1.
Grosvenor Bridge (Chester)
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The Grosvenor Bridge is a single-span stone arch road bridge crossing the River Dee at Chester, England. Located on the A483 Grosvenor Road, it was designed by Thomas Harrison, the first traffic passed over it in November 1833. At the time of its construction, the bridge was the longest single-span arch bridge in the world and it is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. Views upriver include Chester Castle and Handbridge, the mansions of Curzon Park. Water levels of the tidal Dee vary significantly during the day, at the beginning of the 19th century, Chester only had one river crossing, a narrow medieval bridge at Handbridge, the Old Dee Bridge. Heavily congested, it delayed movement through the town, building a new bridge was prohibitively expensive until Thomas Telford proposed a new road between Shrewsbury and the Irish ferries at Holyhead to facilitate trade between the two islands. The route would have bypassed Chester, greatly reducing the income from the lucrative Irish trade routes. A committee was appointed to consider plans for a new bridge to quicken movement across the city, Chester was at the time a major shipbuilding city, and a very tall bridge was required to allow ships to pass underneath. A design by the architect Thomas Harrison featuring an arch 60 feet high and 200 feet wide was chosen, when constructed, it would be the largest arch in the world, described by chief builder James Trubshaw as a lasting monument to the glory and superiority of Great Britain. The arch is of limestone from Anglesey, the rest the bridge gritstone and its span remains the longest masonry arch in Britain. Original plans called for a bridge between Chester Castle and Wrexham Road, however, Harrison was concerned soft ground there would not support heavy piers. Telford found a drier area downstream and construction was moved there, requiring Wrexham Road to be deadended in one direction, the first stone was laid by the Marquess of Westminster on 1 October 1827. Construction was finally completed in November 1833, and a toll imposed to pay the £50,000 construction costs, the toll proved harmful to trade and was abolished in 1885 when maintenance was transferred to the Chester Corporation. Harrison died two years construction, his pupil William Cole completed the job. Grade I listed buildings in Cheshire West and Chester List of works by Thomas Harrison Scalable satellite view of the Grosvenor Bridge from Google Maps
2.
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
3.
Vauxhall
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Vauxhall is a mixed commercial and residential district of southwest London in the London Borough of Lambeth. Vauxhall formed part of Surrey until 1889 when the County of London was created, Vauxhall is 2.1 km south of Charing Cross and 1.5 km southwest of the actual centre of London at Frazier st near Lambeth North tube station. The area only became known by this name when the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens opened as a public attraction. Initially most visitors would have approached by river, but crowds of Londoners of all came to know the area after the construction of Westminster Bridge in the 1740s. There are competing theories as to why the Russian word for a railway station is вокзал. This was further embellished into a story that the Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, visiting London in 1844, was taken to see the trains at Vauxhall and made the same mistake. The locality of the L&SWRs original railway terminus, Nine Elms Station, was shown boldly and simply as Vauxhall in the 1841 Bradshaw timetable, in 1838 a music and entertainment pavilion was constructed at the railway terminus. This pavilion was called the Vokzal in homage to the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens in London, the name soon came to be applied to the station itself, which was the gateway that most visitors used to enter the gardens. It later came to any substantial railway station building. Archdeacon William Coxe describes the place as a sort of Vauxhall in that year, there is no mention of Vauxhall in the 1086 Domesday Book. The area originally formed part of the extensive Manor of South Lambeth, falkes de Breauté acquired it in 1216 when he married Margaret, widow of Baldwin de Redvers, de Breautés lands reverted to the de Redvers family after his death in 1226. In 1293 South Lambeth Manor and the Manor of la Sale Faukes passed, probably by trickery, in 1317 King Edward II granted the manor of Vauxhall, Surrey, to Sir Roger dAmory for his good services at the Battle of Bannockburn. From various accounts, three local roads – the South Lambeth Road, Clapham Road and Wandsworth Road – were ancient and well-known routes to and from London. The land was flat and parts were marshy and poorly drained by ditches, and only started to be developed with the draining of Lambeth Marsh in the mid-18th century, prior to this it provided market garden produce for the nearby City of London. Vauxhall Bridge and Vauxhall Bridge Road were opened in 1816, by 1860 the village had been subsumed by the town of Lambeth. Many of Vauxhalls streets were destroyed during the construction of the railway to Waterloo station, many Vauxhall residents live in social housing. Vauxhall is an ethnically diverse area, with approximately 40% of residents originating from a non-white ethnic group. There is a significant Portuguese community, some with a connection to Madeira, many Portuguese restaurants and bars are located in South Lambeth Road, there is also a significant Muslim community, with almost 6% of residents declaring themselves as Muslim in the 2001 census
4.
Battersea Power Station
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Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Nine Elms, Battersea, an inner-city district of South West London. It comprises two individual stations, built in two stages in the form of a single building. Battersea A Power Station was built in the 1930s, with Battersea B Power Station to the east in the 1950s, the two stations were built to a nearly identical design, providing the long-recognized four-chimney layout. The station ceased generating electricity in 1983, but over the past 50 years it has one of the best known landmarks in London and is Grade II* listed. The stations celebrity owes much to numerous popular culture references, which include the art of Pink Floyds 1977 album Animals. The station is one of the largest brick buildings in the world and is notable for its original, lavish Art Deco interior fittings and decor. The building has remained unused since its closure, and the condition of the structure has been described as very bad by English Heritage. The site was listed on the 2004 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund. Since the stations closure, numerous redevelopment plans were drawn up from successive site owners and this plan fell through due to REOs debt being called in by the state-owned banks of the UK and Ireland. The site was put up for sale in December 2011 through commercial estate agent Knight Frank and it has received interest from a variety of overseas consortia, most seeking to demolish or partly demolish the structure. In 2012, administrators Ernst & Young entered into an exclusivity agreement with Malaysias SP Setia, the £400 million sale was completed in September 2012, and the redevelopment intends to implement the Rafael Vinoly design, which had gained planning consent from Wandsworth Council in 2011. In January 2013, the first residential apartments went on sale, construction on Phase 1 was due to commence in 2013, with completion due in 2016/17. Apple will locate its new London headquarters at Battersea Power Station, until the late 1930s electricity was supplied by municipal undertakings. These were small companies that built power stations dedicated to a single industry or group of factories. These companies used widely differing standards of voltage and frequency, in 1925 Parliament decided that the power grid should be a single system with uniform standards and under public ownership. Several of the power companies reacted to the proposal by forming the London Power Company. They planned to heed parliaments recommendations and build a number of very large stations. The London Power Companys first of these power stations was planned for the Battersea area
5.
River Thames
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The River Thames is a river that flows through southern England, most notably through London. At 215 miles, it is the longest river entirely in England and it also flows through Oxford, Reading, Henley-on-Thames and Windsor. The lower reaches of the river are called the Tideway, derived from its tidal reach up to Teddington Lock. It rises at Thames Head in Gloucestershire, and flows into the North Sea via the Thames Estuary, the Thames drains the whole of Greater London. Its tidal section, reaching up to Teddington Lock, includes most of its London stretch and has a rise, in Scotland, the Tay achieves more than double the average discharge from a drainage basin that is 60% smaller. Along its course are 45 navigation locks with accompanying weirs and its catchment area covers a large part of South Eastern and a small part of Western England and the river is fed by 38 named tributaries. The river contains over 80 islands, in 2010, the Thames won the largest environmental award in the world – the $350,000 International Riverprize. The Thames, from Middle English Temese, is derived from the Brittonic Celtic name for the river, Tamesas, recorded in Latin as Tamesis and yielding modern Welsh Tafwys Thames. It has also suggested that it is not of Celtic origin. A place by the river, rather than the river itself, indirect evidence for the antiquity of the name Thames is provided by a Roman potsherd found at Oxford, bearing the inscription Tamesubugus fecit. It is believed that Tamesubugus name was derived from that of the river, tamese was referred to as a place, not a river in the Ravenna Cosmography. The rivers name has always pronounced with a simple t /t/, the Middle English spelling was typically Temese. A similar spelling from 1210, Tamisiam, is found in the Magna Carta, the Thames through Oxford is sometimes called the Isis. Ordnance Survey maps still label the Thames as River Thames or Isis down to Dorchester, richard Coates suggests that while the river was as a whole called the Thames, part of it, where it was too wide to ford, was called *lowonida. An alternative, and simpler proposal, is that London may also be a Germanic word, for merchant seamen, the Thames has long been just the London River. Londoners often refer to it simply as the river in such as south of the river. Thames Valley Police is a body that takes its name from the river. The marks of human activity, in cases dating back to Pre-Roman Britain, are visible at various points along the river
6.
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
7.
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
8.
Chelsea Bridge
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Chelsea Bridge is a bridge over the River Thames in west London, connecting Chelsea on the north bank to Battersea on the south bank. There have been two Chelsea Bridges, on the site of what was an ancient ford, the first Chelsea Bridge was proposed in the 1840s as part of a major development of marshlands on the south bank of the Thames into the new Battersea Park. It was a bridge intended to provide convenient access from the densely populated north bank to the new park. Although built and operated by the government, tolls were charged initially in an effort to recoup the cost of the bridge, work on the nearby Chelsea Embankment delayed construction and so the bridge, initially called Victoria Bridge, did not open until 1858. Although well-received architecturally, as a bridge it was unpopular with the public. The bridge was less of a success than had been anticipated. It was acquired by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1877, the bridge was narrow and structurally unsound, leading the authorities to rename it Chelsea Bridge to avoid the Royal Familys association with a potential collapse. In 1926 it was proposed that the old bridge be rebuilt or replaced, due to the volume of users from population growth. It was demolished during 1934–1937, and replaced by the current structure, the new bridge was the first self-anchored suspension bridge in Britain, and was built entirely with materials sourced from within the British Empire. During the early 1950s it became popular with motorcyclists, who staged regular races across the bridge, one such meeting in 1970 erupted into violence, resulting in the death of one man and the imprisonment of 20 others. Chelsea Bridge is floodlit from below during the hours of darkness, in 2008 it achieved Grade II listed status. In 2004 a smaller bridge, Battersea Footbridge, was opened beneath the southern span, the town of Chelsea, on the north bank of the Thames about three miles west of Westminster, was an important industrial centre. The Chelsea Waterworks Company occupied a site on the bank of the Thames opposite the Red House Inn. Founded in 1723, the pumped water from the Thames to reservoirs around Westminster through a network of hollow elm trunks. As London spread westwards, the farmland to the west became increasingly populated. In 1852 Parliament banned water from being taken from the Thames downstream of Teddington, since 1771, Battersea and Chelsea had been linked by the modest wooden Battersea Bridge. In 1846 the Commissioners of Woods and Forests purchased the Red House Inn and 200 acres of surrounding land and it was expected that with the opening of the park the volume of cross river traffic would increase significantly, putting further strain on the dilapidated Battersea Bridge. Consequently, in 1846 an Act of Parliament authorised the building of a new bridge on the site of an ancient ford exactly one mile downstream of Battersea Bridge
9.
Vauxhall Bridge
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Vauxhall Bridge is a Grade II* listed steel and granite deck arch bridge in central London. It crosses the River Thames in a south–east north–west direction between Vauxhall on the bank and Pimlico on the north bank. The original bridge was built on the site of a former ferry, the building of both bridges was problematic, with both the first and second bridges requiring several redesigns from multiple architects. The original bridge, the first iron bridge over the Thames, was built by a private company and operated as a toll bridge before being taken into public ownership in 1879. The second bridge, which eight years to build, was the first in London to carry trams. With the exception of alterations to the layout and the balustrade. The bridge today is an important part of Londons road system, in the early 13th century, Anglo-Norman mercenary Falkes de Breauté built a manor house in the then empty marshlands of South Lambeth, across the River Thames from Westminster. The lands surrounding his Lambeth manor house continued to be known as Falkes Hall, in 1809 a new bill was presented to Parliament, and the proprietors of Battersea Bridge agreed to allow it to pass and to accept compensation. The Bill incorporated the Vauxhall Bridge Company, allowing it to raise up to £300,000 by means of mortgages or the sale of shares, and to keep all profits from any tolls raised. From these profits, the Vauxhall Bridge Company was obliged to compensate the proprietors of Battersea Bridge for any drop in revenue caused by the new bridge, dodd submitted a scheme for a bridge at Vauxhall of 13 arches. However, soon after the 1809 Act was passed, he was dismissed by the Vauxhall Bridge Company, john Rennie was commissioned to design and build the new bridge, and a stone bridge of seven arches was approved. On 9 May 1811, Lord Dundas laid the stone of the bridge on the northern bank. Rennie submitted a new design for a bridge of eleven spans. Rennies design was rejected, and instead construction began on a nine arch iron bridge designed by Samuel Bentham, concerns were raised about the construction of the piers, and engineer James Walker was appointed to inspect the work. On 4 June 1816, over five years after construction began, the opened, initially named Regent Bridge after George, Prince Regent. The bridge cost £175,000 to build, with the costs of approach roads and compensation payments, exemptions were granted for mail coaches, soldiers on duty and parliamentary candidates during election campaigns. However, the area around the failed to develop as expected. Meanwhile, the large Millbank Penitentiary was built near the end of the bridge
10.
Arch bridge
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An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side, a viaduct may be made from a series of arches, although other more economical structures are typically used today. Possibly the oldest existing bridge is the Mycenaean Arkadiko bridge in Greece from about 1300 BC. The stone corbel arch bridge is used by the local populace. The well-preserved Hellenistic Eleutherna Bridge has a corbel arch. The 4th century BC Rhodes Footbridge rests on an early voussoir arch, a more complete survey by the Italian scholar Vittorio Galliazzo found 931 Roman bridges, mostly of stone, in as many as 26 different countries. Roman arch bridges were usually semicircular, although a number were segmental arch bridges, generally, Roman bridges featured wedge-shaped primary arch stones of the same in size and shape. The Romans built both single spans and lengthy multiple arch aqueducts, such as the Pont du Gard and Segovia Aqueduct. Their bridges featured from an early time onwards flood openings in the piers, e. g. in the Pons Fabricius in Rome, Roman engineers were the first and until the industrial revolution the only ones to construct bridges with concrete, which they called Opus caementicium. The outside was covered with brick or ashlar, as in the Alcántara bridge. The Romans also introduced segmental arch bridges into bridge construction, trajans bridge over the Danube featured open-spandrel segmental arches made of wood. This was to be the longest arch bridge for a thousand years both in terms of overall and individual span length, while the longest extant Roman bridge is the 790 m long Puente Romano at Mérida. The late Roman Karamagara Bridge in Cappadocia may represent the earliest surviving bridge featuring a pointed arch, in medieval Europe, bridge builders improved on the Roman structures by using narrower piers, thinner arch barrels and lower span-rise ratios on bridges. Gothic pointed arches were introduced, reducing lateral thrust. The 14th century in particular saw bridge building reaching new heights, the bridge at Trezzo sullAdda, destroyed in the 15th century, even featured a span length of 72 m, not matched until 1796. Constructions such as the acclaimed Florentine segmental arch bridge Ponte Vecchio combined sound engineering with aesthetical appeal, the three elegant arches of the Renaissance Ponte Santa Trinita constitute the oldest elliptic arch bridge worldwide. In China, the oldest existing bridge is the Zhaozhou Bridge of 605 AD. The Zhaozhou Bridge, with a length of 167 feet and span of 123 feet, is the worlds first wholly stone open-spandrel segmental arch bridge, Bridges with perforated spandrels can be found worldwide, such as in China
