Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland known internationally as the UK Parliament, British Parliament, or Westminster Parliament, domestically as Parliament, is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It alone possesses legislative supremacy and thereby ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and the overseas territories. Parliament is bicameral but has three parts, consisting of the Sovereign, the House of Lords, the House of Commons; the two houses meet in the Palace of Westminster in the City of Westminster, one of the inner boroughs of the capital city, London. The House of Lords includes two different types of members: the Lords Spiritual, consisting of the most senior bishops of the Church of England, the Lords Temporal, consisting of life peers, appointed by the Sovereign on the advice of the Prime Minister, of 92 hereditary peers, sitting either by virtue of holding a royal office, or by being elected by their fellow hereditary peers.
Prior to the opening of the Supreme Court in October 2009, the House of Lords performed a judicial role through the Law Lords. The House of Commons is an elected chamber with elections to 650 single member constituencies held at least every five years under the first-past-the-post system; the two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Westminster in London. By constitutional convention, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are members of the House of Commons or, less the House of Lords and are thereby accountable to the respective branches of the legislature. Most cabinet ministers are from the Commons, whilst junior ministers can be from either House. However, the Leader of the House of Lords must be a peer; the Parliament of Great Britain was formed in 1707 following the ratification of the Treaty of Union by Acts of Union passed by the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland, both Acts of Union stating, "That the United Kingdom of Great Britain be represented by one and the same Parliament to be styled The Parliament of Great Britain".
At the start of the 19th century, Parliament was further enlarged by Acts of Union ratified by the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland that abolished the latter and added 100 Irish MPs and 32 Lords to the former to create the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927 formally amended the name to the "Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", five years after the secession of the Irish Free State in 1922. With the global expansion of the British Empire, the UK Parliament has shaped the political systems of many countries as ex-colonies and so it has been called the "Mother of Parliaments". However, John Bright – who coined the epithet – used it in reference to the political culture of "England" rather than just the parliamentary system. In theory, the UK's supreme legislative power is vested in the Crown-in-Parliament. However, the Crown acts on the advice of the Prime Minister and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was created on 1 January 1801, by the merger of the Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland under the Acts of Union 1800. The principle of ministerial responsibility to the lower House did not develop until the 19th century—the House of Lords was superior to the House of Commons both in theory and in practice. Members of the House of Commons were elected in an antiquated electoral system, under which constituencies of vastly different sizes existed. Thus, the borough of Old Sarum, with seven voters, could elect two members, as could the borough of Dunwich, which had completely disappeared into the sea due to land erosion. Many small constituencies, known as pocket or rotten boroughs, were controlled by members of the House of Lords, who could ensure the election of their relatives or supporters. During the reforms of the 19th century, beginning with the Reform Act 1832, the electoral system for the House of Commons was progressively regularised.
No longer dependent on the Lords for their seats, MPs grew more assertive. The supremacy of the British House of Commons was reaffirmed in the early 20th century. In 1909, the Commons passed the so-called "People's Budget", which made numerous changes to the taxation system which were detrimental to wealthy landowners; the House of Lords, which consisted of powerful landowners, rejected the Budget. On the basis of the Budget's popularity and the Lords' consequent unpopularity, the Liberal Party narrowly won two general elections in 1910. Using the result as a mandate, the Liberal Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, introduced the Parliament Bill, which sought to restrict the powers of the House of Lords; when the Lords refused to pass the bill, Asquith countered with a promise extracted from the King in secret before the second general election of 1910 and requested the creation of several hundred Liberal peers, so as to erase the Conservative majority in the House of Lords. In the face of such a threat, the House of Lords narrowly passed the bill.
The Parliament Act 1911, as it became, prevented the Lords from blocking a money bill, allowed them to delay any other bill for a maximum of three sessions, after which it could become law over their objections. However, regardless of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, t
Lane
In the context of traffic control, a lane is part of a roadway, designated to be used by a single line of vehicles, to control and guide drivers and reduce traffic conflicts. Most public roads have at least two lanes, one for traffic in each direction, separated by lane markings. On multilane roadways and busier two-lane roads, lanes are designated with road surface markings. Major highways have two multi-lane roadways separated by a median; some roads and bridges that carry low volumes of traffic are less than 15 feet wide, are only a single lane wide. Vehicles travelling in opposite directions must stop to pass each other. In rural areas, these are called country lanes. In urban areas, alleys are only one lane wide. Urban and suburban one lane roads are designated for one-way traffic. Lane capacity varies due to conditions such as neighboring lanes, lane width, elements next to the road, number of driveways, presence of parking, speed limits, number of heavy vehicles and so on – the range can be as low as 1000 passenger cars / hour to as high as 4800 passenger cars / hour but falls between 1500 and 2400 passenger cars / hour.
A traffic lane or travel lane is a lane for the movement of vehicles traveling from one destination to another, not including shoulders. A through lane or thru lane is a traffic lane for through traffic. At intersections, these may be indicated by arrows on the pavement pointing straight ahead. An express lane of a road has less access to exits/off ramps. In other areas, an express lane may refer to a HOV lane. A reversible lane is a lane, they are used to accommodate periods of high traffic flow rush hour where the flow is predominantly in one direction, on roads that cannot be widened such as over bridges. One or more lanes are added to the peak flow. An auxiliary lane is a lane other than a through lane, used to separate entering, exiting or turning traffic from the through traffic. An acceleration lane or merge lane allows traffic entering a highway to accelerate to the speed of through traffic before merging with it. A deceleration lane is a lane adjacent to the primary road or street used to improve traffic safety by allowing drivers to pull out of the through lane and decelerate safely before turning off a surface street or exiting a freeway.
A turn lane is set aside for making a turn, so as not to disrupt traffic. By removing turning traffic from the through lanes, motorist safety is improved and delay is removed, but crossing distances for pedestrians are lengthened, increasing their exposure to collisions. A two-way center turn lane is a lane in the center of a roadway to allow drivers traveling in either direction to pause before turning across oncoming traffic while waiting for a gap in traffic. A passing lane is sometimes provided on busy two-lane roads to allow drivers to pass slower vehicles without having to cross the center line and risking a head-on collision. A climbing lane, truck lane, or crawler lane is provided on steep mountain grades, in order to allow smaller vehicles to pass larger, slower ones; the lane is marked only on the uphill stretch and a short distance afterward. An operational lane or auxiliary lane is an extra lane on the entire length of highway between interchanges, giving drivers more time to merge in or out.
The lane is created when an entrance ramp meets the highway, drops out to become the ramp at the next exit. A transfer lane of a road is used to move from express lanes to collector lanes, or vice versa. A collector lane of a road has more access to exits/off ramps. Dedicated lanes are traffic lanes set aside for particular types of vehicles. A high occupancy vehicle or carpool lane is reserved for carpooling. In the US, they may be marked with a diamond icon every few hundred feet, or separated from other lanes by double broken white lines, a continuous pair of double yellow lines, or just a single broken white line. A high-occupancy toll lane is a combination of an HOV lane and toll collection technology that allows drivers without passengers to use the HOV lane by paying a premium price for the privilege A designated bicycle lane is a portion of the roadway or shoulder designated for the exclusive or preferential use of bicyclists; this designation is indicated by special word or symbol markings on the pavement and "BIKE LANE" signs.
A motorcycle lane is provided at certain roads and highways such as the Federal Highway in Malaysia to segregate the motorcycle traffic from the main roadways to reduce motorcycle-related accidents. The motorcycle lane may form a part of the hard shoulder, or may be one or more separated lanes. A bus lane is reserved for buses providing public transportation on a fixed route, sometimes with overhead catenary for trolleybuses. In some countries, bus lanes may be used by some other traffic, such as taxis and motorbikes. A tram lane is a lane reserved for the use of buses and taxicabs, it is encountered in cities with curbside tram network, such as Zagreb. A truckway is a dedicated lane for longer length trucks. Since the major cost of trucking is the fixed cost of the same trailer with its driver the cost per ton of operating with truckway size and weig
Domesday Book
Domesday Book is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle states: Then, at the midwinter, was the king in Gloucester with his council.... After this had the king a large meeting, deep consultation with his council, about this land. Sent he his men over all England into each shire, it was written in Medieval Latin, was abbreviated, included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The survey's main purpose was to determine what taxes had been owed during the reign of King Edward the Confessor, which allowed William to reassert the rights of the Crown and assess where power lay after a wholesale redistribution of land following the Norman conquest; the assessors' reckoning of a man's holdings and their values, as recorded in Domesday Book, was dispositive and without appeal. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century; as Richard FitzNeal wrote in the Dialogus de Scaccario: for as the sentence of that strict and terrible last account cannot be evaded by any skilful subterfuge, so when this book is appealed to... its sentence cannot be quashed or set aside with impunity.
That is why we have called the book "the Book of Judgement"... because its decisions, like those of the Last Judgement, are unalterable. The manuscript is held at The National Archives at London. In 2011, the Open Domesday site made the manuscript available online; the book is an invaluable primary source for historical economists. No survey approaching the scope and extent of Domesday Book was attempted again in Britain until the 1873 Return of Owners of Land which presented the first complete, post-Domesday picture of the distribution of landed property in the British Isles. Domesday Book encompasses two independent works; these were "Little Domesday", "Great Domesday" No surveys were made of the City of London, Winchester, or some other towns due to their tax-exempt status. Most of Cumberland and Westmorland are missing. County Durham is missing; the omission of the other counties and towns is not explained, although in particular Cumberland and Westmorland had yet to be conquered. "Little Domesday" – so named because its format is physically smaller than its companion's – is the more detailed survey, down to numbers of livestock.
It may have represented the first attempt, resulting in a decision to avoid such level of detail in "Great Domesday". Both volumes are organised into a series of chapters listing the fees, held by a named tenant-in-chief of the king, namely religious institutions, Norman warrior magnates and a few Saxon thegns who had made peace with the Norman regime; some of the largest such magnates held several hundred fees, in a few cases in more than one county. For example, the chapter of the Domesday Book Devonshire section concerning Baldwin the Sheriff lists 176 holdings held in-chief by him. Only a few of the holdings of the large magnates were held in demesne, most having been subinfeudated to knights military followers of the tenant-in-chief which latter thus became their overlord; the fees listed within the chapter concerning a particular tenant-in-chief were ordered, but not in a systematic or rigorous fashion, by the Hundred Court under the jurisdiction of which they were situated, not by geographic location.
As a review of taxes owed, it was unpopular. Each county's list opened with the king's demesne lands, it should be borne in mind that under the feudal system the king was the only true "owner" of land in England, under his allodial title. He was thus the ultimate overlord and the greatest magnate could do no more than "hold" land from him as a tenant under one of the various contracts of feudal land tenure. Holdings of Bishops followed of the abbeys and religious houses of lay tenants-in-chief and lastly the king's serjeants, Saxon thegns who had survived the Conquest, all in hierarchical order. In some counties, one or more principal towns formed the subject of a separate section: in some the clamores were treated separately; this principle applies more to the larger volume: in the smaller one, the system is more confused, the execution less perfect. Domesday names a total of 13,418 places. Apart from the wholly rural portions, which constitute its bulk, Domesday contains entries of interest concerning most of t
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology, is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, biofacts or ecofacts and cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered a branch of the humanities. In North America archaeology is a sub-field of anthropology, while in Europe it is viewed as either a discipline in its own right or a sub-field of other disciplines. Archaeologists study human prehistory and history, from the development of the first stone tools at Lomekwi in East Africa 3.3 million years ago up until recent decades. Archaeology is distinct from palaeontology, the study of fossil remains, it is important for learning about prehistoric societies, for whom there may be no written records to study. Prehistory includes over 99% of the human past, from the Paleolithic until the advent of literacy in societies across the world. Archaeology has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time.
The discipline involves surveying and analysis of data collected to learn more about the past. In broad scope, archaeology relies on cross-disciplinary research, it draws upon anthropology, art history, ethnology, geology, literary history, semiology, textual criticism, information sciences, statistics, paleography, paleontology and paleobotany. Archaeology developed out of antiquarianism in Europe during the 19th century, has since become a discipline practiced across the world. Archaeology has been used by nation-states to create particular visions of the past. Since its early development, various specific sub-disciplines of archaeology have developed, including maritime archaeology, feminist archaeology and archaeoastronomy, numerous different scientific techniques have been developed to aid archaeological investigation. Nonetheless, archaeologists face many problems, such as dealing with pseudoarchaeology, the looting of artifacts, a lack of public interest, opposition to the excavation of human remains.
The science of archaeology grew out of the older multi-disciplinary study known as antiquarianism. Antiquarians studied history with particular attention to ancient artifacts and manuscripts, as well as historical sites. Antiquarianism focused on the empirical evidence that existed for the understanding of the past, encapsulated in the motto of the 18th-century antiquary, Sir Richard Colt Hoare, "We speak from facts not theory". Tentative steps towards the systematization of archaeology as a science took place during the Enlightenment era in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. In Europe, philosophical interest in the remains of Greco-Roman civilization and the rediscovery of classical culture began in the late Middle Age. Flavio Biondo, an Italian Renaissance humanist historian, created a systematic guide to the ruins and topography of ancient Rome in the early 15th century, for which he has been called an early founder of archaeology. Antiquarians of the 16th century, including John Leland and William Camden, conducted surveys of the English countryside, drawing and interpreting the monuments that they encountered.
One of the first sites to undergo archaeological excavation was Stonehenge and other megalithic monuments in England. John Aubrey was a pioneer archaeologist who recorded numerous megalithic and other field monuments in southern England, he was ahead of his time in the analysis of his findings. He attempted to chart the chronological stylistic evolution of handwriting, medieval architecture and shield-shapes. Excavations were carried out by the Spanish military engineer Roque Joaquín de Alcubierre in the ancient towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, both of, covered by ash during the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79; these excavations began in 1748 in Pompeii, while in Herculaneum they began in 1738. The discovery of entire towns, complete with utensils and human shapes, as well the unearthing of frescos, had a big impact throughout Europe. However, prior to the development of modern techniques, excavations tended to be haphazard; the father of archaeological excavation was William Cunnington. He undertook excavations in Wiltshire from around 1798.
Cunnington made meticulous recordings of Neolithic and Bronze Age barrows, the terms he used to categorize and describe them are still used by archaeologists today. One of the major achievements of 19th-century archaeology was the development of stratigraphy; the idea of overlapping strata tracing back to successive periods was borrowed from the new geological and paleontological work of scholars like William Smith, James Hutton and Charles Lyell. The application of stratigraphy to archaeology first took place with the excavations of prehistorical and Bronze Age sites. In the third and fourth decades of the 19th-century, archaeologists like Jacques Boucher de Perthes and Christian Jürgensen Thomsen began to put the artifacts they had found in chronological order. A major figure in the development of archaeology into a rigorous science was the army officer and ethnologist, Augustus Pitt Rivers, who began excavations on his land in England in the 1880s, his approach was methodical by the standards of the time, he is regarded as the first scientific archaeologist.
He arranged his artifacts by type or "typologically, within types by date or "chronologically"
Old English
Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, as the language of the upper classes by Anglo-Norman, a relative of French; this is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, as during this period the English language was influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles and Jutes; as the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain: Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Latin, brought to Britain by Roman invasion. Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms: Mercian, Northumbrian and West Saxon.
It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the literary standard of the Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle and Modern English would develop from Mercian. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule and settlement beginning in the 9th century. Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English and difficult for Modern English speakers to understand without study. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms, word order is much freer; the oldest Old English inscriptions were written using a runic system, but from about the 9th century this was replaced by a version of the Latin alphabet. Englisc, which the term English is derived from, means'pertaining to the Angles'. In Old English, this word was derived from Angles.
During the 9th century, all invading Germanic tribes were referred to as Englisc. It has been hypothesised that the Angles acquired their name because their land on the coast of Jutland resembled a fishhook. Proto-Germanic *anguz had the meaning of'narrow', referring to the shallow waters near the coast; that word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂enǵʰ- meaning'narrow'. Another theory is that the derivation of'narrow' is the more connection to angling, which itself stems from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning bend, angle; the semantic link is the fishing hook, curved or bent at an angle. In any case, the Angles may have been called such because they were a fishing people or were descended from such, therefore England would mean'land of the fishermen', English would be'the fishermen's language'. Old English was not static, its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is an arbitrary process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections, a synthetic language.
Around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, but those that survived are basic elements of Modern English vocabulary. Old English is a West Germanic language, it came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England. This included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, except in the areas of Scandinavian settlements where Old Norse was spoken. Celtic speech remained established in certain parts of England: Medieval Cornish was spoken all over Cornwall and in adjacent parts of Devon, while Cumbric survived to the 12th century in parts of Cumbria, Welsh may have been spoken on the English side of the Anglo-Welsh border. Norse was widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century.
The oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmon's Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a limited corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries, but the oldest coherent runic texts date to the 8th century; the Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century. With the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. Alfred advocated education in English alongside Latin, had many works translated into the English language. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, but King Alfred the Great chiefly inspired the growth of prose. A literary standard, dating from the 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. Th
Ilex aquifolium
Ilex aquifolium, is a species of holly native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, southwest Asia. It is regarded as the type species of the genus Ilex, which by association is called "holly", it is an evergreen tree or shrub found, for example, in shady areas of forests of oak and in beech hedges. In the British Isles it is one of few native evergreen trees, it has a great capacity to adapt to different conditions and is a pioneer species that repopulates the margins of forests or clearcuts. I. aquifolium can exceed 10 m in height, but is found at much smaller heights 2–3 m tall and broad, with a straight trunk and pyramidal crown, branching from the base. It grows and does not fully mature due to cutting or fire, it can live 500 years, but does not reach 100. Ilex aquifolium is the species of holly long associated with Christmas, the Roman festival of Saturnalia, its glossy green prickly leaves and bright red berries are represented in wreaths and cards wherever Christmas is celebrated.
It is a subject of music and folklore in the British tradition. It is a popular ornamental shrub or hedge, with numerous cultivars in a range of colours. Ilex aquifolium grows to 10–25 m tall with a woody stem as wide as 40–80 cm 100 cm or more, in diameter; the leaves are 5–12 cm long and 2–6 cm broad. In the young and in the lower limbs of mature trees, the leaves have three to five sharp spines on each side, pointing alternately upward and downward, while leaves of the upper branches in mature trees lack spines; the flowers are white, four-lobed, pollinated by bees. Holly is dioecious, meaning that there are female plants; the sex cannot be determined until the plants begin flowering between 4 and 12 years of age. In male specimens, the flowers appear in axillary groups. In the female, flowers are isolated or in groups of three and are small and white or pink, consist of four petals and four sepals fused at the base; the fruit only appears on female plants. The fruit is a drupe, about 6–10 mm in diameter, a bright red or bright yellow, which matures around October or November.
They are eaten by rodents and larger herbivores. Each fruit contains 3 to 4 seeds which do not germinate until the third spring. Today, holly is found in western Asia and Europe in the undergrowth of oak forest and beech forest in particular, although at times it can form a dense thicket as the dominant species, it requires moist, shady environments, found within forests or in shady slopes and mountain gorges. Along the west coast of the United States and Canada, from California to British Columbia, non-native English Holly has proved invasive spreading into native forest habitat, where it thrives in shade and crowds out native species, it has been placed on the Washington State Noxious Weed Control Board's monitor list, is a Class C invasive plant in Portland. During the Cenozoic Era, the Mediterranean region and northwest Africa had a wetter climate and were covered by laurel forests. Holly was a typical representative species of this biome, where many current species of the genus Ilex were present.
With the drying of the Mediterranean Basin during the Pliocene, the laurel forests retreated, replaced by more drought-tolerant sclerophyll plant communities. The modern Ilex aquifolium resulted from this change. Most of the last remaining laurel forests around the Mediterranean are believed to have died out 10,000 years ago at the end of the Pleistocene. Holly is a rugged pioneer species that prefers moist areas, tolerates frost as well as summer drought; the plant is common in the garrigue and maquis and is found in deciduous forest and oak forest. Pure stands of hollies can grow into a labyrinth of vaults in which thrushes and deer take refuge, while smaller birds are protected among their spiny leaves. After the first frost of the season, holly fruits become soft and fall to the ground serving as important food for winter birds at a time of scarce resources; the flowers are attractive as nectar sources for insects such as bees, wasps and small butterflies. The commonly-encountered pale patches on leaves are due to the leaf-mine insect Phytomyza ilicis.
It is an invasive species on the West Coast of the United States as well as in Hawaii. Ilex aquifolium is grown in parks and gardens in temperate regions. Numerous cultivars have been selected, of which the following have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:- The hybrid Ilex × altaclerensis was developed at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England, in 1835, a cross between I. aquifolium and the tender species I. perado. The following cultivars have gained the RHS AGM:- Hollies are used for hedges. Holly berries contain alkaloids and theobromine, caffeic acid, a yellow pigment, ilexanthin; the berries are regarded as toxic to humans. Accidental consumption may occur by pets attracted to the bright red berries; the berries are emetic due to the
Bournemouth Airport
Bournemouth Airport is an airport located 3.5 NM north-northeast of Bournemouth, in southern England. The site opened as RAF Hurn in 1941 but was transferred to civil control in 1944. For a short period Hurn served as Britain's only international airport, until the opening of facilities at Heathrow. Commercial services resumed in the late 1950s, with Palmair commencing flights to Palma, Majorca in October 1958. Subsequently, Ryanair and TUI Airways based aircraft at the airport, with scheduled flights now serving Western Europe and the Mediterranean area, with charter and seasonal services serving North Africa, North America, the Caribbean. Passenger numbers peaked in 2007. In 2016 the passenger total was around 670,000. Ryanair and TUI Airways are the primary users of the airport, owned and operated by Manchester Airports Group, the largest British airport operator until December 2017, when Regional & City Airports acquired Bournemouth Airport for an undisclosed amount. Bournemouth Airport is situated on the edge of Hurn village in the Borough of Christchurch, 4 miles north of Bournemouth, 1 mile west of the A338 and 100 miles south west of London.
The airport is accessible via the A31 from the M27 and M3 motorways to the east, via the A35 to the west. The nearest other airports serving the area are Exeter International Airport, Bristol Airport and Southampton Airport. From November 1944 the airfield took over from Bristol's Whitchurch airport as the main operating base for British Overseas Airways Corporation until Heathrow opened in 1948. Starting in October 1945 Hurn served as London's transatlantic airport until Heathrow opened to the airlines in mid-1946. In January 1946 Pan Am opened a scheduled New York to London service, five days a week, using the new DC-4, it was the starting point of the first England-Australia landplane service, which took three days in Avro Lancastrians. 1958 saw the first Palmair charter from the airport, using a single 36 seat Viking aircraft destined for Palma de Mallorca. The service was one of the first charter flights in the United Kingdom. 1970's Flights to Majorca. Dan Air and Silver City operated from Hurn.
Vickers-Armstrongs took over some ex-BOAC hangars at Hurn in 1951 and started production of Varsities Viscounts and as the British Aircraft Corporation, the BAC One-Eleven. During a 33-year period 222 One-Elevens, 146 Varsities and 279 Viscounts were built and delivered from Hurn making a total of 647 produced at this site; some of the development of the ill-fated TSR-2 was done here, as well as the production of Jet Provost wings. The closure of the British Aerospace site in 1984 ended Bournemouth's role as a significant player in the aircraft manufacturing industry; the former aircraft factory now forms one of Dorset's largest industrial sites, including a base for Cobham plc. Adjacent to the entrance to Bournemouth Airport was the College of Air Traffic Control, operated by NATS, the now privatised provider of air traffic control services in the UK. Established by the Ministry of Civil Aviation as the School of Air Traffic Control in 1949, the establishment was retitled College in 1962. Students from home and abroad were trained in all aspects of ATC operations and went on to work throughout the world.
Electronic computer-based ATC simulators were employed. Usefully situated at an operational airfield, for a considerable period training in Approach Radar Control was facilitated by the airport ATC unit. Students were able to practise live radar control exercises using temporarily detached Civil Aviation Flying Unit Dove aircraft as live targets; the building was the home to the Air Traffic Control Evaluation Unit, responsible for developing technology used within the service. During 2011 NATS transferred ATC training to its headquarters facility at Whiteley near Southampton; the Hurn facility was purchased by a free school, Parkfield School, serving Bournemouth and the local area. In 1969 the airport was purchased jointly by the Bournemouth Corporation and Dorset County Council and renamed as "Bournemouth Hurn Arirport"; the new owners decided to redevelop the facility as a commercial airport and, by 1980, the airport became used by charter airlines, when European Aviation began services. In 1993, the airport received its first regular passenger flights when Palmair wet leased its first aircraft and European Aviation Air Charter started operations.
In 1995, the airport was sold to National Express and in March 2001, was acquired by the Manchester Airports Group, at that time the second-largest owner of UK airports. In 1996, an extension to the main runway was opened by the arrival of Concorde. Travel agency Bath Travel chartered Concorde for supersonic champagne lunches across the Bay of Biscay. Ryanair began services from Bournemouth to Dublin with a Boeing 737-200. Since 2001, a Boeing 747SP has been based at the airport; the aircraft is stored in the former BASCO building and is a regular visitor to Zürich Airport and Heathrow. In late 2001, Bournemouth Flying Club took the leap into full commercial flight training and established Bournemouth Commercial Flight Training on the
