1.
Worcester
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Worcester is a city in Worcestershire, England,31 miles southwest of Birmingham and 27 miles north of Gloucester. The River Severn flanks the western side of the city centre, the Battle of Worcester was the final battle of the English Civil War, where Oliver Cromwells New Model Army defeated King Charles Is Cavaliers. Worcester is known as the home of Royal Worcester Porcelain, composer Edward Elgar, Lea & Perrins, makers of traditional Worcestershire sauce, the trade route past Worcester which later formed part of the Roman Ryknild Street dates to Neolithic times. The position commanded a ford over the River Severn and was fortified by the Britons around 400 BC and it would have been on the northern border of the Dobunni and probably subject to the larger communities of the Malvern hillforts. It may have been the Vertis mentioned in the 7th-century Ravenna Cosmography, using charcoal from the Forest of Dean, the Romans operated pottery kilns and ironworks at the site and may have built a small fort. In the 3rd century, Roman Worcester occupied an area than the subsequent medieval city. Industrial production ceased and the settlement contracted to a position along the lines of the old British fort at the river terraces southern end. This settlement is identified with the Cair Guiragon listed among the 28 cities of Britain by the History of the Britons attributed to Nennius. This is not a British name but an adaption of its Old English name Weorgoran ceaster, the Weorgoran were precursors of Hwicce and probably West Saxons who entered the area some time after the 577 Battle of Dyrham. The oldest known church was St Helens, which was certainly British, the town was almost destroyed in 1041 after a rebellion against the punitive taxation of Harthacanute. During this time, the relocated to the nearby Bevere Island,2 miles upriver. The following century, the town was attacked several times during The Anarchy, by late medieval times the population had grown to around 10,000 as the manufacture of cloth started to become a large local industry. The town was designated a county corporate, giving it autonomy from local government. Worcester was the site of the Battle of Worcester, when Charles II attempted to regain the crown, in the fields a little to the west and south of the city. Worcester had supported the Parliamentary cause before the outbreak of war in 1642 but spent most of the war under Royalist occupation. After the war it used its location as the site of the final battles of the First Civil War. As part of this and not based upon any historical fact, it invented the epithet Fidelis Civitas, in 1670, the River Severn broke its banks and the subsequent flood was the worst ever seen by Worcester. The closest flood height to what is known as The Flood of 1670 was when the Severn flooded in the rains of July 2007
2.
Anglo-Saxon paganism
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A variant of the Germanic paganism found across much of north-western Europe, it encompassed a heterogeneous variety of disparate beliefs and cultic practices, with much regional variation. Anglo-Saxon paganism was a belief system, focused around a belief in deities known as the ése. The most prominent of these deities was probably Woden, other prominent gods included Thunor, there was also a belief in a variety of other supernatural entities which inhabited the landscape, including elves, nicor, and dragons. There is some evidence for the existence of temples, although other cultic spaces might have been open-air. The belief system also included ideas about magic and witchcraft. The deities of this provided the basis for the names of the days of the week in the English language. What is known about the religion and its accompanying mythology have since influenced both literature and Modern Paganism, the word pagan is a Latin term that was used by Christians in Anglo-Saxon England to describe non-Christians. These pagan belief systems would have been inseparable from other aspects of daily life and they also suggested that early Anglo-Saxon Christianity had a similar structure, although acknowledged that this would be a controversial notion. As a phenomenon, it appeared to lack any rules or consistency, also exhibiting regional variation, thus, the archaeologist Aleks Pluskowski suggested that it is possible to talk of multiple Anglo-Saxon paganisms. Also adopting the categories of Gustav Mensching, she described Anglo-Saxon paganism as a religion, in that they concentrated on survival. Using the expressions paganism or heathenism when discussing pre-Christian belief systems in Anglo-Saxon England is problematic, historically, many early scholars of the Anglo-Saxon period used the terms to describe the religious beliefs in England before its conversion to Christianity in the 7th century. Several later scholars criticised the use of the term in this context, the term pre-Christian religion avoids the judgemental connotations of paganism and heathenism but is not always chronologically accurate. The pre-Christian society of Anglo-Saxon England was non-literate, thus there is no contemporary written evidence of the Anglo-Saxon practice of paganism. Far fewer textual records discuss Anglo-Saxon paganism than the belief systems found in nearby Ireland, Francia. There is no neat, formalised account of Anglo-Saxon pagan beliefs as there is for instance for Classical mythology, although many scholars have used Norse mythology as a guide to understanding the beliefs of pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon England, caution has been expressed as to the utility of this approach. As Stenton noted, the connection between Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian paganism occurred in a past which was already remote at the time of the Anglo-Saxon migration to Britain. Moreover, there was clear diversity among the pre-Christian belief systems of Scandinavia itself, Old English place-names also provide some insight into the pre-Christian beliefs and practices of Anglo-Saxon England. Some of these place-names reference the names of deities, while others use terms that refer to cultic practices that took place there
3.
Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
4.
Anglo-Saxons
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The Anglo-Saxons are a people who have inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including government of shires. During this period, Christianity was re-established and there was a flowering of literature, charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, in scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English. The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity and it developed from divergent groups in association with the peoples adoption of Christianity, and was integral to the establishment of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish invasions and occupation of eastern England, this identity was re-established, the visible Anglo-Saxon culture can be seen in the material culture of buildings, dress styles, illuminated texts and grave goods. Behind the symbolic nature of these emblems, there are strong elements of tribal. The elite declared themselves as kings who developed burhs, and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms, above all, as Helena Hamerow has observed, local and extended kin groups remained. the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Use of the term Anglo-Saxon assumes that the words Angles, Saxons or Anglo-Saxon have the meaning in all the sources. Assigning ethnic labels such as Anglo-Saxon is fraught with difficulties and this term began to be used only in the 8th century to distinguish the Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The Old English ethnonym Angul-Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli-Saxones and became the name of the peoples Bede calls Anglorum, Anglo-Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo-Saxons themselves, it is not an autonym. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest. The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, Saxones who attacked the shores of Britain, procopius states that Britain was settled by three races, the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in writing of the 8th century. The name therefore seemed to mean English Saxons, the Christian church seems to have used the word Angli, for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, Non Angli sed angeli. The terms ænglisc and Angelcynn were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people, at other times he uses the term rex Anglorum, which presumably meant both Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex, the term Engla cyningc is used by Æthelred
5.
Kingdom of Sussex
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Sussex was a Saxon colony and later independent kingdom of the Saxons, on the south coast of England. The South Saxons were ruled by the kings of Sussex, for a brief period in the 7th century, the Kingdom of Sussex controlled the Isle of Wight and the territory of the Meonwara in the Meon Valley in east Hampshire. From the late 8th century, Sussex seems to have absorbed the Kingdom of the Haestingas and this forest according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was 120 miles wide and 30 miles deep. It was the largest remaining area of woodland and heath in the territories that became England and was inhabited by wolves, boars and it was so dense that even the Domesday Book did not record some of its settlements. The heavily forested Weald made expansion difficult but also provided protection from invasion by neighbouring kingdoms. Whilst Sussexs isolation from the rest of Anglo-Saxon England has been emphasised, the coastline would have looked different from today. Much of the alluvium in the plains had not yet been deposited. It is estimated that the coastal plain may have been at least one mile broader than it is today. Before people reclaimed the tidal marshes in the 13th century the coastal plain contained extensive areas of sea water in the form of lagoons, salt marsh, wide inlets, islands and peninsulas. To the South Saxons of the 5th and 6th centuries this coastline must have resembled their original homeland between coastal Friesland, Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, the landscape gave rise to some key regional differences within the kingdom. The rich coastal plain continued to be the base for the estates, ruled by their thegns. South Saxon impact was greatest in the Weald, the boundaries of the Kingdom of Sussex probably crystallised around the 6th and 7th centuries. To the west, Bede describes the boundary with the Kingdom of Wessex as being opposite the Isle of Wight, to the east at Romney Marsh and the River Limen, Sussex shared a border with the Kingdom of Kent. North of the Forest Ridge in the Wealden forest lay the sub-kingdom of Surrey which became an area disputed between various kingdoms until it later became part of Wessex. To the south of Sussex lay the English Channel, beyond which lay Francia, the capital of the Kingdom of Sussex was at Chichester, the seat of the kingdoms bishopric was at Selsey. The traditional residence of the South Saxon kings was at Kingsham, Ditchling may have been an important regional centre for a large part of central Sussex between the Rivers Adur and Ouse until the founding of Lewes in the 9th century. By the 11th century the towns were mostly developments of the towns founded in the reign of Alfred the Great. The ancient droveways of Sussex linked coastal and downland communities in the south with summer pasture land in the interior of the Weald, the droveways were used throughout the Saxon era by the South Saxons and probably originated before the Roman occupation of Britain
6.
Worcestershire
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Worcestershire is a county in the West Midlands of England. Between 1974 and 1998, it was merged with the county of Herefordshire as Hereford. The cathedral city of Worcester is the largest settlement and county town, other towns in the county include Redditch, Bromsgrove, Stourport-on-Severn, Droitwich, Evesham, Kidderminster, and Malvern. The north-east of Worcestershire includes part of the industrial West Midlands, the county is divided into six administrive districts, Worcester, Redditch, Wychavon, Malvern Hills, Wyre Forest, and Bromsgrove. The county borders Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, West Midlands, Warwickshire, to the west, the county is bordered by the Malvern Hills and the spa town of Malvern. The south of the county is bordered by Gloucestershire and the edge of the Cotswolds. Two major rivers flow through the county, the Severn and the Avon, Worcestershire was the heartland of the early English kingdom of the Hwicce. It was absorbed by the Kingdom of Mercia during the 7th century and it was a separate ealdormanship briefly in the 10th century before forming part of the Earldom of Mercia in the 11th century. In the years leading up to the Norman conquest, the Church, supported by the cathedral, Evesham Abbey, Pershore Abbey, Malvern Priory, and other religious houses, increasingly dominated the county. The last known Anglo-Saxon sheriff of the county was Cyneweard of Laughern, on 4 August 1265, Simon de Montfort was killed in the Battle of Evesham in Worcestershire. In 1642, the Battle of Powick Bridge was the first major skirmish of the English Civil War, during the Middle Ages, much of the countys economy was based on the wool trade. Many areas of its forests, such as Feckenham Forest, Horewell Forest. Droitwich Spa, situated on large deposits of salt, was a centre of production from Roman times. These old industries have declined, to be replaced by other. The county is home to the worlds oldest continually published newspaper. Malvern was one of the centres of the 19th century rise in English spa towns due to Malvern water being believed to be very pure, containing nothing at all. The 2011 census found the population of Worcestershire to be 566,169, while this change is in line with the nationwide trend of White British peoples share of the population shrinking, Worcestershire is still much more ethnically homogeneous than the national average. In 2011 England as a whole was 79. 8% White British, the most notable were Dudley, Evenlode, and the area around Shipston-on-Stour
7.
Gloucestershire
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Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the fertile valley of the River Severn. The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire originally included Bristol, then a small town. The local rural community moved to the city, and Bristols population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became a county in its own right, separate from Gloucestershire and it later became part of the administrative County of Avon from 1974 to 1996. Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire. The official former postal county abbreviation was Glos, rather than the frequently used but erroneous Gloucs. or Glouc. In July 2007, Gloucestershire suffered the worst flooding in recorded British history, the RAF conducted the largest peace time domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion, the county recovered rapidly from the disaster, investing in attracting tourists to visit the many sites and diverse range of shops in the area. This is a chart of trend of gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling. Gloucestershire has mainly comprehensive schools with seven schools, two are in Stroud, one in Cheltenham and four in Gloucester. There are 42 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges, all but about two schools in each district have a sixth form, but the Forest of Dean only has two schools with sixth forms. All schools in South Gloucestershire have sixth forms, each has campuses at multiple locations throughout the county. Most of the old market towns have parish churches, at Deerhurst near Tewkesbury, and Bishops Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. These are, however, adjudged to be of English workmanship, other notable buildings include Calcot Barn in Calcot, a relic of Kingswood Abbey. Thornbury Castle is a Tudor country house, the pretensions of which evoked the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey against its builder, Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, near Cheltenham is the 15th-century mansion of Southam de la Bere, of timber and stone. Memorials of the de la Bere family appear in the church at Cleeve, the mansion contains a tiled floor from Hailes Abbey
8.
Forest of Dean
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The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and north-west, Herefordshire to the north, the River Severn to the south. The area is characterised by more than 110 square kilometres of mixed woodland, a large area was reserved for royal hunting before 1066, and remained as the second largest crown forest in England, the largest being New Forest. Although the name is used loosely to refer to the part of Gloucestershire between the Severn and Wye, the Forest of Dean proper has covered a smaller area since medieval times. In 1327 it was defined to only the royal demesne and parts of parishes within the hundred of St Briavels. The Forest proper is within the parishes of West Dean, Lydbrook, Cinderford, Ruspidge. Traditionally the main sources of work have been forestry – including charcoal production - iron working, Archaeological studies have dated the earliest use of coal to Roman times for domestic heating and industrial processes such as the preparation of iron ore. The area gives its name to the government district, Forest of Dean. The administrative centre of the authority is Coleford, one of the main towns in the historic Forest area, together with Cinderford. The Forest of Dean is formed of a basin of palaeozoic rocks folded in the Variscan Orogeny. Its highest point is Ruardean Hill, the origins of the name remains an area of debate. The prevalence of Welsh place names in the area, suggests a possible corruption of Din, however, similar or identical elements from Old English exist throughout England. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing in the century, refers to the area as Danubia which may translate as land of Danes following the Viking settlements in that era. It is possible that an original name Dene developed from this, the area was inhabited in Mesolithic times, and there are also remains of later megalithic monuments, including the Longstone near Staunton and the Broadstone at Wibdon, Stroat. Barrows have been identified at Tidenham and Blakeney, bronze Age field systems have been identified at Welshbury Hill near Littledean, and there are Iron Age hill forts at Symonds Yat and Welshbury. There is archaeological evidence of trading by sea, probably through Lydney. The area was occupied by the Romans around 50 AD and they were attracted by its natural resources which included iron ore, ochre and charcoal. The coal mining industry was established on a small scale in Roman times
9.
Warwickshire
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Warwickshire is a landlocked county in the West Midlands of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton, the county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare. Commonly used abbreviations for the county are Warks or Warwicks, the county is divided into five districts of North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth, Rugby, Warwick and Stratford-on-Avon. The current county boundaries were set in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, the historic county boundaries also included Coventry and Solihull, as well as much of Birmingham. The northern tip of the county is only 3 miles from the Derbyshire border, an average-sized English county covering an area of almost 2,000 km2, it runs some 60 miles north to south. Equivalently it extends as far north as Shrewsbury in Shropshire and as far south as Banbury in north Oxfordshire, the majority of Warwickshires population live in the north and centre of the county. The market towns of northern and eastern Warwickshire were industrialised in the 19th century, and include Atherstone, Bedworth, Nuneaton, of these, Atherstone has retained most of its original character. Major industries included coal mining, textiles, engineering and cement production, of the northern and eastern towns, only Nuneaton and Rugby are well-known outside of Warwickshire. The south of the county is rural and sparsely populated. The only town in the south of Warwickshire is Shipston-on-Stour, the highest point in the county, at 261 m, is Ebrington Hill, again on the border with Gloucestershire, grid reference SP187426 at the countys southwest extremity. There are no cities in Warwickshire since both Coventry and Birmingham were incorporated into the West Midlands county in 1974 and are now metropolitan authorities in themselves, the largest towns in Warwickshire in 2011 were, Nuneaton, Rugby, Leamington Spa, Bedworth, Warwick, Stratford and Kenilworth. Much of western Warwickshire, including that area now forming part of Coventry, Solihull, thus the names of a number of places in the central-western part of Warwickshire end with the phrase -in-Arden, such as Henley-in-Arden, Hampton-in-Arden and Tanworth-in-Arden. The remaining area, not part of the forest, was called the Felden – from fielden, areas historically part of Warwickshire include Coventry, Solihull, Sutton Coldfield, Erdington, and some of Birmingham including Aston and Edgbaston. These became part of the county of West Midlands following local government re-organisation in 1974. Some organisations, such as Warwickshire County Cricket Club, which is based in Edgbaston, in Birmingham, Coventry is effectively in the centre of the Warwickshire area, and still has strong ties with the county. Coventry and Warwickshire are sometimes treated as an area and share a single Chamber of Commerce. Coventry has been a part of Warwickshire for only some of its history, in 1451 Coventry was separated from Warwickshire and made a county corporate in its own right, called the County of the City of Coventry. In 1842 the county of Coventry was abolished and Coventry was remerged with Warwickshire, in recent times, there have been calls to formally re-introduce Coventry into Warwickshire, although nothing has yet come of this
10.
Bath, Somerset
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Bath is a city in the ceremonial county of Somerset, England, known for its Roman-built baths. In 2011, the population was 88,859, Bath is in the valley of the River Avon,97 miles west of London and 11 miles south-east of Bristol. The city became a World Heritage Site in 1987, the city became a spa with the Latin name Aquæ Sulis c. AD60 when the Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, Bath Abbey was founded in the 7th century and became a religious centre, the building was rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. In the 17th century, claims were made for the properties of water from the springs. Many of the streets and squares were laid out by John Wood, the Elder, and in the 18th century the city became fashionable, Jane Austen lived in Bath in the early 19th century. Further building was undertaken in the 19th century and following the Bath Blitz in World War II, the city has software, publishing and service-oriented industries. Theatres, museums, and other cultural and sporting venues have helped make it a centre for tourism with more than one million staying visitors and 3.8 million day visitors to the city each year. There are several museums including the Museum of Bath Architecture, Victoria Art Gallery, Museum of East Asian Art, the city has two universities, the University of Bath and Bath Spa University, with Bath College providing further education. Sporting clubs include Bath Rugby and Bath City F. C. while TeamBath is the name for all of the University of Bath sports teams. Bath became part of the county of Avon in 1974, and, the hills in the locality such as Bathampton Down saw human activity from the Mesolithic period. Several Bronze Age round barrows were opened by John Skinner in the 18th century, solsbury Hill overlooking the current city was an Iron Age hill fort, and the adjacent Bathampton Camp may also have been one. A long barrow site believed to be from the Beaker people was flattened to make way for RAF Charmy Down, messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, have been recovered from the sacred spring by archaeologists. The tablets were written in Latin, and cursed people whom the writers felt had wronged them, for example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he might write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the goddess. A temple was constructed in AD 60–70, and a complex was built up over the next 300 years. Engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation, in the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted structure that housed the caldarium, tepidarium, and frigidarium. The town was given defensive walls, probably in the 3rd century. After the failure of Roman authority in the first decade of the 5th century, in March 2012 a hoard of 30,000 silver Roman coins, one of the largest discovered in Britain, was unearthed in an archaeological dig
11.
Herefordshire
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Herefordshire is a historic English county in the West Midlands. It is a county and a unitary non-metropolitan county and district, also named in legislation as the County of Herefordshire. The Welsh unitary county covering the part of Gwent next to Herefordshire is Monmouthshire, Hereford is a cathedral city and is the county town, with a population of approximately 55,800 inhabitants it is also the largest settlement. The county is one of the most rural and sparsely populated in England, the land use is predominantly agricultural and the county is well known for its fruit and cider production, and the Hereford cattle breed. From 1974 to 1998, Herefordshire was part of the former county of Hereford. Herefordshire was reconstituted both as a new district and as a new county by Statutory Instrument as defined in The Hereford and this Order established Herefordshire as a unitary authority on 1 April 1998, combining county and district functions into a single council. Herefordshire is also called a unitary district, but this is not official nomenclature. Herefordshire is officially known as an authority for local government purposes. The Lieutenancies Act 1997 made Herefordshire a ceremonial county, covering the area of the unitary district. For Eurostat purposes it is a NUTS3 region and is one of three counties that comprise the Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire NUTS2 region. The River Wye, which at 135 miles is the fifth-longest in the United Kingdom and it flows through both Hereford and Ross-on-Wye before returning to Wales. Leominster is situated on the River Lugg, a tributary of the Wye, there are two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the county. The Wye Valley is located in the valleys south of Hereford, while the Malvern Hills are in the east of the county. Herefordshire is one of the 39 historic counties of England, in 1974 it was merged with neighbouring Worcestershire to form the Hereford and Worcester administrative county. Within this, Herefordshire was covered by the government districts of South Herefordshire, Hereford. However, the county was dissolved in 1998, resulting in the return of Herefordshire and Worcestershire as counties, the current ceremonial county and unitary district have broadly the same borders as the pre-1974 historic county. However this has been from a base, with only Northumberland. The population is White 98. 2%, Asian 0. 8%, Mixed 0. 7%, Black 0. 2%, gypsies and Travellers have historically been Herefordshires largest minority ethnic group
12.
Shropshire
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Shropshire Council was created in 2009, a unitary authority taking over from the previous county council and five district councils. The borough of Telford and Wrekin has been a unitary authority since 1998. The county has many towns, including Whitchurch in the north, Newport north-east of Telford. The Ironbridge Gorge area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, covering Ironbridge, Coalbrookdale, there are other historic industrial sites in the county, such as at Shrewsbury, Broseley, Snailbeach and Highley, as well as the Shropshire Union Canal. The Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty covers about a quarter of the county, Shropshire is one of Englands most rural and sparsely populated counties, with a population density of 136/km2. The Wrekin is one of the most famous landmarks in the county, though the highest hills are the Clee Hills, Stiperstones. Wenlock Edge is another significant geographical and geological landmark, the River Severn, Great Britains longest river, runs through the county, exiting into Worcestershire via the Severn Valley. Shropshire is landlocked and with an area of 3,487 square kilometres is Englands largest inland county, the county flower is the round-leaved sundew. The area was part of the lands of the Cornovii. This was a tribal Celtic iron age kingdom and their capital in pre-Roman times was probably a hill fort on the Wrekin. Ptolemys 2nd century Geography names one of their towns as being Viroconium Cornoviorum, after the Roman occupation of Britain ended in the 5th century, the Shropshire area was in the eastern part of the Welsh Kingdom of Powys, known in Welsh poetry as the Paradise of Powys. It was annexed to the Angle kingdom of Mercia by King Offa in the 8th century, in subsequent centuries, the area suffered repeated Danish invasion, and fortresses were built at Bridgnorth and Chirbury. Many defensive castles were built at this time across the county to defend against the Welsh and enable effective control of the region, including Ludlow Castle, the western frontier with Wales was not finally determined until the 14th century. Also in this period, a number of foundations were formed, the county largely falling at this time under the Diocese of Hereford. The county contains a number of historically significant towns, including Shrewsbury, Bridgnorth, additionally, the area around Coalbrookdale in the county is seen as highly significant, as it is regarded as one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution. The village of Edgmond, near Newport, is the location of the lowest recorded temperature in England, the origin of the name Shropshire is the Old English Scrobbesbyrigscīr, which means Shrewsburyshire. The name may, therefore, be derived indirectly from a name such as Scrope. Salop is an old name for Shropshire, historically used as a form for post or telegrams
