £600 million over the next 20 years on the trading estate. This is intended to create environmentally sustainable buildings, open green spaces, two hotels, a conference centre, cafés, restaurants and better transport facilities to improve links to Slough town centre and the surrounding residential areas, it is claimed that the plan will create more than 4,100 new jobs and contribute around £100m a year to Slough's economy. If both plans go ahead in their current forms, nearly £1 billion will be spent on redeveloping Slough over the next 20 years. Herschel Park, named for astronomer William Herschel, is being relandscaped in a multimillion-pound effort to bring it back to its former Victorian era glory; the park was featured in an episode of the documentary programme Who Do You Think You Are? Focusing on the TV presenter Davina McCall. In 2010, £2 milli
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, it employs over 20,950 staff in total. The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time and fixed-contract staff are included; the BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee, charged to all British households and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up; the fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has funded the BBC World Service, which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, online services in Arabic and Persian.
Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Studios Ltd, which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC World News, from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. From its inception, through the Second World War, to the 21st century, the BBC has played a prominent role in British culture, it is known colloquially as "The Beeb", "Auntie", or a combination of both. Britain's first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920, it was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.
But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members. Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast; the company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform and entertain"; the financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee.
The Committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired; the BBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. The BBC was banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00 and was required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise.
The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the BBC became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis; the crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On one hand Reith was acutely aware that the Government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the Government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently; the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the Government's objectives in a manner of its own choosing; the resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom provide emergency care to people with acute illness or injury and are predominantly provided free at the point of use by the four National Health Services of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status; the NHS commissions most emergency medical services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other emergency services, the public access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. In addition to ambulance services provided by NHS organisations, there are some private and volunteer emergency medical services arrangements in place in the UK, the use of private or volunteer ambulances at public events or large private sites, as part of community provision of services such as community first responders. Air ambulance services in the UK are not part of the NHS and are funded through charitable donations.
Paramedics are seconded from a local NHS ambulance service, with the exception of Great North Air Ambulance Service who employ their own paramedics. Doctors are provided by their home hospital and spend no more than 40% of their time with an air ambulance service. Public ambulance services across the UK are required by law to respond to four types of requests for care, which are: Emergency calls Doctor's urgent admission requests High dependency and urgent inter-hospital transfers Major incidentsAmbulance trusts and services may undertake non-urgent patient transport services on a commercial arrangement with their local hospital trusts or health boards, or in some cases on directly funded government contracts, although these contracts are fulfilled by private and voluntary providers; the National Health Service Act 1946 gave county and borough councils a statutory responsibility to provide an emergency ambulance service, although they could contract a voluntary ambulance service to provide this, with many contracting the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance or another local provider.
The last St John Division, to be so contracted is reputed to have been at Whittlesey in Cambridgeshire, where the two-bay ambulance garage can still be seen at the branch headquarters. The Regional Ambulance Officers’ Committee reported in 1979 that “There was considerable local variation in the quality of the service provided in relation to vehicles and equipment. Most Services were administered by Local Authorities through their Medical Officer of Health and his Ambulance Officer, a few were under the aegis of the Fire Service, whilst others relied upon agency methods for the provision of part or all of their services.” The 142 existing ambulance services were transferred by the National Health Service Reorganisation Act 1973 from local authority to central government control in 1974, consolidated into 53 services under regional or area health authorities. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England.
The June 2005 report "Taking healthcare to the Patient", authored by Peter Bradley, Chief Executive of the London Ambulance Service, for the Department of Health led to the merging of the 31 trusts into 13 organisations in England, plus one organisation each in Wales and Northern Ireland. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, this has further reduced to 10 ambulance service trusts in England, plus the Isle of Wight which has its own provision. Following the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, commissioning of the ambulance services in each area passed from central government control into the hands of regional clinical commissioning groups; the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary provider for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England, 1 each in the other three countries. In England there are now ten NHS ambulance trusts, as well as an ambulance service on the Isle of Wight, run directly by Isle of Wight NHS Trust, with boundaries following those of the former regional government offices.
The ten trusts are: East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust London Ambulance Service NHS Trust North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust North West Ambulance Service NHS Trust South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust West Midlands Ambulance Service University NHS Foundation Trust Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS TrustThe English ambulance trusts are represented by the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives, with the Scottish and Northern Irish providers all associate members. On the 14 November 2018 West Midlands Ambulance Service became the UK's first university-ambulance trust; the service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland. The Scottish Ambulance Service is a Special Health Board that provides ambulance services throughout whole of Scotland, on behalf of the Health and Social Care Directorates of the Scottish Government.
Due to the remote nature of many areas of Scotland compared to the other Home Nations, the Scottish Ambulance Service has Britain's only publi
Henry VI of England
Henry VI was King of England from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V, he succeeded to the English throne at the age of nine months upon his father's death, succeeded to the French throne on the death of his maternal grandfather Charles VI shortly afterwards. Henry inherited the long-running Hundred Years' War, in which his uncle Charles VII contested his claim to the French throne, he is the only English monarch to have been crowned King of France, in 1431. His early reign, when several people were ruling for him, saw the pinnacle of English power in France, but subsequent military and economic problems had endangered the English cause by the time Henry was declared fit to rule in 1437, he found his realm in a difficult position, faced with setbacks in France and divisions among the nobility at home. Unlike his father, Henry is described as timid, passive, well-intentioned, averse to warfare and violence, his ineffective reign saw the gradual loss of the English lands in France.
In the hope of achieving peace, in 1445 Henry married Charles VII's niece, the ambitious and strong-willed Margaret of Anjou. The peace policy failed, leading to the murder of one of Henry's key advisers, the war recommenced, with France taking the upper hand; as the situation in France worsened, there was a related increase in political instability in England. With Henry unfit to rule, power was exercised by quarrelsome nobles, while factions and favourites encouraged the rise of disorder in the country. Regional magnates and soldiers returning from France formed and maintained increasing numbers of private armed retainers, with which they fought one another, terrorised their neighbors, paralysed the courts, dominated the government. Queen Margaret did not remain unpartisan, took advantage of the situation to make herself an effective power behind the throne. Amidst military disasters in France and a collapse of law and order in England, the queen and her clique came under criticism, coming from Henry VI's popular cousin Richard of the House of York, of misconduct of the war in France and misrule of the country.
Starting in 1453, Henry began suffering a series of mental breakdowns, tensions mounted between Margaret and Richard of York over control of the incapacitated king's government, over the question of succession to the throne. Civil war broke out in 1455, leading to a long period of dynastic conflict known as the Wars of the Roses. Henry was deposed on 29 March 1461 after a crushing defeat at the Battle of Towton by Richard's son, who took the throne as Edward IV. Despite Margaret continuing to lead a resistance to Edward, he was captured by Edward's forces in 1465 and imprisoned in the Tower of London. Henry was restored to the throne in 1470, but Edward retook power in 1471, killing Henry's only son and heir in battle and imprisoning Henry once again. Having "lost his wits, his two kingdoms, his only son", Henry died in the Tower during the night of 21 May killed on the orders of Edward. Miracles were attributed to Henry after his death, he was informally regarded as a saint and martyr until the 16th century.
He left a legacy of educational institutions, having founded Eton College, King's College and All Souls College, Oxford. Shakespeare wrote a trilogy of plays about his life, depicting him as weak-willed and influenced by his wife, Margaret. Henry was the only child and heir of King Henry V, he was born on 6 December 1421 at Windsor Castle. He succeeded to the throne as King of England at the age of nine months on 1 September 1422, the day after his father's death. A few weeks on 21 October 1422 in accordance with the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, he became titular King of France upon his grandfather Charles VI's death, his mother, Catherine of Valois, was 20 years old. As Charles VI's daughter, she was viewed with considerable suspicion by English nobles and was prevented from playing a full role in her son's upbringing. On 28 September 1423, the nobles swore loyalty to Henry VI, not yet two years old, they summoned Parliament in the King's name and established a regency council to govern until the King should come of age.
One of Henry V's surviving brothers, Duke of Bedford, was appointed senior regent of the realm and was in charge of the ongoing war in France. During Bedford's absence, the government of England was headed by Henry V's other surviving brother, Duke of Gloucester, appointed Lord Protector and Defender of the Realm, his duties were limited to summoning Parliament. Henry V's half-uncle Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, had an important place on the Council. After the Duke of Bedford died in 1435, the Duke of Gloucester claimed the Regency himself, but was contested in this by the other members of the Council. From 1428, Henry's tutor was Richard de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, whose father had been instrumental in the opposition to Richard II's reign. Henry's half-brothers and Jasper, the sons of his widowed mother and Owen Tudor, were given earldoms. Edmund Tudor was the father of Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII. In reaction to Charles VII's coronation as French King in Reims Cathedral on 17 July 1429, Henry was soon crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey on 6 November 1429, followed by his own coronation as King of France at Notre Dame de Paris on 16 December 1431, at age 10.
He was the only English king to be crow
Northern line
The Northern line is a London Underground line that runs from south-west to north-west London, with two branches through central London and three in the north. It runs northwards from its southern terminus at Morden in the borough of Merton to Kennington in Southwark, where it divides into two central branches, one via Charing Cross in the West End and the other via Bank in the City; the central branches re-join at Camden Town where the line again divides into two branches, one to High Barnet and the other to Edgware in the borough of Barnet. On the High Barnet branch there is a short single-track branch to Mill Hill East only. For most of its length it is a deep-level tube line; the portion between Stockwell and Borough opened in 1890 and is the oldest section of deep-level tube line on the Underground network. There were about 294 million passenger journeys recorded in 2016/17 on the Northern line, making it the busiest on the Underground, it is unique in having two different routes through central London.
Despite its name, it does not serve the northernmost stations on the network, though it does serve the southernmost station, Morden, as well as 16 of the system's 29 stations south of the River Thames. There are 50 stations in total on the line; the line has a complicated history, the current complex arrangement of two main northern branches, two central branches and the southern route reflects its genesis as three separate railways, combined in the 1920s and 1930s. An extension in the 1920s used a route planned by a fourth company. Abandoned plans from the 1920s to extend the line further southwards, northwards in the 1930s, would have incorporated parts of the routes of two further companies. From the 1930s to the 1970s, the tracks of a seventh company were managed as a branch of the Northern line. An extension from Kennington to Battersea is under construction, which may either give the Northern line a second southern branch or may see it split into separate distinct lines with their own identities.
It is coloured black on the current Tube map. See City and South London Railway and Charing Cross and Hampstead Railway for detailed histories of these companies The core of the Northern line evolved from two railway companies: the City & South London Railway and the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway; the C&SLR, London's first deep-level tube railway, was built under the supervision of James Henry Greathead, responsible, with Peter W. Barlow, for the Tower Subway, it was the first of the Underground's lines to be constructed by boring deep below the surface and the first to be operated by electric traction. The railway opened in November 1890 from Stockwell to a now-disused station at King William Street; this was inconveniently placed and unable to cope with the company's traffic so, in 1900, a new route to Moorgate via Bank was opened. By 1907 the C&SLR had been further extended at both ends to run from Clapham Common to Euston; the CCE&HR was opened in 1907 and ran from Charing Cross via Euston and Camden Town to Golders Green and Highgate.
It was extended south by one stop to Embankment in 1914 to form an interchange with the Bakerloo and District lines. In 1913 the Underground Electric Railways Company of London, owner of the CCE&HR, took over the C&SLR, although they remained separate companies. During the early 1920s, a series of works was carried out to connect the C&SLR and CCE&HR tunnels to enable an integrated service to be operated; the first of these new tunnels, between the C&SLR's Euston station and the CCE&HR's station at Camden Town, had been planned in 1912 but had been delayed by World War I. The second connection linked the CCE&HR's Embankment and C&SLR's Kennington stations and provided a new intermediate station at Waterloo to connect to the main line station there and the Bakerloo line; the smaller-diameter tunnels of the C&SLR were expanded to match the standard diameter of the CCE&HR and the other deep tube lines. In conjunction with the works to integrate the two lines, two major extensions were undertaken: northwards to Edgware in Middlesex and southwards to Morden in Surrey.
The Edgware extension used plans dating back to 1901 for the Edgware and Hampstead Railway which the UERL had taken over in 1912. It extended the CCE&HR line from its terminus at Golders Green to Edgware in two stages: to Hendon Central in 1923 and to Edgware in 1924; the line crossed open countryside and ran on the surface, apart from a short tunnel north of Hendon Central. Five new stations were built to pavilion-style designs by Stanley Heaps, head of the Underground's Architects Office, stimulating the rapid northward expansion of suburban developments in the following years; the engineering of the Morden extension of the C&SLR from Clapham Common to Morden was more demanding, running in tunnels to a point just north of Morden station, constructed in a cutting. The line runs under the wide station forecourt and public road outside the station, to the depot; the extension was planned to continue to Sutton over part of the route for the unbuilt Wimbledon and Sutton Railway, in which the UERL held a stake, but agreements were made with the Southern Railway to end the extension at Morden.
The Southern Railway built the surface line from Wimbledon to Sutton, via South Merton and St. Helier; the tube extension opened in 1926, with seven new stations, all designed by Charles Holden in a modern style. Stanley Heaps was to design the stations, but after s
Merton (parish)
Merton is an ancient parish, first in Surrey but since 1965 has been in London, bounded by Wimbledon to the north, Mitcham to the east, Morden and Cuddington to the south and Malden to the west. The 1871 Ordnance Survey map records its area as 1,764.7 acres. The parish was and is centred on the 12th-century parish church, St Mary's in Merton Park; the parish as a result of the disestablishment of the vestries became of two legal types and areas: religious and civil. It had in the late 19th century seen breakaway ecclesiastical parishes but the civic aspect in 1907 was transformed into Merton Urban District, this in turn was enlarged and empowered into the London Borough of Merton in 1965. Merton Park is quite used as a neighbourhood. Merton itself is a used name, to fellow residents and businesses in the borough at any rate, to describe any particular district of the borough, with popular preference turning to the new 19th century'Park' and'Wood' estates designated by the railway stations as they all unusually here formed new parishes.
These are Raynes Park, Colliers Wood, part of Motspur Park and flowing from a tube station in the far north, the remainder is known as South Wimbledon. The original borough takes its name from Merton Priory, it is among less prominent sources of the English surname Merton but is the origin of Merton College, Oxford which had its precursor site and greatest endowment of landholdings here. The village of Merton had a linear focus, stretching westwards from the Roman road Stane Street which connected London to Chichester, therefore en route Epsom and Leatherhead. Locally, the road ran in a direct line from the current Colliers Wood High Street to London Road, crossing the site of Sainsbury's Savacentre and industrial estates; the name dates back at least to the 7th century. Translations vary from "Farmstead by the mere" to "Maera's homestead". Merton appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Meretone, it was revealed in the Doomsday Book as the largest community in the area. It was held by William the Conqueror as principal feudal overlords and its assets were: 20 hides of land.
It rendered £43 added to just under an extra pound 18s 2d from 16 houses in Southwark, to its feudal overlords per annum. The priory or abbey known by a third name Priory of St Mary of Merton was founded by Gilbert Norman in 1114 on a site close to today's Sainsbury's store. In 1117 it developed a high reputation for scholarship, it is believed to have been the birthplace of founder of Merton College, Oxford. In 1235 Henry III's here held negotiations with his Barons for the Statute of Merton; the Abbey provided the education of St. Thomas Becket and Nicholas Breakspear, the only English Pope; the abbey joined all others in ending its existence in 1538, having held land throughout the area in volume, such as holdings in Cuddington and tithes in Effingham, due to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Its buildings were dismantled and the materials removed for re-use elsewhere, it is believed that in 1496 a hospice for travellers was erected opposite the site of Sainsbury's store. An inn was built there in 1594 and beer was sold there from that date until 2004, when King's Head, closed.
The existing building dates from 1931. The River Wandle flowing north towards Wandsworth, had for centuries driven watermills and provided water for a number of industrial processes. In the 1660s a silk mill was in operation at Merton Abbey and the Jacob family was operating a fabric bleaching ground close by - a process requiring large quantities of water; the name remained associated with the locality as two hundred years Stanford's 1862 Library Map of London and its Suburbs, shows Jacob's Green at the junction of what are now Christchurch Road and Western Road. Textile production became the established industry in the area in the 18th century with calico printing beginning in the 1720s. In 1764, merchant Richard Hotham a member of the East India Company purchased Moat House Farm, a property to the south of Merton High Street, he began developing the property, enlarging the house and renaming it "Merton Place". He first leased later sold the house to one of the partners in a local calico works, Charles Greaves.
Hotham next built another house, to the north-west of the junction of Morden Road. This he called "Hotham House" and it remained in his possession until his death in 1799. Despite the industrial development along the Wandle, Merton was, at the beginning of the 19th century, still a rural farming community; the population has seen spurts of rapid growth accompanied by housing and shown to the right: doubling 1811-1841 relatively static for 40 years trebling in the 10 years to 1911 and already suburban more than doubled from 1921-1951, creating a urban core. In 1803, the Surrey Iron Railway opened between Wandsworth and Croydon following the shallow Wandle valley and passing through Merton and Mitcham to the south. Although horse-drawn, the railway provided a freight service for the industries along the shallow river to send their goods to wharves on the Thames. From Merton High Street the railway ran along the route of Christchurch Road before turning to a more south-westerly route just before Mitcham tram stop.
In September 1802, Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, upon the advice of his mistress Emma Hamilton and her husband Sir William Hami
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is a large Gothic abbey church in the City of Westminster, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and British monarchs; the building itself was a Benedictine monastic church until the monastery was dissolved in 1539. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral. Since 1560, the building is no longer an abbey or a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England "Royal Peculiar"—a church responsible directly to the sovereign. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site in the seventh century, at the time of Mellitus, a Bishop of London. Construction of the present church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have been in Westminster Abbey.
There have been 16 royal weddings at the abbey since 1100. As the burial site of more than 3,300 persons of predominant prominence in British history, Westminster Abbey is sometimes described as'Britain's Valhalla', after the iconic burial hall of Norse mythology. A late tradition claims that Aldrich, a young fisherman on the River Thames, had a vision of Saint Peter near the site; this seems to have been quoted as the origin of the salmon that Thames fishermen offered to the abbey in years – a custom still observed annually by the Fishmongers' Company. The recorded origins of the Abbey date to the 960s or early 970s, when Saint Dunstan and King Edgar installed a community of Benedictine monks on the site. Between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter's Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church, it was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style. The building was completed around 1060 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edward's death on 5 January 1066.
A week he was buried in the church. His successor, Harold II, was crowned in the abbey, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror the same year; the only extant depiction of Edward's abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry. Some of the lower parts of the monastic dormitory, an extension of the South Transept, survive in the Norman Undercroft of the Great School, including a door said to come from the previous Saxon abbey. Increased endowments supported a community increased from a dozen monks in Dunstan's original foundation, up to a maximum about eighty monks; the abbot and monks, in proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, the seat of government from the 13th century, became a powerful force in the centuries after the Norman Conquest. The Abbot of Westminster was employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. Released from the burdens of spiritual leadership, which passed to the reformed Cluniac movement after the mid-10th century, occupied with the administration of great landed properties, some of which lay far from Westminster, "the Benedictines achieved a remarkable degree of identification with the secular life of their times, with upper-class life", Barbara Harvey concludes, to the extent that her depiction of daily life provides a wider view of the concerns of the English gentry in the High and Late Middle Ages.
The proximity of the Palace of Westminster did not extend to providing monks or abbots with high royal connections. The abbot remained Lord of the Manor of Westminster as a town of two to three thousand persons grew around it: as a consumer and employer on a grand scale the monastery helped fuel the town economy, relations with the town remained unusually cordial, but no enfranchising charter was issued during the Middle Ages; the abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings. None were buried there until Henry III, intensely devoted to the cult of the Confessor, rebuilt the abbey in Anglo-French Gothic style as a shrine to venerate King Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for Henry's own tomb, under the highest Gothic nave in England; the Confessor's shrine subsequently played a great part in his canonization. Construction of the present church began in 1245 by Henry III; the first building stage included the entire eastern end, the transepts, the easternmost bay of the nave.
The Lady Chapel built from around 1220 at the extreme eastern end was incorporated into the chevet of the new building, but was replaced. This work must have been completed by 1258-60, when the second stage was begun; this carried the nave on an additional five bays. Here construction stopped in about 1269, a consecration ceremony being held on 13 October of that year, because of Henry's death did not resume; the old Romanesque nave remained attached to the new building for over a century, until it was pulled down in the late 14th century and rebuilt from 1376 following the original design. Construction was finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of Richard II. Henry III commissioned the unique Cosmati pavement in front of the High Altar (the pavement has undergone a major cleani
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Media related to Colliers Wood at Wikimedia Commons
