Bog
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat, a deposit of dead plant material—often mosses, in a majority of cases, sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire and muskeg, they are covered in ericaceous shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink. Bogs occur where the water at the ground surface is low in nutrients. In some cases, the water is derived from precipitation, in which case they are termed ombrotrophic. Water flowing out of bogs has a characteristic brown colour, which comes from dissolved peat tannins. In general, the low fertility and cool climate result in slow plant growth, but decay is slower owing to the saturated soil. Hence, peat accumulates. Large areas of the landscape can be covered many meters deep in peat. Bogs have distinctive assemblages of animal and plant species, are of high importance for biodiversity in landscapes that are otherwise settled and farmed.
Bogs are distributed in cold, temperate climes in boreal ecosystems in the Northern Hemisphere. The world's largest wetland is the peat bogs of the Western Siberian Lowlands in Russia, which cover more than a million square kilometres. Large peat bogs occur in North America the Hudson Bay Lowland and the Mackenzie River Basin, they are less common in the Southern Hemisphere, with the largest being the Magellanic moorland, comprising some 44,000 square kilometres. Sphagnum bogs were widespread in northern Europe but have been cleared and drained for agriculture. A 2014 expedition leaving from Itanga village, Republic of the Congo, discovered a peat bog "as big as England" which stretches into neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo. There are many specialised animals and plants associated with bog habitat. Most are capable of waterlogging. Sphagnum is abundant, along with ericaceous shrubs; the shrubs are evergreen, understood to assist in conservation of nutrients. In drier locations, evergreen trees can occur, in which case the bog blends into the surrounding expanses of boreal evergreen forest.
Sedges are one of the more common herbaceous species. Carnivorous plants such as sundews and pitcher plants have adapted to the low-nutrient conditions by using invertebrates as a nutrient source. Orchids have adapted to these conditions through the use of mycorrhizal fungi to extract nutrients; some shrubs such as Myrica gale have root nodules in which nitrogen fixation occurs, thereby providing another supplemental source of nitrogen. Bogs are recognized as a significant/specific habitat type by a number of governmental and conservation agencies, they can provide habitat for mammals, such as caribou and beavers, as well as for species of nesting shorebirds, such as Siberian cranes and yellowlegs. The United Kingdom in its Biodiversity Action Plan establishes bog habitats as a priority for conservation. Russia has a large reserve system in the West Siberian Lowland; the highest protected status occurs in Zapovedniks. Bogs have distinctive insects. In Ireland, the viviparous lizard, the only known reptile in the country, dwells in bogland.
Bog habitats may develop depending on the climate and topography. One way of classifying bogs is based upon their location in the landscape, their source of water; these develop in sloping valleys or hollows. A layer of peat fills the deepest part of the valley, a stream may run through the surface of the bog. Valley bogs may develop in dry and warm climates, but because they rely on ground or surface water, they only occur on acidic substrates; these develop over either non-acidic or acidic substrates. Over centuries there is a progression from open lake, to a marsh, to a fen, to a carr, as silt or peat accumulates within the lake. Peat builds up to a level where the land surface is too flat for ground or surface water to reach the center of the wetland; this part, becomes wholly rain-fed, the resulting acidic conditions allow the development of bog. The bog continues to form peat, over time a shallow dome of bog peat develops into a raised bog; the dome is a few meters high in the center and is surrounded by strips of fen or other wetland vegetation at the edges or along streamsides where groundwater can percolate into the wetland.
The various types of raised bog may be divided into: Coastal bog Plateau bog Upland bog Kermi bog String bog Palsa bog Polygonal bog In cool climates with high rainfall, the ground surface may remain waterlogged for much of the time, providing conditions for the development of bog vegetation. In these circumstances, bog develops as a layer "blanketing" much of the land, including hilltops and slopes. Although a blanket bog is more common on acidic substrates, under some conditions it may develop on neutral or alkaline ones, if abundant acidic rainwater predominates over the groundwater. A blanket bog cannot occur in drier or warmer climates, because under those conditions hilltops and sloping ground dry out
Moraine
A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris that occurs in both and glaciated regions on Earth, through geomorphological processes. Moraines are formed from debris carried along by a glacier and consisting of somewhat rounded particles ranging in size from large boulders to minute glacial flour. Lateral moraines are formed at the side of the ice flow and terminal moraines at the foot, marking the maximum advance of the glacier. Other types of moraine include ground moraines, till-covered areas with irregular topography, medial moraines which are formed where two glaciers meet. Moraines may be composed of debris ranging in size from silt-sized glacial flour to large boulders; the debris is sub-angular to rounded in shape. Moraines may be on the glacier’s surface or deposited as piles or sheets of debris where the glacier has melted. Moraines may form through a number of processes, depending on the characteristics of sediment, the dynamics on the ice, the location on the glacier in which the moraine is formed.
Moraine forming processes may be loosely divided into active. Passive processes involve the placing of chaotic supraglacial sediments onto the landscape with limited reworking forming hummocky moraines; these moraines are composed of supraglacial sediments from the ice surface. Active processes form or rework moraine sediment directly by the movement of ice, known as glaciotectonism; these form push moraines and thrust-block moraines, which are composed of till and reworked proglacial sediment. Moraine may form by the accumulation of sand and gravel deposits from glacial streams emanating from the ice margin; these fan deposits may coalesce to form a long moraine bank marking the ice margin. Several processes may combine to form and rework a single moraine, most moraines record a continuum of processes. Moraines can be classified either by origin, location with respect to a glacier or former glacier, or by shape; the first approach is suitable for moraines associated with contemporary glaciers—but more difficult to apply to old moraines, which are defined by their particular morphology, since their origin is debated.
Some moraine types are known only from ancient glaciers, while medial moraines of valley glaciers are poorly preserved and difficult to distinguish after the retreat or melting of the glacier. Lateral moraines are parallel ridges of debris deposited along the sides of a glacier; the unconsolidated debris can be deposited on top of the glacier by frost shattering of the valley walls and/or from tributary streams flowing into the valley. The till is carried along the glacial margin; because lateral moraines are deposited on top of the glacier, they do not experience the postglacial erosion of the valley floor and therefore, as the glacier melts, lateral moraines are preserved as high ridges. Lateral moraines stand high because they protect the ice under them from the elements, causing it to melt or sublime less than the uncovered parts of the glacier. Multiple lateral moraines may develop as the glacier retreats. Ground moraines are till-covered areas with irregular topography and no ridges forming rolling hills or plains.
They are accumulated at the base of the ice as lodgment till, but may be deposited as the glacier retreats. In alpine glaciers, ground moraines are found between the two lateral moraines. Ground moraines may be modified into drumlins by the overriding ice. Rogen moraines or ribbed moraines are a type of basal moraines that form a series of ribs perpendicular to the ice flow in an ice sheet; the depressions between the ribs are sometimes filled with water, making the Rogen moraines look like tigerstripes on aerial photographs. Rogen moraines are named after Lake Rogen in Härjedalen, the landform’s type locality. End moraines, or terminal moraines, are ridges of unconsolidated debris deposited at the snout or end of the glacier, they reflect the shape of the glacier's terminus. Glaciers act much like a conveyor belt, carrying debris from the top of the glacier to the bottom where it deposits it in end moraines. End moraine size and shape are determined by whether the glacier is advancing, receding or at equilibrium.
The longer the terminus of the glacier stays in one place, the more debris accumulate in the moraine. There are two types of end moraines: recessional. Terminal moraines mark the maximum advance of the glacier. Recessional moraines are small ridges left. After a glacier retreats, the end moraine may be destroyed by postglacial erosion. Recessional moraines are observed as a series of transverse ridges running across a valley behind a terminal moraine, they form perpendicular to the lateral moraines that they reside between and are composed of unconsolidated debris deposited by the glacier. They are created during temporary halts in a glacier's retreat. A medial moraine is a ridge of moraine, it forms when two glaciers meet and the debris on the edges of the adjacent valley sides join and are carried on top of the enlarged glacier. As the glacier melts or retreats, the debris is deposited and a ridge down the middle of the valley floor is created; the Kaskawulsh Glacier in the Kluane National Park, has a ridge of medial moraine 1 km wide.
Supraglacial moraines are created by debris accumulated on top of glacial ice. This debris can accumulate due to ice flow toward the surface in the ablation zone, melting of surface ice or from debris that falls onto the glacier from valley sidewalls. Washboard moraines known as minor or corrugated moraines, are low-amplitude ge
River Trent
The River Trent is the third-longest river in the United Kingdom. Its source is in Staffordshire on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor, it flows through and drains most of the metropolitan central and northern Midlands south and east of its source north of Stoke-on-Trent. The river is known for dramatic flooding after storms and spring snowmelt, which in past times caused the river to change course; the river passes through Stoke-on-Trent, Burton upon Trent and Nottingham before joining the River Ouse at Trent Falls to form the Humber Estuary, which empties into the North Sea between Hull in Yorkshire and Immingham in Lincolnshire. The course of the river has been described as the boundary between the Midlands and the north of England; the name "Trent" is from a Celtic word meaning "strongly flooding". More the name may be a contraction of two Celtic words and hynt; this may indeed indicate a river, prone to flooding. However, a more explanation may be that it was considered to be a river that could be crossed principally by means of fords, i.e. the river flowed over major road routes.
This may explain the presence of the Celtic element rid in various place names along the Trent, such as Hill Ridware, as well as the Old English‐derived ford. Another translation is given as "the trespasser". According to Koch at the University of Wales, the name Trent derives from the Romano-British Trisantona, a Romano-British reflex of the combined Proto-Celtic elements *tri-sent-on-ā- ‘great thoroughfare’. A traditional but certainly wrong opinion is that of Izaak Walton, who states in The Compleat Angler that the Trent is "... so called from thirty kind of fishes that are found in it, or for that it receiveth thirty lesser rivers." The Trent rises on the Staffordshire moorlands near the village of Biddulph Moor, from a number of sources including the Trent Head Well. It is joined by other small streams to form the Head of Trent, which flows south, to the only reservoir along its course at Knypersley. Downstream of the reservoir it passes through Stoke-on-Trent and merges with the Lyme and other brooks that drain the'six towns' of the Staffordshire Potteries to become the River Trent.
On the southern fringes of Stoke, it passes through the landscaped parkland of Trentham Gardens. The river continues south through the market town of Stone, after passing the village of Salt, it reaches Great Haywood, where it is spanned by the 16th-century Essex Bridge near Shugborough Hall. At this point the River Sow joins it from Stafford; the Trent now flows south-east past the town of Rugeley until it reaches Kings Bromley where it meets the Blithe. After the confluence with the Swarbourn, it passes Alrewas and reaches Wychnor, where it is crossed by the A38 dual carriageway, which follows the route of the Roman Ryknild Street; the river turns north-east where it is joined by its largest tributary, the Tame and afterwards by the Mease, creating a larger river that now flows through a broad floodplain. The river continues north-east, passing the village of Walton-on-Trent until it reaches the large town of Burton upon Trent; the river in Burton is crossed by a number of bridges including the ornate 19th-century Ferry Bridge that links Stapenhill to the town.
To the north-east of Burton the river is joined by the River Dove at Newton Solney and enters Derbyshire, before passing between the villages of Willington and Repton where it turns directly east to reach Swarkestone Bridge. Shortly afterwards, the river becomes the Derbyshire-Leicestershire border, passing the traditional crossing point of King's Mill, Castle Donington, Weston-on-Trent and Aston-on-Trent. At Shardlow, where the Trent and Mersey Canal begins, the river meets the Derwent at Derwent Mouth. After this confluence, the river turns north-east and is joined by the Soar before reaching the outskirts of Nottingham, where it is joined by the Erewash near the Attenborough nature reserve and enters Nottinghamshire; as it enters the city, it passes the suburbs of Beeston and Wilford. On reaching West Bridgford it flows beneath Trent Bridge near the cricket ground of the same name, beside The City Ground, home of Nottingham Forest, until it reaches Holme Sluices. Downstream of Nottingham it passes Radcliffe on Trent, Stoke Bardolph and Burton Joyce before reaching Gunthorpe with its bridge and weir.
The river now flows north-east below the Toot and Trent Hills before reaching Hazelford Ferry and Farndon. To the north of Farndon, beside the Staythorpe Power Station the river splits, with one arm passing Averham and Kelham, the other arm, navigable, being joined by the Devon before passing through the market town of Newark-on-Trent and beneath the town's castle walls; the two arms recombine at Crankley Point beyond the town, where the river turns due north to pass North Muskham and Holme to reach Cromwell Weir, below which the Trent becomes tidal. The now tidal river meanders across a wide floodplain, at the edge of which are located riverside villages such as Carlton and Sutton on Trent and Girton. After passing the site of High Marnham power station, it becomes the approximate boundary between Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire and reaches the only toll bridge along its course at Dunham on Trent. Downstream of Dunham the river passes Church Laneham and reaches Torksey, where it meets the Foss Dyke navigation which connects the Trent to Lincoln and the River Witham.
Further north at Littleborough is the site of the Roman town of Segelocum, where a Roman road once
Vikings
Vikings were Norse seafarers speaking the Old Norse language, who during the late 8th to late 11th centuries and traded from their Northern European homelands across wide areas of Europe, explored westwards to Iceland and Vinland. The term is commonly extended in modern English and other vernaculars to the inhabitants of Norse home communities during what has become known as the Viking Age; this period of Nordic military and demographic expansion constitutes an important element in the early medieval history of Scandinavia, the British Isles, Kievan Rus' and Sicily. Facilitated by advanced sailing and navigational skills, characterised by the longship, Viking activities at times extended into the Mediterranean littoral, North Africa, the Middle East. Following extended phases of exploration and settlement, Viking communities and governments were established in diverse areas of north-western Europe, Belarus and European Russia, the North Atlantic islands and as far as the north-eastern coast of North America.
This period of expansion witnessed the wider dissemination of Norse culture, while introducing strong foreign cultural influences into Scandinavia itself, with profound developmental implications in both directions. Popular, modern conceptions of the Vikings—the term applied casually to their modern descendants and the inhabitants of modern Scandinavia—often differ from the complex picture that emerges from archaeology and historical sources. A romanticised picture of Vikings as noble savages began to emerge in the 18th century. Perceived views of the Vikings as alternatively violent, piratical heathens or as intrepid adventurers owe much to conflicting varieties of the modern Viking myth that had taken shape by the early 20th century. Current popular representations of the Vikings are based on cultural clichés and stereotypes, complicating modern appreciation of the Viking legacy; these representations are not always accurate — for example, there is no evidence that they wore horned helmets.
One etymology derives víking from the feminine vík, meaning "creek, small bay". Various theories have been offered that the word viking may be derived from the name of the historical Norwegian district of Viken, meaning "a person from Viken". According to this theory, the word described persons from this area, it is only in the last few centuries that it has taken on the broader sense of early medieval Scandinavians in general. However, there are a few major problems with this theory. People from the Viken area were not called'Viking' in Old Norse manuscripts, but are referred to as víkverir,'Vík dwellers'. In addition, that explanation could explain only the masculine and ignore the feminine, a serious problem because the masculine is derived from the feminine but hardly vice versa; the form occurs as a personal name on some Swedish runestones. The stone of Tóki víking was raised in memory of a local man named Tóki who got the name Tóki víking because of his activities as a viking; the Gårdstånga Stone uses the phrase "ÞeR drængaR waRu wiða unesiR i wikingu", referring to the stone's dedicatees as vikings.
The Västra Strö 1 Runestone has an inscription in memory of a Björn, killed when "i viking". In Sweden there is a locality known since the middle ages as Vikingstad; the Bro Stone was risen in memory of Assur, said to have protected the land from vikings. There is little indication of any negative connotation in the term before the end of the Viking Age. Another etymology, one that gained support in the early twenty-first century, derives Viking from the same root as Old Norse vika, f.'sea mile', originally'the distance between two shifts of rowers', from the root *weik or *wîk, as in the Proto-Germanic verb *wîkan,'to recede'. This is found in the Proto-Nordic verb *wikan,'to turn', similar to Old Icelandic víkja'to move, to turn', with well-attested nautical usages. Linguistically, this theory is better attested, the term most predates the use of the sail by the Germanic peoples of North-Western Europe, because the Old Frisian spelling shows that the word was pronounced with a palatal k and thus in all probability existed in North-Western Germanic before that palatalisation happened, that is, in the 5th century or before.
In that case, the idea behind it seems to be that the tired rower moves aside for the rested rower on the thwart when he relieves him. The Old Norse feminine víking may have been a sea journey characterised by the shifting of rowers, i.e. a long-distance sea journey, because in the pre-sail era, the shifting of rowers would distinguish long-distance sea journeys. A víkingr would originally have been a participant on a sea journey characterised by the shifting of rowers. In that case, the word Viking was not connected to Scandinavian seafarers but assumed this meaning when the Scandinavians begun to dominate the seas. In Old English, the word wicing appears first in the Anglo-Saxon poem, which dates from the 9th century. In Old English, in the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen written by Adam of Bremen in about 1070, the term referred to Scandi
Doncaster
Doncaster is a large town in South Yorkshire, England. Together with its surrounding suburbs and settlements, the town forms part of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster, which had a mid-2017 est. population of 308,900. The town itself has a population of 109,805 The Doncaster Urban Area had a population of 158,141 in 2011 and includes Doncaster and neighbouring small villages. Part of the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974, Doncaster is about 17 miles north-east of Sheffield, with which it is served by an international airport, Doncaster Sheffield Airport in Finningley. Under the Local Government Act 1972, Doncaster was incorporated into a newly created metropolitan borough in 1974, itself incorporated with other nearby boroughs in the 1974 creation of the metropolitan county of South Yorkshire. Inhabited by earlier people, Doncaster grew up at the site of a Roman fort constructed in the 1st century at a crossing of the River Don; the 2nd-century Antonine Itinerary and the early-5th-century Notitia Dignitatum called this fort Danum.
The first section of the road to the Doncaster fort had been constructed since the early 50s, while a route through the north Derbyshire hills was opened in the latter half of the 1st century by Governor Gn. Julius Agricola during the late 70s. Doncaster provided an alternative direct land route between York; the main route between Lincoln and York was Ermine Street, which required parties to break into smaller units to cross the Humber in boats. As this was not always practical, the Romans considered Doncaster to be an important staging post; the Roman road through Doncaster appears on two routes recorded in the Antonine Itinerary. The itinerary include the same section of road between Lincoln and York, list three stations along the route between these two coloniae. Routes 7 and 8 are entitled "the route from York to London". Several areas of known intense archaeological interest have been identified in the town, although many—in particular St Sepulchre Gate—remain hidden under buildings; the Roman fort is believed to have been located on the site, now covered by St George's Minster, next to the River Don.
The Doncaster garrison units are named in the Register produced near the end of Roman rule in Britain: it was the home of the Crispinian Horse named because it was recruited from among the tribes living near Crispiana in Pannonia Superior, but owing to Crispus, son of Constantine the Great, being headquartered there while his father was based in nearby York. The Register names the unit as under the command of the "Duke of the Britons". Doncaster is believed to be the Cair Daun listed as one of the 28 cities of Britain in the 9th-century History of the Britons traditionally attributed to Nennius, it was an Anglo-Saxon burh, during which period it received its present name: "Don-" from the Roman settlement and river and "-caster" from an Old English adaptation of the Latin castra. The settlement was mentioned in the 1003 will of Wulfric Spott. Shortly after the Norman Conquest, Nigel Fossard refortified the town and constructed Conisbrough Castle. By the time of the Domesday Book, Hexthorpe in the wapentake of Strafforth was described as having a church and two mills.
The historian David Hey says. He suggests that the street name Frenchgate indicates that Fossard invited fellow Normans to trade in the town. Doncaster was ceded to Scotland in the Treaty of Durham; as the 13th century approached, Doncaster matured into a busy town. Doncaster had a disastrous fire in 1204, from which it recovered. At the time, buildings were built of wood, open fireplaces were used for cooking and heating. Fire was a constant hazard. In 1248, a charter was granted for Doncaster's market to be held around the Church of St Mary Magdalene, built in Norman times. In the 16th century, the church was adapted for use as the town hall, it was demolished in 1846. Some 750 years on, the market continues to operate, with its busy traders located both under cover, at the 19th-century'Corn Exchange' building and in outside stalls; the Corn Exchange was extensively rebuilt in 1994 after a major fire. During the 14th century, numerous friars arrived in Doncaster who were known for their religious enthusiasm and preaching.
In 1307 the Franciscan friars arrived, Carmelites arrived in the middle of the 14th century. In the Medieval period, other major features of the town included the Hospital of St Nicholas and the leper colony of the Hospital of St James, a moot hall, grammar school, the five-arched stone town bridge, with a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Bridge. By 1334, Doncaster was the wealthiest town in southern Yorkshire and the sixth most important town in Yorkshire as a whole boasting its own banker. By 1379, it was recovering from the Black Death, which had reduced its population to 1,500. In October 1536, the Pilgrimage of Grace ended in Doncaster; this was a rebellion led by the lawyer Robert Aske, who commanded 40,000 people of Yorkshire against Henry VIII in protest about the monarch's Dissolution of the Monasteries. Many of Doncaster's streets are named with the suffix'gate'; the word ` gate' is derived from the old Danish word ` gata,'. During Medieval times, craftsmen or tradesmen with similar skills, tended to live in the same street.
Baxter is an ancient word for baker: Baxtergate was the bakers' street. Historians believe that'Frenchgate' may be n
Vale of York
The Vale of York is an area of flat land in the northeast of England. The vale is a major agricultural area and serves as the main north-south transport corridor for Northern England; the Vale of York is supposed to stretch from the River Tees in the north to the Humber Estuary in the south. More properly it is just the central part of this area, the Vale of York, with the Vale of Mowbray to its north and the Humberhead Levels to its south, it is bounded by the Howardian Hills and Yorkshire Wolds to the Pennines to the west. The low-lying ridge of the Escrick moraine marks its southern boundary. York lies in the middle of the area; as part of Great Britain, the Vale of York has cool summers and mild winters. Weather conditions vary from day to day as well as from season to season; the latitude of the area means that it is influenced by predominantly westerly winds with depressions and their associated fronts, bringing with them unsettled and windy weather in winter. Between depressions there are small mobile anticyclones that bring periods of fair weather.
In winter anticyclones bring cold dry weather. In summer the anticyclones tend to bring dry settled conditions. For its latitude this area is mild in winter and cooler in summer due to the influence of the Gulf Stream in the North Atlantic. Air temperature varies on a seasonal basis; the temperature is lower at night and January is the coldest time of the year. The vale is in the rain shadow of the Pennines, it is subject to more fog and frosts in winter than other areas because of the tendency of cold air to drain into the vale from surrounding higher ground. Beneath the drift deposits of the Vale of York lie Triassic sandstone and mudstone, lower Jurassic mudstone but these are masked by the surface deposits; these deposits include glacial till and gravel and both terminal and recessional moraines left by receding ice sheets at the end of the last ice age. The Escrick moraine extends across the vale from west to east and the York moraine, 8 miles further north, forms a similar curving ridge from York eastwards to Sand Hutton.
To the north of these ridges are deposits of clay and gravel left by a glacial lake. There are areas of river alluvium consisting of clay and sand deposited by the main rivers and streams; the Vale of York is drained southwards by the River Ouse and its tributaries, the Ure, the Nidd and the Foss. To the east of the area the River Derwent drains southwards into the Ouse. There are frequent stream courses and drainage channels which link with the main rivers crossing the vale. Many of these watercourses are maintained and managed by local internal drainage boards to ensure sustainable water levels are kept across the vale; the landscape is low-lying and flat although minor ridges and glacial moraines provide some variations in topography. Where there are dry sandy soils there are remnants of historic heathlands and ancient semi natural woodlands. There are some large areas of conifer plantation Scots Pine, on the infertile sandy areas. Arable fields dominate the land cover of grasslands are infrequent.
There are few flood meadows left along the river valleys although some significant areas remain on the lower reaches of the River Derwent. The drier land in the Vale of York, away from the river valleys, would have been extensively cleared for pastoral farming and small scale cropping before the Roman era; the area around York was influenced by the Romans who established their legionary fortress of Eboracum there. There is evidence of villas, signal stations and roads constructed by them; the vale suffered badly from the Harrying of the North when King William I devastated the northern counties of England to punish the population for their resistance to his conquest. In the English Medieval period and villages were established with open fields, some of which survived until the Enclosure Acts of the 18th century. During the English Civil War, between Royalists and Parliamentarians, the Battle of Marston Moor was fought on land to the west of York; the soils, formed from glacial till and gravel are fertile and nearly all the land is in arable use growing large areas of wheat, sugar beet and potatoes.
There is a steady move away from livestock dairy farming. The city of York tends to dominate the vale economically and is a centre for tourism, commerce, light engineering and food processing; the University of York and its associated science park are major economic assets. The A1 and A19 trunk roads pass through the vale carrying traffic in a north-south direction and a number of other major roads radiate from York; the East Coast Main Line railway connecting London with Edinburgh traverses the vale from north to south and there are a number of east-west rail links to Leeds and Scarborough. The largest settlement in the vale, apart from York, is Haxby. Other villages exhibit a linear form with houses of mottled pink brick and pantiled roofs facing each other on either side of a main street. Vale of York
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county in eastern England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south west and Nottinghamshire to the west, South Yorkshire to the north west, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north, it borders Northamptonshire in the south for just 20 yards, England's shortest county boundary. The county town is the city of Lincoln; the ceremonial county of Lincolnshire is composed of the non-metropolitan county of Lincolnshire and the area covered by the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. Part of the ceremonial county is in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, most is in the East Midlands region; the county is the second-largest of the English ceremonial counties and one, predominantly agricultural in land use. The county is fourth-largest of the two-tier counties, as the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire are not included.
The county has several geographical sub-regions, including the rolling chalk hills of the Lincolnshire Wolds. In the southeast are the Lincolnshire Fens, the Carrs, the industrial Humber Estuary and North Sea coast around Grimsby and Scunthorpe, in the southwest of the county, the Kesteven Uplands, comprising rolling limestone hills in the district of South Kesteven. During the Pre-Roman times most of Lincolnshire was inhabited by the Brythonic Corieltauvi people; the Iceni covered the area around modern day Grimsby. The language of the area at that time would have been the precursor to modern Welsh; the name Lincoln derives from the old Welsh ‘Lindo’ meaning Lake. Modern-day Lincolnshire is derived from the merging of the territory of the Brythonic Kingdom of Lindsey with that controlled by the Danelaw borough of Stamford. For some time the entire county was called "Lindsey", it is recorded as such in the 11th-century Domesday Book; the name Lindsey was applied to the northern core, around Lincoln.
This emerged as one of the three Parts of Lincolnshire, along with the Parts of Holland in the south east, the Parts of Kesteven in the south west, which each had separate Quarter Sessions as their county administrations. In 1888 when county councils were set up, Lindsey and Kesteven each received separate ones; these survived until 1974, when Holland and most of Lindsey were unified into Lincolnshire. The northern part of Lindsey, including Scunthorpe Municipal Borough and Grimsby County Borough, was incorporated into the newly formed non-metropolitan county of Humberside, along with most of the East Riding of Yorkshire. A local government reform in 1996 abolished Humberside; the land south of the Humber Estuary was allocated to the unitary authorities of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. These two areas became part of Lincolnshire for ceremonial purposes, such as the Lord-Lieutenancy, but are not covered by the Lincolnshire police; the remaining districts of Lincolnshire are Boston, East Lindsey, North Kesteven, South Holland, South Kesteven, West Lindsey.
They are part of the East Midlands region. The area was shaken by the 27 February 2008 Lincolnshire earthquake, reaching between 4.7 and 5.3 on the Richter magnitude scale. Lincolnshire is home to Woolsthorpe Manor and home of Sir Isaac Newton, he attended Grantham. Its library has preserved his signature, carved into a window sill. Bedrock in Lincolnshire features Cretaceous chalk. For much of prehistory, Lincolnshire was under tropical seas, most fossils found in the county are marine invertebrates. Marine vertebrates have been found including ichthyosaurus and plesiosaur; the highest point in Lincolnshire is Wolds Top, at Normanby le Wold. Some parts of the Fens may be below sea level; the nearest mountains are in Derbyshire. The biggest rivers in Lincolnshire are the Trent, running northwards from Staffordshire up the western edge of the county to the Humber estuary, the Witham, which begins in Lincolnshire at South Witham and runs for 132 kilometres through the middle of the county emptying into the North Sea at The Wash.
The Humber estuary, on Lincolnshire's northern border, is fed by the River Ouse. The Wash is the mouth of the Welland, the Nene and the Great Ouse. Lincolnshire's geography is varied, but consists of several distinct areas: Lincolnshire Wolds - area of rolling hills in the north east of the county designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty The Fens - dominating the south east quarter of the county The Marshes - running along the coast of the county The Lincoln Edge/Cliff - limestone escarpment running north-south along the western half of the countyLincolnshire's most well-known nature reserves include Gibraltar Point National Nature Reserve, Whisby Nature Park Local Nature Reserve, Donna Nook National Nature Reserve, RSPB Frampton Marsh and the Humberhead Peatlands National Nature Reserve. Although the Lincolnshire countryside is intensively farmed, there are many biodiverse wetland areas, as well as rare limewood forests. Much of the county was once wet. From bones, we can tell that animal species found in Lincolnshire include wooly mammoth, wooly rhinoceros, wild horse, wild boar and beaver.
Species which have returned to Lincolnshire after extirpation include little egret, Eurasian spoonbill, European otter and red kite. This is a chart
