Notting Hill Carnival
In 2006, the UK public voted it onto the list of icons of England. Despite its name, it is not part of the global Carnival season preceding Lent, professor David Dabydeen has stated, Carnival is not alien to British culture. Bartholomew Fair and Southwark Fair in the 18th century were moments of great festivity, there was juggling, whoring, masquerade — people dressed up as the Archbishop of Canterbury and indulged in vulgar acts. It allowed people a space to free-up but it was banned for moral reasons, Carnival allowed people to dramatise their grievances against the authorities on the street. Notting Hill Carnival single-handedly revived this tradition and is a contribution to British cultural life. Bartholomews Fair was suppressed in 1855 by the City authorities for encouraging debauchery, the roots of the Notting Hill Carnival that took shape in the mid-1960s come from two separate but connected strands. The other important strand was the hippie London Free School-inspired festival in Notting Hill that became the first organised outside event in August 1966, the prime mover was Rhaune Laslett, who was not aware of the indoor events when she first raised the idea.
This festival was a more diverse Notting Hill event to promote cultural unity, a street party for neighbourhood children turned into a carnival procession when Russell Hendersons steel band went on a walkabout. By 1970, the Notting Hill Carnival consisted of 2 music bands, among the early bands to participate were Ebony Steelband and Metronomes Steelband. Notting Hill Carnival became a festival in 1975 when it was organised by a young teacher. Palmer, who was director from 1973 to 1975, is credited with getting sponsorship, recruiting more steel bands, reggae groups and sound systems, introducing generators, the carnival was popularised by live radio broadcasts by Pascall on his daily Black Londoners programme for BBC Radio London. Notting Hill Carnival is very reminiscent of Jamaican dancehall sessions due to the sounding of the event creating a space, Notting Hill Carnival’s use of sound systems invokes cultural and personal associations for listeners, bringing about another space, or a home for populations of the Black Atlantic Diaspora.
Physically, the dominance of the sound envelops the crowd, creating a setting for the Carnival even though there are no physical boundaries, the fact that the sound systems are in the streets precipitates an environment where participants hear the sounds before they can actually see the systems themselves. Emslie Hornimans Pleasance, with Kensal Green and Westbourne Park tube stations its closest tube station, has been the traditional starting point. By 1976, the event had become definitely Caribbean in flavour, during this period, there was considerable press coverage of the disorder, which some felt took an unfairly negative and one-sided view of the carnival. For a while it looked as if the event would be banned, prince Charles was one of the few establishment figures who supported the event. Concerns about the size of the event resulted in Londons mayor, Ken Livingstone, an interim report by the review resulted in a change to the route in 2002. In 2003, the Notting Hill Carnival was run by a limited company, a report by the London Development Agency on the 2002 Carnival estimated that the event contributes around £93 million to the London and UK economy
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland.
The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles.
There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
Westbourne Grove
Westbourne Grove is a retail road running across Notting Hill, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster, a section of west London. It runs from Kensington Park Road in the west to Queensway in the east and it contains a mixture of independent and chain retailers, and has been termed both fashionable and up-and-coming. The Notting Hill Carnival passes along the part of Westbourne Grove. There are a number of popular shopping destinations located on Westbourne Grove and adjoining streets, pre-eminently, Portobello Market, Queensway and it was here that Madonna headed during breaks in filming Evita - to the funky boutiques, the avant-garde florists, the designer jewellery and futuristic furniture. In February 2004, the London Plan was first issued and, paired with Queensway, around 2007, the roads eastern Bayswater-end, underwent a rapid period of transformation, east of Chepstow Road. Upon lease expiry, rents increased significantly and pricing-out many incumbent family businesses, the development of Westbourne Grove began in the 1840s and proceeded from the east to the west, where it became the principal east-west artery into the Ladbroke Estate.
The far western end of the street became known as Westbourne Grove relatively recently in 1938. Cronin opened his own practice at 152 Westbourne Grove. Westbourne Grove takes its name from Westbourne Green - a settlement that developed to the west of the bourne that took the name River Westbourne and this river currently runs underground at Ossington Street. The area is first recorded in 1222 as Westeburn, Westbourne Green is first recorded as Westborne Grene in 1548. Westbourne Green formed part of the parish of Paddington, there was a small settlement to the north of what is now Westbourne Grove at Westbourne Green. The central third was topped by a pediment and contained the main door. The lower two storeys were formed into bays at each end, which contained three windows each, the house was demolished in 1836 to make way for the houses and gardens of what is now Westbourne Park Villas. Thomas Hardy lived in area, mainly at no 16 Westbourne Park Villas. Also north of what is now Westbourne Grove was Westbourne Farm which was the home, the Farm was at the point where the Harrow Road, the Westway and the canal converge.
Mrs Siddons was buried at St Marys Church, the church of Paddington, on Paddington Green. He was known for his violent evictions of tenants with legally fixed rents and he operated from an office in Westbourne Grove. Part of the area, including streets between Ledbury Rd & Shrewsbury Road to the south of Westbourne Park Road, became derelict and was compulsorily purchased and demolished
London postal district
The London postal district is the area in England of 241 square miles to which mail addressed to the LONDON post town is delivered. It was integrated by the Post Office into the national system of the United Kingdom during the early 1970s and corresponds to the N, NW, SW, SE, W, WC, E. The postal district has known as the London postal area. The County of London was much smaller at 117 square miles, by the 1850s, the rapid growth of the metropolitan area meant it became too large to operate efficiently as a single post town. A Post Office inquiry into the problem had been set up in 1837, in 1854 Charles Canning, the Postmaster General, set up a committee at the Post Office in St. Martins Le Grand to investigate how London could best be divided for the purposes of directing mail. In 1856, of the 470 million items of mail sent in the United Kingdom during the year, approximately one fifth were for delivery in London, the General Post Office thus at the control of the Postmaster General devised the area in 1856 project-managed by Sir Rowland Hill.
Hill produced an almost perfectly circular area of 12 miles radius from the central post office at St. Martins Le Grand, within the district it was divided into two central areas and eight compass points which operated much like separate post towns. Each was constituted London with a suffix indicating the area it covered, the system was introduced during 1857 and completed on 1 January 1858. The remaining eight letter prefixes have not changed, at the same time, the London postal district boundary was retracted in the east, removing places such as Ilford for good. In 1868 the S district was split between SE and SW, the NE and S codes have been re-used in the national postcode system and now refer to the NE postcode area around Newcastle upon Tyne and the S postcode area around Sheffield. In 1917, as a measure to improve efficiency, the districts were further subdivided with a number applied to each sub-district. Exceptionally and esoterically, W2 and SW11 are head districts, the numbered sub-districts became the outward code of the postcode system as expanded into longer codes during the 1970s.
Ad hoc changes have taken place to the organisation of the districts, subdivisions of postcode sub-districts Owing to heavier demand, seven high-density postcode districts in central London have been subdivided to create new, smaller postcode districts. This is achieved by adding a letter after the postcode district. Where such sub-districts are used such as on street signs and maps. The districts subdivided are E1, N1, EC SW1, W1, WC1, there are solely non-geographic suffixed sub-districts for PO boxes in NW1 and SE1. The London postal district has never been aligned with the London boundary, when the initial system was designed, the London boundary was restricted to the square mile of the small, ancient City of London. The wider metropolitan area covered parts of Middlesex, Kent, Essex
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate and philanthropist. He founded the Virgin Group, which more than 400 companies. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age, at the age of sixteen his first business venture was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business, in 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, known as Virgin Megastores. Bransons Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he set up Virgin Atlantic airline, in March 2000, Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace for services to entrepreneurship. For his work in retail and transport, his taste for adventure, in 2002 he was named in the BBCs poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. In January 2016, Forbes listed Bransons estimated net worth at $5.2 billion, Branson was born in Blackheath, the eldest of three children of Eve Branson, a former ballet dancer and air hostess, and Edward James Branson, a barrister. His grandfather, the Right Honourable Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a judge of the High Court of Justice, Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School, a prep school in Berkshire, before briefly attending Cliff View House School in Sussex.
His third great-grandfather, John Edward Branson, left England for India in 1793 and his father, Harry Wilkins Branson, joined him in Madras. On the show Finding Your Roots, Branson was shown to have 3. 9% South Asian DNA, Branson attended Stowe School, an independent school in Buckinghamshire until the age of sixteen. Branson has dyslexia and had poor performance, on his last day at school, his headmaster, Robert Drayson. Bransons parents were supportive of his endeavours from an early age, One of her most successful ventures was building and selling wooden tissue boxes and wastepaper bins. Branson started his business from a church where he ran Student magazine. Branson interviewed several prominent personalities of the late 1960s for the magazine including Mick Jagger, Branson advertised popular records in The Student and it was an overnight success. Trading under the name Virgin, he records for considerably less than the High Street outlets. Branson once said, There is no point in starting your own business unless you do it out of a sense of frustration, the name Virgin was suggested by one of Bransons early employees because they were all new at business.
At the time, many products were sold under restrictive marketing agreements that limited discounting, Branson eventually started a record shop in Oxford Street in London. In 1971, Branson was questioned in connection with the selling of records in Virgin stores that had been declared export stock, the matter was never brought before a court because Branson agreed to repay any unpaid tax and a fine
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in London and one of its Royal Parks. The park is divided by the Serpentine and the Long Water, the park is contiguous with Kensington Gardens, which are often assumed to be part of Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens has been separate since 1728, when Queen Caroline divided them. To the southeast, outside the park, is Hyde Park Corner, during daylight, the two parks merge seamlessly into each other, but Kensington Gardens closes at dusk, and Hyde Park remains open throughout the year from 5 a. m. until midnight. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was held in the park, for which the Crystal Palace, the park became a traditional location for mass demonstrations. The Chartists, the Reform League, the suffragettes, and the Stop the War Coalition have all held protests there, many protesters on the Liberty and Livelihood March in 2002 started their march from Hyde Park. Hyde Park is a ward of the City of Westminster, the population of the ward at the 2011 Census was 12,462.
Hyde Park was created for hunting by Henry Vlll in 1536, Charles I created the Ring, and in 1637 he opened the park to the general public. In 1652, during the Interregnum, Parliament ordered the 620-acre park to be sold for ready money and it realised £17,000 with an additional £765 6s 2d for the resident deer. In 1689, when William III moved his residence to Kensington Palace on the far side of Hyde Park, public transport entering London from the west runs parallel to the Kings private road along Kensington Gore, just outside the park. In the late 1800s, the row was used by the wealthy for horseback rides, the first coherent landscaping was undertaken by Charles Bridgeman for Queen Caroline, under the supervision of Charles Withers, the Surveyor-General of Woods and Forests, who took some credit. It was completed in 1733 at a cost to the public purse of £20,000, the 2nd Viscount Weymouth was made Ranger of Hyde Park in 1739 and shortly after began digging the Serpentine lakes at Longleat.
The Serpentine is divided from the Long Water by a bridge designed by George Rennie, one of the most important events to take place in the park was the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Crystal Palace was constructed on the side of the park. The public did not want the building to remain after the closure of the exhibition and he had it moved to Sydenham Hill in South London. At the age of twenty-five, Decimus Burton was commissioned by the Office of Woods and he laid out the paths and driveways and designed a series of lodges, the Screen/Gate at Hyde Park Corner and the Wellington Arch. The Screen and the Arch originally formed a single composition, designed to provide a transition between Hyde Park and Green Park, although the arch was moved. An early description reports, It consists of a screen of handsome fluted Ionic columns, the extent of the whole frontage is about 107 ft. The two side gateways, in their elevations, present two insulated Ionic columns, flanked by antae, all these entrances are finished by a blocking, the sides of the central one being decorated with a beautiful frieze, representing a naval and military triumphal procession
Portobello Road
Portobello Road is a street in the Notting Hill district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in west London. It runs almost the length of Notting Hill from south to north, on Saturdays it is home to Portobello Road Market, one of Londons notable street markets, known for its second-hand clothes and antiques. Every August since 1996, the Portobello Film Festival has been held in locations around Portobello Road. Portobello Road was known prior to 1740 as Greens Lane - a winding path leading from Kensington Gravel Pits, in what is now Notting Hill Gate. In 1740, Portobello Farm was built in the area near what is now Golborne Road, the farm got its name from a popular victory during the lost War of Jenkins Ear, when Admiral Edward Vernon captured the Spanish-ruled town of Puerto Bello. Vernon Yard, which runs off Portobello Road, still honours the Admirals name to this day, the Portobello farming area covered the land which is now St. Charles Hospital. Portobello Farm was sold to an order of nuns after the railways came in 1864 and they built St Josephs Convent for the Dominican Order - or the Black Friars as they were known in England.
Portobello Road is a construction of the Victorian era, before about 1850, it was little more than a country lane connecting Portobello Farm with Kensal Green in the north and what is today Notting Hill in the south. Much of it consisted of hayfields and other open land, the road ultimately took form piecemeal in the second half of the 19th century, nestling between the large new residential developments of Paddington and Notting Hill. Portobello Roads distinctiveness does not rely only on its market, a range of communities inhabiting the street and the district contributes to a cosmopolitan and energetic atmosphere, as do the many restaurants and pubs. The architecture plays a part too, as the road meanders and curves gracefully along most of its length, mid- to late-Victorian terrace houses and shops predominate, squeezed tightly into the available space, adding intimacy and a pleasing scale to the streetscape. The Friends of Portobello campaign seeks to preserve the unique dynamic. Portobello Road is home to the Grade II* Electric Cinema, the average grade of ascent or descent between the northern end and the lowest point is about 1.77 percent.
The main market day for antiques is Saturday, there are fruit and vegetable stalls in the market, which trade throughout the week and are located further north than the antiques, near the Westway Flyover. The market began as a market in the 19th century, antiques dealers arrived in the late 1940s and 50s. It is the largest antiques market in the UK, the market section of Portobello Road runs in a direction generally between the north-northwest and the south-south-east. The northern terminus is at Golborne Road, the end is at Westbourne Grove. The market area is about 1,028 yards long, about one third of the way from its north end, the market runs beneath adjacent bridges of the A40 road and the Hammersmith & City line of the London Underground
London Fire Brigade
The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London. It was formed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act of 1865 under the leadership of superintendent Eyre Massey Shaw. Dany Cotton is the Commissioner for Fire and Emergency Planning, which includes the position of Chief Fire Officer, statutory responsibility for the running of the brigade lies with the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2013/14 the LFB handled 171,067999 emergency calls, of the calls it actually mobilised to,20,934 were fires, including 10,992 that were of a serious nature, making it one of the busiest fire brigades in the world. In the same 12-month period, it received 3,172 hoax calls, the highest number of any UK fire service, in 2015/16 the LFB received 171,488 emergency calls. These consisted of,20,773 fires,30,066 special service callouts and it conducts emergency planning and performs fire safety inspections and education. He introduced a uniform that, for the first time, included personal protection from the hazards of firefighting.
With 80 firefighters and 13 fire stations, the unit was still a private enterprise, funded by the insurance companies, in 1904 it was renamed as the London Fire Brigade. The LFB moved into a new headquarters built by Higgs and Hill on the Albert Embankment in Lambeth in 1937, during the Second World War the countrys brigades were amalgamated into a single National Fire Service. The separate London Fire Brigade for the County of London was re-established in 1948, in 1986 the Greater London Council was disbanded and a new statutory authority, the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority, was formed to take responsibility for the LFB. The LFCDA was replaced in 2000 by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, at the same time, the Greater London Authority was established to administer the LFEPA and coordinate emergency planning for London. Consisting of the Mayor of London and other elected members, the GLA takes responsibility for the Metropolitan Police Authority, Transport for London, in 2007 the LFB vacated its Lambeth headquarters and moved to a site in Union Street, Southwark.
In the same year, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced that LFB Commissioner Ken Knight had been appointed as the first Chief Fire, Knight was succeeded as Commissioner at that time by Ron Dobson, who served for almost ten years. Dany Cotton took over in 2017, becoming the brigades first female commissioner, dany Cotton is the current commissioner, having taken up the role on 1 January 2017. She holds the Queens Fire Service Medal, frank Jackson, CBE1938 to 1941, Cdr. Sir Aylmer Firebrace, CBE1933 to 1938, Maj. Cyril Morris 1918 to 1933, Arthur Reginald Dyer 1909 to 1918, sir Sampson Sladen 1903 to 1909, RAdm. James de Courcy Hamilton 1896 to 1903, lionel de Latour Wells 1891 to 1896, James Sexton Simmonds 1861 to 1891, Capt. Both divisions were divided into three districts, each under a Superintendent with his headquarters at a superintendent station, the superintendent stations themselves were commanded by District Officers, with the other stations under Station Officers
London Ambulance Service
It is one of the busiest ambulance services in the world, and the busiest in the United Kingdom, providing care to more than 8.6 million people, who live and work in London. The service is currently under the leadership of chief executive Dr Fionna Moore MBE, the service employ around 4,500 staff. In exceptional cases, or where the service deems in necessary, specialist teams can be deployed from within the service, such as the Hazardous Area Response Team and these teams are specially trained and equipped to deal with incidents such as working at height or in confined spaces. It is one of 10 ambulance trusts in England providing emergency medical services, there is no charge to patients for use of the service, as every person in England has the right to the attendance of an ambulance in an emergency. The LAS responded to over 1.8 million calls for assistance, incidents rose by 20,000 in 2015/16, putting more pressure on the service. All 999 calls from the public are answered at the Emergency Operations Centre in Waterloo, to assist, the services command and control system is linked electronically with the equivalent system for Londons Metropolitan Police.
This means that police updates regarding specific jobs will be updated directly on the computer-aided dispatch log, to be viewed by the EOC, the first became operational at The South Eastern Fever Hospital, Deptford, in October 1883. In all, six hospitals operated horse-drawn land ambulances, putting almost the whole of London within three miles of one of them, each ambulance station included accommodation for a married superintendent and around 20 drivers, horse keepers and attendants, laundry staff and domestic cleaners. At Deptford, in order to transfer patients between the hospitals at Joyce Green and Long Reach near Gravesend, a horse-drawn ambulance tramway was constructed in 1897, in 1902, the MAB introduced a steam driven ambulance and in 1904, their first motor ambulance. The last horse-drawn ambulances were used on 14 September 1912, although the MAB was legally supposed to be transporting only infectious patients, it increasingly carried accident victims and emergency medical cases.
Also in 1915, the MAB Ambulance Section were the first public body to women drivers. By July 1916 the London County Council Ambulance Corps was staffed entirely by women, the LCC took control of the River Ambulance Service, but it was disbanded in 1932. During World War II, the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service was operated by over 10,000 auxiliaries, mainly women and they ran services from 139 Auxiliary Stations across London. A plaque at one of the last to close, Station 39 in Weymouth Mews, near Portland Place, in 1948 the National Health Service Act made it a requirement for ambulances to be available for anyone who needed them. On 1 April 1996, the LAS left the control of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority, as an NHS Trust, the LAS has a Trust Board consisting of 12 members. The board includes, a chairman, five of the Service’s executive directors. Special events in London are co-ordinated from the Services event control room, located in east London, during mass casualty incidents, the command structure works on three levels, gold and bronze.
Silver control, tactical command, from a point in the vicinity of the incident, Bronze control
Commonwealth Institute
The Commonwealth Institute was established, as the Imperial Institute, by royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1888. Its name was changed to the Commonwealth Institute in 1958, the organisation in corporate form proved not to be viable and in 2002 the members resolved to close the operations and sell the property which was too costly for the charity to maintain. The name is no longer associated with the property in Kensington, no funding was given by Her Majestys Government. The Imperial Institute building was opened in 1893 by Queen Victoria, the Institutes early activities are detailed in its journals. This was effected in 1902 by statute with the Prince of Wales remaining as President of the Institute, the building and endowment fund set up from the initial collection were recognised as charity assets which were consequently vested in its Trustees. With its President as Trustee and as the responsible Minister, the Board of Trade was required to fulfil the purposes of the Institute, which remained unchanged.
Its purposes were reconfigured with a change in prominence from the exhibition galleries, the Imperial Institute was housed in a substantial and architecturally noted building of the same name on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, from 1893. The building was designed by T. E, collcutt and built by John Mowlem & Co from 1887 to 1894, and was paid for almost entirely by public subscription. At the time the responsible Minister was the Minister of Education, in 1962, the Commonwealth Institute moved to a distinctive copper-roofed building on Kensington High Street, immediately south of Holland Park. The building, designed by Robert Matthew Johnson-Marshall & Partners, was opened on Tuesday,6 November 1962, by Queen Elizabeth II. It was open to the public and contained a permanent exhibition about the nations of the Commonwealth, in addition to the exhibition, the Institute ran an important library of Commonwealth literature and hosted cultural and educational events. Later that year the building was given a Grade II* listing with associated restrictions on any building works or development possibilities, in 1989 a further estimate of £10m was given for more extensive refurbishment.
In 1993 the FCO announced that funding would cease completely in 1996 and this failed to attract further funds and in 2002 the countries decided it would cease its activities and the building would be sold. Funding of £3,996,435 was provided for specified works to the building incorporating comprehensive repairs to the roof, the arrangements included an indemnity in favour of the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs as responsible Minister. The Statutes governing the Institute were not repealed until 2003 when the remainder of the original Victorian endowment fund was released to the company without restrictions, by April 2002, the financial model of the Institute as a corporate entity had been recognised as not sustainable. A revised plan was put in place immediately and all funded activities were closed by the end of November, in late 2002 in a general meeting the members agreed to the disposal of the building and to the application of the proceeds to advancing education in the Commonwealth.
The Institute held a number of ethnographic objects and an art collection that had been acquired during the period from the opening of the Imperial Institute. From 1958 to 2003 these were under control of the responsible Minister under the legislation until 2003, the remainder are now held under trust by the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery
Orangery
The orangery provided a luxurious extension of the normal range and season of woody plants, extending the protection which had long been afforded by the warmth offered from a masonry fruit wall. As imported citrus fruit and other tender fruit became generally available and much cheaper, the orangery originated from the Renaissance gardens of Italy, when glass-making technology enabled sufficient expanses of clear glass to be produced. This soon created a situation where orangeries became symbols of status among the wealthy, the glazed roof, which afforded sunlight to plants that were not dormant, was a development of the early 19th century. The 1617 Orangerie at the Palace of the Louvre inspired imitations that culminated in Europes largest orangery, notable for his 1851 design of the Crystal Palace, his great conservatory at Chatsworth House was an orangery and glass house of monumental proportions. The orangery, was not just a greenhouse but a symbol of prestige and wealth, owners would conduct their guests there on tours of the garden to admire not only the fruits within but the architecture without.
Often the orangery would contain fountains, and an area in which to entertain in inclement weather, as early as 1545, an orangery was built in Padua, Italy. The first orangeries were practical and not as ornamental as they became, most had no heating other than open fires. In England, John Parkinson introduced the orangery to the readers of his Paradisus in Sole, the building of orangeries became most widely fashionable after the end of the Eighty Years War in 1648. Orangeries were generally built facing south to take advantage of the possible light, and were constructed using brick or stone bases, brick or stone pillars. Insulation at these times was one of the biggest concerns for the building of these orangeries, straw became the material used. An early example of the type of construction can be seen at Kensington Palace, domestic orangeries typically feature a roof lantern. The first examples were basic constructions and could be removed during summer, notably not only noblemen but wealthy merchants, e. g.
those of Nuremberg, used to cultivate citrus plants in orangeries. This became further influenced by the demand for beautiful exotic plants in the garden. This created the demand in garden design for the wealthy to have their own exotic private gardens. This in turn created the need for orangeries to be constructed using even better techniques such as underfloor heating, creating microclimates for the propagation of more and more exotic plants for the private gardens that were becoming creations of beauty all around Europe. At a length of 28 metres, it was the largest glasshouse in Britain when it was built, although designed as an arcade with end pavilions to winter oranges, the light levels under its solid roof were too low for it to be successful. The orangery at the Royal Botanic Gardens, was designed in 1761 by Sir William Chambers, the orangery at Margam Park, was built between 1787 and 1793 to house a large collection of orange and citron trees inherited by Thomas Mansel Talbot. The original house has been razed, but the surviving orangery, an orangery dating from about 1700 is at Kenwood House in London, and a slightly earlier one at Montacute
