1.
Llanishen, Monmouthshire
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Llanishen is a village in Monmouthshire, south east Wales, United Kingdom. The village takes its name from the dedication of the parish church to St. Isan or Issien. The church is mentioned in the 12th century Book of Llandaff, the existing church is dedicated to St. Dennis. It was completely rebuilt in 1852–54 and no evidence of an earlier church remains, the village is set within what is termed the Wye Valley Forest Park, the upland area within the River Wye AONB. Kellys Directory 1901 Geograph photos of the area St. Dennis church, Llanishen Llanishen Village Hall
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Welsh language
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Welsh is a member of the Brittonic branch of the Celtic languages. It is spoken natively in Wales, by some in England, historically it has also been known in English as the British tongue, Cambrian, Cambric and Cymric. The United Kingdom Census 2011 counted 3.1 million residents of Wales, 27% of whom had been born outside Wales, and 73% of whom reported having no Welsh language skills. Of residents of Wales aged three and over, 19% reported being able to speak Welsh, and 77% of these were able to speak, read and this can be compared with the 2001 Census, in which 20. 8% of the population reported being able to speak Welsh. 787,854 of residents in Wales aged three and over had one or more skills in Welsh, in surveys carried out between 2004 and 2006, 57% of Welsh speakers described themselves as fluent in the written language. An estimated 110,000 to 150,000 people speak Welsh in England, Welsh emerged in the 6th century from Common Brittonic, the common ancestor of Welsh, Breton, Cornish and the extinct language known as Cumbric. The Middle Welsh period is considered to have lasted from then until the 14th century, when the Modern Welsh period began, the name Welsh originated as an exonym given to its speakers by the Anglo-Saxons, meaning foreign speech. The native term for the language is Cymraeg, and for the name of the country of Wales it is Cymru, Welsh evolved from Common Brittonic, the Celtic language spoken by the ancient Celtic Britons. Classified as Insular Celtic, the British language probably arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age or Iron Age and was spoken throughout the island south of the Firth of Forth. During the Early Middle Ages the British language began to fragment due to increased dialect differentiation, evolving into Welsh and it is not clear when Welsh became distinct. Kenneth H. Jackson suggested that the evolution in syllabic structure and sound pattern was complete by around 550, Jackson, however, believed that the two varieties were already distinct by that time. The earliest Welsh poetry – that attributed to the Cynfeirdd or Early Poets – is generally considered to date to the Primitive Welsh period. However, much of this poetry was composed in the Hen Ogledd, raising further questions about the dating of the material. An 8th century inscription in Tywyn shows the language already dropping inflections in the declension of nouns, the next main period, somewhat better attested, is Old Welsh, poetry from both Wales and Scotland has been preserved in this form of the language. Both the works of Aneirin and the Book of Taliesin were in this era, Middle Welsh is the label attached to the Welsh of the 12th to 14th centuries, of which much more remains than for any earlier period. This is the language of all surviving early manuscripts of the Mabinogion. It is also the language of the existing Welsh law manuscripts, Middle Welsh is reasonably intelligible, albeit with some work, to a modern-day Welsh speaker. The famous cleric Gerald of Wales tells, in his Descriptio Cambriae, during one of the Kings many raids in the 12th century, Henry asked an old man of Pencader, Carmarthenshire whether the Welsh people could resist his army
4.
Saint
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A saint, also historically known as a hallow, is a term used for a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness or likeness to God. Depending on the context and denomination, the term also retains its original Christian meaning, as any believer who is in Christ and in whom Christ dwells, whether in Heaven or on Earth. Depending on the religion, saints are recognized either by official ecclesiastical declaration, the English word saint comes from the Latin sanctus. The word translated the Greek ἅγιος, which derives from the verb ἁγιάζω, the word ἅγιος appears 229 times in the Greek New Testament, and its English translation 60 times in the corresponding text of the King James Version of the Bible. In the New Testament, saint did not denote the deceased who had recognized as especially holy or emulable. Many religions also use similar concepts to venerate persons worthy of some honor, the anthropologist Lawrence Babb in an article about Sathya Sai Baba asks the question Who is a saint. These saintly figures, he asserts, are the points of spiritual force-fields. They exert powerful attractive influence on followers but touch the lives of others in transforming ways as well. In the Bible, only one person is called a saint, They envied Moses also in the camp. The apostle Paul declared himself to be less than the least of all saints in Ephesians 3,8, in the Catholic Church, a saint is anyone in Heaven, whether recognized on Earth or not. There are many persons that the Church believes to be in Heaven who have not been formally canonized, sometimes the word saint also denotes living Christians. They remind us that the Church is holy, can never stop being holy and is called to show the holiness of God by living the life of Christ, the Catholic Church teaches that it does not make or create saints, but rather recognizes them. Proofs of heroicity required in the process of beatification will serve to illustrate in detail the general principles exposed above upon proof of their holiness or likeness to God. On 3 January 993, Pope John XV became the first pope to proclaim a person a saint, on the petition of the German ruler, before that time, the popular cults, or venerations, of saints had been local and spontaneous. Pope John XVIII subsequently permitted a cult of five Polish martyrs, walter of Pontoise was the last person in Western Europe to be canonized by an authority other than the Pope, Hugh de Boves, the Archbishop of Rouen, canonized him in 1153. Thenceforth a decree of Pope Alexander III in 1170 reserved the prerogative of canonization to the Pope, one source claims that there are over 10,000 named saints and beatified people from history, the Roman Martyrology and Orthodox sources, but no definitive head count. Alban Butler published Lives of the Saints in 1756, including a total of 1,486 saints, the latest revision of this book, edited by Rev. Herbert Thurston, SJ and British author Donald Attwater, contains the lives of 2,565 saints. Monsignor Robert Sarno, an official of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints of the Holy See, expressed that it is impossible to give an exact number of saints
5.
Cardiff
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Cardiff is the capital and largest city in Wales and the eleventh-largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is the chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media. The unitary authority areas mid-2011 population was estimated to be 346,100, the Cardiff metropolitan area makes up over a third of the total population of Wales, with a mid-2011 population estimate of about 1,100,000 people. Cardiff is a significant tourist centre and the most popular destination in Wales with 18.3 million visitors in 2010. In 2011, Cardiff was ranked sixth in the world in National Geographics alternative tourist destinations, the city of Cardiff is the county town of the historic county of Glamorgan. Cardiff is part of the Eurocities network of the largest European cities, the Cardiff Urban Area covers a slightly larger area outside the county boundary, and includes the towns of Dinas Powys and Penarth. A small town until the early 19th century, its prominence as a port for the transport of coal following the arrival of industry in the region contributed to its rise as a major city. Cardiff was made a city in 1905, and proclaimed the capital of Wales in 1955, since the 1980s, Cardiff has seen significant development. A new waterfront area at Cardiff Bay contains the Senedd building, home to the Welsh Assembly, sporting venues in the city include the Millennium Stadium, SWALEC Stadium, Cardiff City Stadium, Cardiff International Sports Stadium and Cardiff Arms Park. The city was awarded the title of European City of Sport twice, due to its role in hosting major sporting events, first in 2009. The Millennium Stadium hosted 11 football matches as part of the 2012 Summer Olympics, including the opening event. Caerdydd derives from the earlier Welsh form Caerdyf, the change from -dyf to -dydd shows the colloquial alteration of Welsh f and dd, and was perhaps also driven by folk etymology. This sound change had probably first occurred in the Middle Ages, Caerdyf has its origins in post-Roman Brythonic words meaning the fort of the Taff. The fort probably refers to that established by the Romans, the anglicised form Cardiff is derived from Caerdyf, with the Welsh f borrowed as ff /f/, as also happens in Taff and Llandaff. As English does not have the vowel the final vowel has been borrowed as /ɪ/, although some sources repeat this theory, it has been rejected on linguistic grounds by modern scholars such as Professor Gwynedd Pierce. A group of five Bronze Age tumuli is at the summit of The Garth, four Iron Age hill fort and enclosure sites have been identified within Cardiffs present-day county boundaries, including Caerau Hillfort, an enclosed area of 5.1 hectares. The fort was one of a series of military outposts associated with Isca Augusta that acted as border defences, the fort may have been abandoned in the early 2nd century as the area had been subdued. However, by this time a settlement, or vicus, was established
6.
Wales
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Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon. The country lies within the temperate zone and has a changeable. Welsh national identity emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudds death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of Englands conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century. The whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism, Welsh national feeling grew over the century, Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, two-thirds of the population live in south Wales, mainly in and around Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and in the nearby valleys. Now that the countrys traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, Wales economy depends on the sector, light and service industries. Wales 2010 gross value added was £45.5 billion, over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, and the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the land of song, Rugby union is seen as a symbol of Welsh identity and an expression of national consciousness. The Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term Wælisc when referring to the Celtic Britons in particular, the modern names for some Continental European lands and peoples have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales and these words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen. The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the location in the post-Roman Era of the Welsh people in modern Wales as well as in northern England and southern Scotland. It emphasised that the Welsh in modern Wales and in the Hen Ogledd were one people, in particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage, culture, and language to the Welsh. The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century and it is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh, until c.1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. The Latinised forms of names, Cambrian, Cambric and Cambria, survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales, Welsh
7.
United Kingdom Census 2011
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A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011 and it was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National Statistics is the office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department formed in 2008. ONS designs, manages and runs the census in England and Wales, the first results from the 2011 census, age and sex, and occupied households estimates for England and Wales and Northern Ireland, were released on 16 July 2012. The first results for Scotland, and the first UK-wide results, were published on 17 December 2012, more detailed and specialised data were published from 2013. The Registrar General John Rickman conducted the first census of Great Britains population, from 1911 onwards rapid social change, scientific breakthroughs, and major world events affected the structure of the population. The 1971 census was run by the newly created Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, in 1996 the Office for National Statistics was formed by merging the Central Statistical Office, OPCS and the statistics division of the Department of Employment, the first census it ran was in 2001. In 2008 the UK Statistics Authority was established as an independent body, a population census is a key instrument for assessing the needs of local communities. When related to data sources such as housing or agricultural censuses, or sample surveys. Most countries of the world take censuses, the United Nations recommends that countries take a census at least once every ten years, other organisations that use census data include healthcare organisations, community groups, researchers and businesses. The 2011 census for England and Wales included around 25 million households, people could complete and submit their questionnaire online, or fill it in on paper and post it back in a pre-addressed envelope. Guidance was provided online and through the census helpline, completed questionnaires were electronically tracked and field staff followed up with households that did not return a questionnaire. In these cases field staff delivered and collected questionnaires and, where needed, provided advice or assistance in completing the questionnaire, there was a legal requirement to complete the 2011 census questionnaire, under the terms of the Census Act 1920. As at 27 March 2011 everyone who had lived or intended to live in the country for three months or more was required to complete a questionnaire, failure to return a completed questionnaire could lead to a fine and criminal record. The contract is valued at £150 million, approximately one third of the total £482 million census budget, concerns were raised during contract negotiations that the US PATRIOT Act could be used to force Lockheed Martin to reveal census data to US authorities. The Cabinet Office state that Lockheed Martin will develop the systems used to process census data, neither Lockheed Martin UK nor any Lockheed Martin employee will have access to personal Census data. The Office for National Statistics stated that no census information will ever leave the UK or be seen by any American-owned company. Several groups called for a boycott of the census over the involvement of Lockheed Martin, including the Stop the War Coalition, and the Christian thinktank Ekklesia
8.
List of tallest buildings in Cardiff
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This is a list of the tallest buildings in Cardiff, the capital of Wales. Cardiffs skyline includes buildings ranging from the civic centre to the historic Cardiff Castle. The citys growth is reflected in its growing skyline, as is the case with many British cities, some of Cardiffs skyline comprises 1960s and 1970s residential and commercial tower blocks. However, current development trends for high-rise buildings include upmarket apartments, Cardiff is the largest city in Wales and has the most tall buildings in the country. The city currently has three buildings under construction taller than 100 metres, currently, the tallest building in Cardiff is Capital Tower at 80 m. This list comprises the tallest current standing buildings and structures and this list comprises buildings which are either under construction or approved for construction. This list comprises buildings which are not yet approved for construction and this list comprises buildings which were planned for construction but later cancelled. Cardiff Cardiff city centre SkyscraperNews, Cardiff Cardiff Developments
9.
Suburban
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A suburb is a residential area or a mixed use area, either existing as part of a city or urban area or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city. In some areas, such as Australia, China, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and a few U. S. states, new suburbs are routinely annexed by adjacent cities. In others, such as Arabia, Canada, France, and much of the United States, Suburbs first emerged on a large scale in the 19th and 20th centuries as a result of improved rail and road transport, which led to an increase in commuting. Suburbs tend to proliferate around cities that have an abundance of adjacent flat land, the English word is derived from the Old French subburbe, which is in turn derived from the Latin suburbium, formed from sub and urbs. The first recorded usage of the term in English, was made by John Wycliffe in 1380, in Australia and New Zealand, suburbs have become formalised as geographic subdivisions of a city and are used by postal services in addressing. In rural areas in both countries, their equivalents are called localities, the terms inner suburb and outer suburb are used to differentiate between the higher-density suburbs in proximity to the city center, and the lower-density suburbs on the outskirts of the urban area. The term middle suburbs is also used, Suburbs, in this sense, can range from areas that seem more like residential areas of a city proper to areas separated by open countryside from the city centre. In large cities such as London, suburbs include formerly separate towns and villages that have been gradually absorbed during a growth and expansion. In the United States and Canada, suburb can refer either to an residential area of a city or town or to a separate municipality or unincorporated area outside a town or city. The earliest appearance of suburbs coincided with the spread of the first urban settlements, large walled towns tended to be the focus around which smaller villages grew up in a symbiotic relationship with the market town. The word suburbani was first used by the Roman statesman Cicero in reference to the large villas, as populations grew during the Early Modern Period in Europe, urban towns swelled with a steady influx of people from the countryside. In some places, nearby settlements were swallowed up as the city expanded. The peripheral areas on the outskirts of the city were generally inhabited by the very poorest, by the mid-19th century, the first major suburban areas were springing up around London as the city became more overcrowded and unsanitary. A major catalyst in suburban growth came from the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in the 1860s, the line joined the capitals financial heart in the City to what were to become the suburbs of Middlesex. Harrow was reached in 1880, and the line extended as far as Verney Junction in Buckinghamshire, more than 50 miles from Baker Street. Unlike other railway companies, which were required to dispose of surplus land, in 1912, it was suggested that a specially formed company should take over from the Surplus Lands Committee and develop suburban estates near the railway. However, World War I delayed these plans and it was only in 1919, with expectation of a housing boom. The term Metro-land was coined by the Mets marketing department in 1915 when the Guide to the Extension Line became the Metro-land guide and this promoted the land served by the Met for the walker, visitor and later the house-hunter
10.
Reservoir
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A reservoir is a storage space for fluids. These fluids may be water, hydrocarbons or gas, a reservoir usually means an enlarged natural or artificial lake, storage pond or impoundment created using a dam or lock to store water. Reservoirs can be created by controlling a stream that drains a body of water. They can also be constructed in river valleys using a dam, alternately, a reservoir can be built by excavating flat ground or constructing retaining walls and levees. Tank reservoirs store liquids or gases in storage tanks that may be elevated, at grade level, tank reservoirs for water are also called cisterns. Underground reservoirs are used to store liquids, principally either water or petroleum, a dam constructed in a valley relies on the natural topography to provide most of the basin of the reservoir. Dams are typically located at a part of a valley downstream of a natural basin. The valley sides act as walls, with the dam located at the narrowest practical point to provide strength. In many reservoir construction projects, people have to be moved and re-housed, construction of a reservoir in a valley will usually need the river to be diverted during part of the build, often through a temporary tunnel or by-pass channel. In hilly regions, reservoirs are constructed by enlarging existing lakes. Sometimes in such reservoirs the new top water level exceeds the height on one or more of the feeder streams such as at Llyn Clywedog in Mid Wales. In such cases additional side dams are required to contain the reservoir, where water is pumped or siphoned from a river of variable quality or quantity, bank-side reservoirs may be built to store the water. Such reservoirs are usually formed partly by excavation and partly by building a complete encircling bund or embankment, the water stored in such reservoirs may stay there for several months, during which time normal biological processes may substantially reduce many contaminants and almost eliminate any turbidity. The use of reservoirs also allows water abstraction to be stopped for some time. Service reservoirs store fully treated potable water close to the point of distribution, many service reservoirs are constructed as water towers, often as elevated structures on concrete pillars where the landscape is relatively flat. Other service reservoirs can be almost entirely underground, especially in hilly or mountainous country. In the United Kingdom, Thames Water has many underground reservoirs, sometimes called cisterns, built in the 1800s. A good example is the Honor Oak Reservoir in London, constructed between 1901 and 1909, when it was completed it was said to be the largest brick built underground reservoir in the world and it is still one of the largest in Europe
11.
Cardiff Bay
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Cardiff Bay is the area of water created by the Cardiff Barrage in South Cardiff, the capital of Wales. It is also the name given to the areas of the city surrounding the Bay. The creation of Cardiff Bay is now regarded as one of the most successful regeneration projects in the United Kingdom. The Bay is supplied by two rivers to form a 500-acre freshwater lake around the former dockland area south of the city centre. The Bay was formerly tidal, with access to the sea limited to a couple of each side of high water. Cardiff Bay played a part in Cardiff’s development by being the means of exporting coal from the South Wales Valleys to the rest of the world. The coal mining industry helped fund the building of Cardiff into the Capital city of Wales and helped the Third Marquis of Bute, after the Second World War most of the industry closed down and became derelict. But, in 1999, new life was injected into the area by the building of the Cardiff Bay Barrage, one of the most controversial building projects of the day but also one of the most successful. The Cardiff Bay Development Corporation was created in 1987 to stimulate the redevelopment of 1,100 hectares of derelict land, the Development Corporation aimed to attract private capital by spending public money to improve the area. Despite opposition by environmentalists and wildlife organisations, the mudflats at the mouths of the River Taff and River Ely were inundated, the Barrage has created several new habitats for freshwater species with the wetlands to the south of the Hamadryad Park. When the Development Corporation was wound up in on 31 March 2000, the whole area was unrecognisable from ten years before. Much private land was now open to the public, particularly around the inner harbour, work is progressing to complete a 13 kilometre walkway around the Bay. In addition, the development has enabled land in the city centre to be redeveloped for higher-value uses, the development of something like 1,250 apartments a year however might cause future problems. As at 2008 up to one third were not occupied, critics such as Lorraine Barrett say, the flat complexes will not help to build up a community and too little attention has been paid to develop affordable housing. With the recent falls in property values, sales in the area have become problematic, therefore, landlords might be more willing to rent their places out to people who may not be suited to that type of living. Connecting the Bay area to the centre of Cardiff was a goal when plans to develop the docklands were first mooted. Original plans included a grand boulevard with high density commercial and residential units straddling both sides, on 30 January 2013 the award-winning planning consultant, Adrian Jones, stated that Cardiff Bay was a contender for the worst example of waterside regeneration in Britain. No, it is the lack of any coherent urban structure, of real streets, in other words, it is the dumb plan
12.
Llandaff
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Llandaff is a district and community in the north of Cardiff, capital of Wales, having been incorporated into the city in 1922. It is the seat of the Bishop of Llandaff, whose diocese within the Church in Wales covers the most populous area of South Wales, most of the history of Llandaff centres on its role as a religious site. Evidence of Romano-British ritual burials have been found under the present cathedral and it has had a history of continual destruction and restoration, as a result of warfare, neglect, and natural disaster. Llandaff has been a point of devastating attacks by Owain Glyndŵr. It was the second most damaged Cathedral in the UK following Luftwaffe bombing during World War II, one of its main modern points of interest is the aluminium figure of Christ in Majesty, by Jacob Epstein, which is suspended above the nave. In 2007 a lightning strike to its spire sent a surge through the building which destroyed its organ and its replacement, the largest to be built in the UK for over 40 years, was inaugurated in 2010. A bishops palace, now in ruins, lies to the south of the Cathedral and it is believed it was constructed at a similar date to Caerphilly Castle, in the late 13th century. It is also believed it was abandoned after being attacked and damaged by Glyndŵr in the 15th century, the gatehouse of the Palace survives and the courtyard is now a public garden. Llandaff never developed into a borough, and by the 19th century was described as reduced to a mere village. Historically Llandaff was informally known as a city because of its status as the seat of the Bishop of Llandaff and this status was never officially recognised, largely because the community did not possess a charter of incorporation. The ancient parish of Llandaff included a wide area, apart from Llandaff itself, it included the townships of Canton, Ely, Fairwater, and Gabalfa. During the development of the South Wales coalfield and Cardiff Docks, the house now known as Insole Court dates originally from 1856. Llandaff itself became a parish and from 1894 to 1922 was part of the Llandaff. On 9 November 1922 the county borough of Cardiff was extended to include the area, at the United Kingdom Census 2011 the population of the Llandaff was 8,997, of whom 4,309 were male and 4,688 female. 91. 6% were recorded as being of various white ethnicities, approximately 65% of the population were returned as Christian, with about 1. 5% each being Hindu or Muslim, and 30% having no religion or no stated religion. In the 2011 census 15. 3% of the population over 3 years old in Llandaff were recorded as speaking Welsh and this was a small drop compared to the 2001 census figure, which was 15. 4%. The headquarters of BBC Cymru Wales is in Llandaff, research by Owen John Thomas shows the historical strength of the Welsh language in Llandaff. According to his book Yr Iaith Gymraeg yng Nghaerdydd c, 1800–1914’, the nonconformist church in Cardiff Road was a Welsh-language church in 1813
13.
Caerphilly
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Caerphilly is a town in South Wales, at the southern end of the Rhymney Valley. It is the largest town in Caerphilly, historically it was in the county of Glamorgan, on the border with Monmouthshire. At the 2001 Census, the town had a population of 30,388, the towns site has long been of strategic significance. Around AD75 a fort was built by the Romans during their conquest of Britain, an excavation of the site in 1963 showed that the fort was occupied by Roman forces until the middle of the 2nd century. Tradition states that a monastery was built in the area by St Cenydd, nonetheless, the district was formerly named Senghenydd after him, and Cenydds son, St Ffili, is said to have built a fort in the area and thus gave the town its name. Another explanation is that it is named after the Anglo-Norman Marcher Lord, following the Norman invasion of Wales in the late 11th century, the area of Sengenhydd remained in Welsh hands. By the middle of the 12th century the area was under the control of the Welsh chieftain Ifor Bach and his grandson Gruffyd ap Rhys was the final Welsh lord of Sengenhydd, falling to the English nobleman Gilbert de Clare, the Red Earl, in 1266. In 1267 Henry III was forced to recognise Llywelyn ap Gruffudd as Prince of Wales, Gilbert de Clare had already begun to take steps to consolidate his own territorial gains, beginning the construction of Caerphilly Castle on 11 April 1268. The castle would also act as a buffer against Llewelyns own territorial ambitions and was attacked by the Prince of Wales forces before construction was halted in 1270, construction recommenced in 1271 and was continued under the Red Earls son, Gilbert de Clare, 8th Earl of Gloucester. The original town of Caerphilly grew up as a small De Clare raised settlement just south of the castle, in 1316 Llywelyn Bren, believed to be the son of Gruffyd ap Rhys and therefore great-grandson of Ifor Bach, led an insurrection, laying siege to the castle. The outer ward of the castle was breached but not the inner defences, the town was rebuilt but remained very small throughout the Middle Ages. The first evidence of its importance was the construction of a Court House in the 14th century. At the beginning of the 15th century the castle was attacked, this time by Owain Glyndŵr. The Lewis family, who claimed descent from Ifor Bach, left the manor in the century when they purchased St Fagans Castle. Caerphilly is featured in the Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury, protests and a prayer meeting were held outside the Castle Cinema on the evening of 14 December 1976, when the Pistols were playing a concert there. However, at point in time, Caerphilly was one of the few councils that would allow the group to perform. The castle of Caerphilly was used as a location for Merlin. Caerphilly hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1950, Caerphilly is the birthplace of comedian Tommy Cooper, Newport County midfielder David Pipe and Arsenal midfielder Aaron Ramsey
14.
Normans
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The Normans were the people who, in the 10th and 11th centuries, gave their name to Normandy, a region in France. They were descended from Norse raiders and pirates from Denmark, Iceland and Norway who, under their leader Rollo, through generations of assimilation and mixing with the native Frankish and Gallo-Roman populations, their descendants gradually adopted the Carolingian-based cultures of West Francia. The distinct cultural and ethnic identity of the Normans emerged initially in the first half of the 10th century, the Norman dynasty had a major political, cultural and military impact on medieval Europe and even the Near East. The Normans were famed for their spirit and eventually for their Christian piety. They adopted the Gallo-Romance language of the Frankish land they settled, their becoming known as Norman, Normaund or Norman French. The Normans are noted both for their culture, such as their unique Romanesque architecture and musical traditions, and for their significant military accomplishments and their chief men were specially lavish through their desire of good report. They were, moreover, a race skillful in flattery, given to the study of eloquence, so that the boys were orators. They were enduring of toil, hunger, and cold whenever fortune laid it on them, given to hunting and hawking, delighting in the pleasure of horses, and of all the weapons and garb of war. The treaty offered Rollo and his men the French lands between the river Epte and the Atlantic coast in exchange for their protection against further Viking incursions. The area corresponded to the part of present-day Upper Normandy down to the river Seine. The territory was equivalent to the old province of Rouen. Before Rollos arrival, its populations did not differ from Picardy or the Île-de-France, the Norman language was forged by the adoption of the indigenous langue doïl branch of Romance by a Norse-speaking ruling class, and it developed into the regional language that survives today. The Normans thereafter adopted the growing feudal doctrines of the rest of France, the new Norman rulers were culturally and ethnically distinct from the old French aristocracy, most of whom traced their lineage to Franks of the Carolingian dynasty. Most Norman knights remained poor and land-hungry, and by 1066 Normandy had been exporting fighting horsemen for more than a generation, many Normans of Italy, France and England eventually served as avid Crusaders under the Italo-Norman prince Bohemund I and the Anglo-Norman king Richard the Lion-Heart. Opportunistic bands of Normans successfully established a foothold in Southern Italy, probably as the result of returning pilgrims stories, the Normans entered Southern Italy as warriors in 1017 at the latest. In 999, according to Amatus of Montecassino, Norman pilgrims returning from Jerusalem called in at the port of Salerno when a Saracen attack occurred. The Normans fought so valiantly that Prince Guaimar III begged them to stay, the Hauteville family achieved princely rank by proclaiming prince Guaimar IV of Salerno Duke of Apulia and Calabria. He promptly awarded their elected leader, William Iron Arm, with the title of count in his capital of Melfi
15.
Oliver Cromwell
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Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Cromwell was born into the gentry, albeit to a family descended from the sister of King Henry VIIIs minister Thomas Cromwell. Little is known of the first 40 years of his life as only four of his letters survive alongside a summary of a speech he delivered in 1628. He became an Independent Puritan after undergoing a conversion in the 1630s. He was a religious man, a self-styled Puritan Moses. He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and for Cambridge in the Short and he entered the English Civil War on the side of the Roundheads or Parliamentarians. Cromwell was one of the signatories of King Charles Is death warrant in 1649 and he was selected to take command of the English campaign in Ireland in 1649–1650. Cromwells forces defeated the Confederate and Royalist coalition in Ireland and occupied the country, during this period, a series of Penal Laws were passed against Roman Catholics, and a substantial amount of their land was confiscated. Cromwell also led a campaign against the Scottish army between 1650 and 1651, as a ruler, he executed an aggressive and effective foreign policy. He died from natural causes in 1658 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, the Royalists returned to power in 1660, and they had his corpse dug up, hung in chains, and beheaded. In a 2002 BBC poll in Britain, Cromwell, sponsored by military historian Richard Holmes was selected as one of the ten greatest Britons of all time. However, his measures against Catholics in Scotland and Ireland have been characterised as genocidal or near-genocidal, Cromwell was born in Huntingdon on 25 April 1599 to Robert Cromwell and Elizabeth Steward. Katherine married Morgan ap William, son of William ap Yevan of Wales, Henry suggested to Sir Richard Williams, who was the first to use a surname in his family, that he use Cromwell, in honour of his uncle Thomas Cromwell. They had ten children, but Oliver, the child, was the only boy to survive infancy. Jasper was the uncle of Henry VII and great uncle of Henry VIII, Cromwells paternal grandfather Sir Henry Williams was one of the two wealthiest landowners in Huntingdonshire. Cromwells father Robert was of modest means but still a part of the gentry class, as a younger son with many siblings, Robert inherited only a house at Huntingdon and a small amount of land. This land would have generated an income of up to £300 a year, near the bottom of the range of gentry incomes, Cromwell himself in 1654 said, I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in considerable height, nor yet in obscurity. He was baptised on 29 April 1599 at St Johns Church and he went on to study at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, then a recently founded college with a strong Puritan ethos
16.
Lisvane
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Lisvane is an affluent community in the north of Cardiff, the capital of Wales, located 5 miles north of the city centre. Lisvane is generally considered to be one of the wealthiest residential areas of Wales, with a house price £410,000 as of 2011. The Welsh language name Llys-faen means ‘Stone Court’, the village probably settled on the present name from around 1630. Each early Welsh kingdom was divided into administrative units, Cantrefs. In each commote the royal house was a large building made almost certainly of stone because it had to be permanent, weather proof. The commote of Cibbwr/Kibbor was on land between Cefn Onn ridge and the coast and most historians agree that Llys-faen was its administrative centre, there is now no indication of the actual whereabouts of the Llys Faen or Stone Court, although various theories have been advanced. The earthworks at Graig Llwyn is held to be the oldest man-made feature in Lisvane, unfortunately no definite date or purpose can yet be confirmed for this earthwork. At the start of the 13th century the lands of Llanishen. The southern facing slopes of the ridge above Lisvane with their agricultural land soon became the grain growing area for the supplies which were transported to Roath Mill for processing. There is a local oral legend that the Cromwell family once lived briefly in the Black Griffin Inn. There is no evidence to support this, and he must have lodged somewhere. Cromwell was, however, of Welsh ancestry and his great-grandfather came from this area, the farmhouse, on the Graig slope overlooking the village, was included in the estate of the Lewis family. In 1900 part of the estate was let to Lisvane Golf Club, from just after the Second World War, the fox hounds of the local Lisvane Hunt were kennelled at Tŷ Mawr until it became a public house in the 1960s. The Llanishen and Lisvane Hunt had several homes over the years with the hunts most latterly setting off from Llan Farm on Graig Llwyn Road. The village hunt disbanded around 1997 on the death of the then hunt Master, thereby anticipating the ban on fox hunting by nearly a decade. There is a tradition that for a period during the 1800s, Erw-wen, on Rudry Road, was also a pub or beer house, possibly called the Red Cow. The Methodist Church in Lisvane seems to have had a history of building churches that do not last very well or are poorly maintained, just a hundred years later the Methodist congregation no longer supports a separate chapel building and now holds its weekly services in the Memorial Hall. A few yards away from the Ordnance Surveys triangulation point on the Graig stands Lisvane’s only cold war nuclear bunker, during World War II the Royal Observer Corps observation post stood on the Graig with its clear views over the village and the city of Cardiff
17.
Taff Vale Railway
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The Taff Vale Railway was a railway in Glamorgan, South Wales, and is one of the oldest in Wales. It operated as an independent company from 1836 until 1922, when it became a constituent company of the Great Western Railway, much of the TVR is still used for freight and passenger services. Coal mining and iron smelting had been carried out on a scale in South Wales for some centuries before the arrival of railways. Both industries grew significantly during the revolution, particularly as coal-derived coke could replace charcoal in the smelting process. Canals were built several of the valleys, to bring the iron down to the coast for shipping elsewhere. The Glamorganshire Canal, authorised in 1790, ran from Merthyr Tydfil to Cardiff, the canal company were authorised to build tramroads from the canal to connect with nearby industries, and various foundries and quarries operated their own tramroads. Ten tons of iron and 70 persons were transported nine miles, Disputes between the Glamorganshire Canal Company and ironmasters led to proposals for a dram road to Cardiff as early as 1798. Congestion on the canal increased as traffic boomed, and the appeal of a railway route remained. In 1835 Anthony Hill, owner of the Plymouth Iron Works, asked his friend Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to estimate the cost of building a railway from Merthyr to Cardiff and to Bute Docks. On 21 June 1836, Royal Assent was given to The Taff Vale Railway Companys Act, the founding capital of the Company was fixed at £300,000, in £100 share units. The directors were Josiah Guest, Walter Coffin, Edward Lee, Thomas Guest, Thomas Guppy, Thomas Powell, Christopher James, Thomas Carlisle, Henry Rudhall, William Wait, William Watson, and Peter Maze. The act authorised a railway from Merthyr to the Bute West Dock at Cardiff, with a branch to Cogan Pill, as well as connections to the tramroads of Penydarren, Dowlais, and Plymouth. Company profits were capped at 7% originally, increasable to 9% subject to a reduction in the rates, the Act also capped the speed of the trains on the line to 12 mph, with stiff penalties for any speeding. These two clauses were later repealed, the branch to Cogan Pill, however, was abandoned in exchange for a long lease on Bute West Dock in Cardiff. Construction was started in 1836, and the stretch from Cardiff to Navigation House was opened in a ceremony on 9 October 1840. The stretch from Abercynon to Merthyr was opened on 12 April 1841, the railway was Single track for its entire length, with passing only possible at the six intermediate stations, Llandaff, Pentyrch, Taffs Well, Newbridge, Navigation House, and Troedyrhiw. The engineering of the 24 miles main line was relatively straightforward, the line mostly followed the course of the Taff valley, with largely gentle gradients, except for a short portion between Navigation House and Quakers Yard. Two stone viaducts were built by Brunel on the route, the first, at Pontypridd, crosses the River Rhondda, and the second bridges the Taff valley between Goetre Coed and Quakers Yard
18.
Cardiff Docks
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Cardiff Docks is a port in southern Cardiff, Wales. At its peak, the port was one of the largest dock systems in the world with a total quayage of almost 11 km. Once the main port for the export of South Wales coal, in 1794, the Glamorganshire Canal was completed, linking the then small town of Cardiff with Merthyr, and in 1798 a basin was built, connecting the canal to the sea. Increasing agitation for proper dock facilities led Cardiffs foremost landowner, John Crichton-Stuart, 2nd Marquess of Bute, the dock design was by Admiral William Henry Smyth and the resident engineer was George Turnbull. Two years after the October 1839 dock opening, the Taff Vale Railway was opened, with the construction of the new East Bute Dock from 1855, designed by James Walker of Messrs. Frustration at the lack of development at Cardiff led to rival docks being opened at Penarth in 1865 and Barry and these developments eventually spurred Cardiff into action, with the opening of the Roath Dock in 1887, and the Queen Alexandra Dock in 1907. By then, coal exports from the South Wales Coalfield via Cardiff totalled nearly 9 million tons per annum, by 1913, this had risen to 10,700,000 tons, making Cardiff second only to Barry, Wales as the largest coal exporting dock in the world. Each day, the principals of these companies would meet to arrange cargoes of coal for their ships in the opulent Coal Exchange in Mount Stuart Square and this trade reached its pinnacle in 1913, when 10.7 million tons of coal were exported from the port. After the First World War, there was a boom in shipping in Cardiff, the boom proved short-lived, however, oil was growing in importance as a maritime fuel, and the terms of the Treaty of Versailles soon flooded Europe with cheap German reparation coal. The Taff Vale Railway was built to transport coal from the South Wales Valleys to the docks and its headquarters were a currently derelict building in Cardiff Bay railway station. The building was turned into a heritage centre in 1979 by the Butetown Historic Railway Society. By 1994 the Society had started to run steam hauled passenger services up. From 1910 onwards capacity issues meant that the modern and less tidal Barry Docks took over as the largest volume export point of coal. Until the early 1920s, Cardiff docks continued to boom as a location for shipping companies, but the fall in demand for Welsh coal caused a dramatic fall in exports. By 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression which followed the General Strike in 1926, coal exports had fallen to below 5 million tonnes, despite intense activity at the port during the Second World War, coal exports continued to decline, finally ceasing in 1964. In 1950, imports outstripped exports for the first time in the ports history, the 1970s saw a short-term import boom, and in the 1980s the port experienced a slight rise in traffic, while much of the former port area began to be regenerated into non-port uses. The port found a niche as an important local centre for cargo operations. Cardiff now has three operational docks capable of handling ships of up to 35,000 tons deadweight, Queen Alexandra Dock, Roath Dock, and Roath Basin
19.
Caerphilly railway station
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Caerphilly railway station is a railway station serving the town of Caerphilly, south Wales. It is a stop on the Rhymney Line of the Valley Lines network, the station is located at Station Road in the South of the town. Facilities include a shop and a Ticket Kiosk. A self-service Ticket machine was installed near the entrance to the station on 22 December 2008, several advertising murals depicting holiday travel in various parts of South Wales have been placed on the northbound side of the station in order to improve the look of the station. Replacement bus services operated the route between Caerphilly and Bargoed/Rhymney, train services subsequently resumed as normal. Monday to Saturdays there is a train every 15 minutes to Penarth via Cardiff Central and every 15 minutes to Bargoed and this decreases to hourly northbound and half-hourly southbound in the evenings, with some trains from Cardiff terminating & starting back from here. On Sundays, there is a service each way with southbound trains running to Barry Island. Train times and station information for Caerphilly railway station from National Rail
20.
Cardiff Queen Street railway station
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Cardiff Queen Street railway station is a railway station serving the north and east of Central Cardiff, Wales. It is the second busiest railway station in Wales, being located near Queen Street and it is one of 20 stations in the city and two in the city centre, the other being Cardiff Central. The station is staffed at most times, with an office and machines. A newsagent is situated opposite the station, in 2014, a reconstruction of the station was completed in order to reduce bottlenecks, with two extra platforms being put in, taking the total number of platforms to 5. A station known as Crockherbtown on this site was built in 1840 by the Taff Vale Railway and it was rebuilt and given its present name in 1887. Other major rebuildings took place in 1907 and by British Rail in 1973, in 2005, the station was fitted with new ticket gates, operational when the station is manned, which allow easier access in both directions. In 2006 LED screens replaced the old information display monitors, the old station car park is now dedicated for private use by residents of a nearby modern development of apartments known as The Aspect. The station is located at the end of the city centre, near the Capitol Centre as well as St Davids Centre. The station has five utilised platforms at a level raised above the surrounding roads, Platform 4 is used for services to Rhymney and Bargoed as well as Coryton in north-west Cardiff. Platform 3 is used for services towards Cardiff Central and onwards to Barry Island and Bridgend via Rhoose Cardiff International Airport, Platform 2 is used for services towards Cardiff Central and onwards to Penarth and Radyr via City Line. Platform 1 is now used for services to Cardiff Bay. The whole Cardiff Area Signalling Renewal project is due to be completed by May 2015, funded by the Department for Transport, Assembly Government, the Assembly Government has committed £7m for the enhancements programme. The stations will be similar in design, featuring slate panels, grey brickwork, pavilion-style roofs, large windows, Cardiff Central will have a new two-storey southern entrance and ticket hall under plans submitted by Network Rail. An eighth platform at Cardiff Central and a fourth and fifth at Cardiff Queen Street will be installed, once finished, the number of trains running to the Valleys will increase from 12 per hour to 16 per hour. The new platforms have now brought into use as of Sunday 14 December 2014. In the Spring of 2016, the Roll of Honour off those who served the armed forces between 1914 and 1919 from the Taff Vale Railway was put on display in the Ticket Hall, both the station and this very page feature prominently in the Torchwood audiobook Ghost Train. Rail transport in Cardiff List of railway stations in Wales Transport in Wales Commuter rail in the United Kingdom Media related to Cardiff Queen Street railway station at Wikimedia Commons
21.
Llanishen Reservoir
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Llanishen Reservoir is a Victorian reservoir in North Cardiff in Wales. The reservoir is one of the reservoirs constructed as part of the Taff Fawr scheme for supplying water to Cardiff and was completed in 1886 and it forms part of the Nant Fawr Corridor from the top of Roath Park to the countryside beyond Cyncoed. The reservoir was used for water supply until the mid-1970s when it became redundant and it was then used for leisure activities and for topping up the adjacent Lisvane Reservoir until it was drained completely. On 30 August 2013 WPD sold both Llanishen and Lisvane reservoirs to CELSA Group, in 1881, a report was commissioned on water resources within a reasonable distance of Cardiff. The report concluded that the Taff Fawr scheme would fulfil the requirements at the least cost. Construction of the started in 1882 by the engineer James Simpson for the Cardiff Waterworks Company and was completed in 1886. The reservoir is retained by an embankment with a clay core some 10 metres high. The external embankment face is grassed whilst the internal face has stone pitching over the upper part and it has a maximum surface area of water of 23.8 hectares and a capacity of 1,440,909 cubic metres. The reservoir is underlain by the St Maughans Formation of the Lower Devonian age, glacial till deposits of the Devonian age form part of the northern shore of the reservoir. The reservoir may be on the limb of the Cowbridge anticline. The reservoir was transferred to Welsh Water in 1973 when the Welsh Water Authority was formed, in 1996 Welsh Waters holding company was renamed as Hyder plc and the group acquired South Wales Electricity plc. After Hyders share price collapsed in 1999 and 2000, the Hyder Group was sold to WPD on terms recommended by the Hyder Board after a competitive, WPD is the American-owned electricity distribution network operator for South West England and South and West Wales. The reservoir, which part of the Nant Fawr corridor, has been redundant since the 1970s and has only been used for leisure purposes. The reservoir is listed as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest as it has pondweed and stonewort, the grassland and scrub surrounding the reservoir is also an SNCI due to the grass snakes and slow-worms there. The banks of the reservoir are listed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest due to the diversity of fungi discovered growing on them. The reservoir was listed by Cadw in July 2009 as a building of special architectural or historic interest. Until Spring 2010, Cardiff Sailing Centre operated at the reservoir offering dinghy sailing, windsurfing, powerboating and canoeing courses. The centre, which is owned and managed by Cardiff County Council had been running at the reservoir for 30 years, the Centre has gained national recognition as both a grass-roots training centre through the RYAs OnBoard scheme and as a first class race training centre & club
22.
Brecon Beacons
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The Brecon Beacons is a mountain range in South Wales. In a narrow sense, the name refers to the range of Old Red Sandstone peaks which lie to the south of Brecon, sometimes referred to as the central Beacons they include South Wales highest mountain, Pen y Fan. The range forms the central section of the Brecon Beacons National Park and this much wider area is also commonly referred to as the Brecon Beacons, and it includes the Black Mountains to the east as well as the similarly named but quite distinct Black Mountain to the west. The highest peaks include Fan Brycheiniog to the west and Pen y Fan in the central part and they share the same basic geology as the central range, and so exhibit many similar features, such the north-facing escarpment and glacial features such as lakes and cwms below the escarpment. They all fall within the border of the national park. The Brecon Beacons range, in its narrower sense comprises six main peaks, from west to east these are, Corn Du, Pen y Fan, the highest peak, Cribyn, Fan y Big, Bwlch y Ddwyallt and Waun Rydd. These summits form a ridge, and the sections joining the first four form a horseshoe shape around the head of the Taf Fechan river. To the northeast of the ridge, interspersed with long spurs, are four round-headed valleys or cwms, from west to east these are Cwm Sere, Cwm Cynwyn. There are especially good examples of round barrows on Fan Foel, Pen y Fan, the former was excavated in 2002–4 and the ashes in the central cist dated to about 2000 BC using carbon dating. A wreath of Meadowsweet was likely placed in the burial, over twenty hill-forts were established in the area during the Iron Age. The largest, and indeed the largest in south Wales, were the pair of forts atop Y Garn Goch near Bethlehem – Y Gaer Fawr and Y Gaer Fach – literally the big fort, the forts are thought to have once been trading and political centres. When the Romans came to Wales in 43 AD, they stationed more than 600 soldiers in the area, Y Gaer, near the town of Brecon was their main base. During the Norman Conquest many castles were erected throughout the park, one of the most famous is Carreg Cennen Castle but there are many more. Brecon Castle is of Norman origin, there are many old tracks which were used over the centuries by drovers to take their cattle and geese to market in England. The drovers brought back gorse seed which they sowed to provide food for their sheep, the Brecon Beacons are one of four ranges of mountains and hills in South Wales which make up the Brecon Beacons National Park. The National Park was established in 1957, the third of the three Welsh parks after Snowdonia in 1951 and the Pembrokeshire Coast in 1952, Mountain rescue in south Wales is provided by five volunteer groups, with the police having overall command. In serious situations they are aided by RAF helicopters from RAF Chivenor or RAF Valley and their work is not restricted to mountain rescue – they frequently assist the police in their search for missing or vulnerable people in the community. The Brecon Beacons, are used for training members of the UK armed forces, the Army’s Infantry Battle School is located at Brecon, and the Special Air Service use the area to test the fitness of applicants
23.
First World War
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
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Second World War
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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Royal Air Force
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The Royal Air Force is the United Kingdoms aerial warfare force. Formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, following victory over the Central Powers in 1918 the RAF emerged as, at the time, the largest air force in the world. The RAF describe its mission statement as, an agile, adaptable and capable Air Force that, person for person, is second to none, and that makes a decisive air power contribution in support of the UK Defence Mission. The mission statement is supported by the RAFs definition of air power, Air power is defined as the ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behaviour of people or the course of events. Today the Royal Air Force maintains a fleet of various types of aircraft. The majority of the RAFs rotary-wing aircraft form part of the tri-service Joint Helicopter Command in support of ground forces, most of the RAFs aircraft and personnel are based in the UK, with many others serving on operations or at long-established overseas bases. It was founded on 1 April 1918, with headquarters located in the former Hotel Cecil, during the First World War, by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps, at that time it was the largest air force in the world. The RAFs naval aviation branch, the Fleet Air Arm, was founded in 1924, the RAF developed the doctrine of strategic bombing which led to the construction of long-range bombers and became its main bombing strategy in the Second World War. The RAF underwent rapid expansion prior to and during the Second World War, under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan of December 1939, the air forces of British Commonwealth countries trained and formed Article XV squadrons for service with RAF formations. Many individual personnel from countries, and exiles from occupied Europe. By the end of the war the Royal Canadian Air Force had contributed more than 30 squadrons to serve in RAF formations, additionally, the Royal Australian Air Force represented around nine percent of all RAF personnel who served in the European and Mediterranean theatres. In the Battle of Britain in 1940, the RAF defended the skies over Britain against the numerically superior German Luftwaffe, the largest RAF effort during the war was the strategic bombing campaign against Germany by Bomber Command. Following victory in the Second World War, the RAF underwent significant re-organisation, during the early stages of the Cold War, one of the first major operations undertaken by the Royal Air Force was in 1948 and the Berlin Airlift, codenamed Operation Plainfire. Before Britain developed its own nuclear weapons the RAF was provided with American nuclear weapons under Project E and these were initially armed with nuclear gravity bombs, later being equipped with the Blue Steel missile. Following the development of the Royal Navys Polaris submarines, the nuclear deterrent passed to the navys submarines on 30 June 1969. With the introduction of Polaris, the RAFs strategic nuclear role was reduced to a tactical one and this tactical role was continued by the V bombers into the 1980s and until 1998 by Tornado GR1s. For much of the Cold War the primary role of the RAF was the defence of Western Europe against potential attack by the Soviet Union, with many squadrons based in West Germany. With the decline of the British Empire, global operations were scaled back, despite this, the RAF fought in many battles in the Cold War period
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United States Army
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The United States Army is the largest branch of the United States Armed Forces and performs land-based military operations. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784, the United States Army considers itself descended from the Continental Army, and dates its institutional inception from the origin of that armed force in 1775. As a uniformed service, the Army is part of the Department of the Army. As a branch of the forces, the mission of the U. S. The branch participates in conflicts worldwide and is the major ground-based offensive and defensive force of the United States, the United States Army serves as the land-based branch of the U. S. Section 3062 of Title 10, U. S, the army was initially led by men who had served in the British Army or colonial militias and who brought much of British military heritage with them. As the Revolutionary War progressed, French aid, resources, a number of European soldiers came on their own to help, such as Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who taught Prussian Army tactics and organizational skills. The army fought numerous pitched battles and in the South in 1780–81 sometimes used the Fabian strategy and hit-and-run tactics, hitting where the British were weakest, to wear down their forces. Washington led victories against the British at Trenton and Princeton, but lost a series of battles in the New York and New Jersey campaign in 1776, with a decisive victory at Yorktown, and the help of the French, the Continental Army prevailed against the British. After the war, though, the Continental Army was quickly given land certificates, State militias became the new nations sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Points arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans, it was realized that it was necessary to field a trained standing army. The War of 1812, the second and last war between the United States and Great Britain, had mixed results. After taking control of Lake Erie in 1813, the U. S. Army seized parts of western Upper Canada, burned York and defeated Tecumseh, which caused his Western Confederacy to collapse. Following U. S. victories in the Canadian province of Upper Canada, British troops, were able to capture and burn Washington, which was defended by militia, in 1814. Two weeks after a treaty was signed, Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans and Siege of Fort St. Philip, U. S. troops and sailors captured HMS Cyane, Levant, and Penguin in the final engagements of the war. Per the treaty, both sides, the United States and Great Britain, returned to the status quo. Both navies kept the warships they had seized during the conflict, the armys major campaign against the Indians was fought in Florida against Seminoles. It took long wars to defeat the Seminoles and move them to Oklahoma
27.
D-Day
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The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday,6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, planning for the operation began in 1943. Adolf Hitler placed German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of German forces, the amphibious landings were preceded by extensive aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight. Allied infantry and armoured divisions began landing on the coast of France at 06,30, the target 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Strong winds blew the landing craft east of their positions, particularly at Utah. Casualties were heaviest at Omaha, with its high cliffs, at Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns were cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold were disabled, using specialised tanks. The Allies failed to any of their goals on the first day. Carentan, St. Lô, and Bayeux remained in German hands, and Caen, German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead, museums, memorials, and war cemeteries in the area now host many visitors each year. Between 27 May and 4 June 1940, over 338,000 troops of the British Expeditionary Force, after the German Army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin began pressing his allies for the creation of a second front in western Europe. In late May 1942 the Soviet Union and the United States made a joint announcement that a. full understanding was reached with regard to the urgent tasks of creating a front in Europe in 1942. Instead of a return to France, the Western Allies staged offensives in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. By mid-1943 the campaign in North Africa had been won, the Allies then launched the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and subsequently invaded Italy in September the same year. By then, Soviet forces were on the offensive and had won a victory at the Battle of Stalingrad. The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion within the year was taken at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943. Initial planning was constrained by the number of landing craft, most of which were already committed in the Mediterranean. At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill promised Stalin that they would open the second front in May 1944. Four sites were considered for the landings, Brittany, the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy, as Brittany and Cotentin are peninsulas, it would have been possible for the Germans to cut off the Allied advance at a relatively narrow isthmus, so these sites were rejected
28.
Atomic Weapons Establishment
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The Atomic Weapons Establishment is responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the United Kingdoms nuclear deterrent. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment with its site on the former RAF Aldermaston and has major facilities at Burghfield, Blacknest. All the sites are owned by the Government of the United Kingdom which has a share in AWE plc. The establishment is the destination for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmaments annual march from Trafalgar Square. The first Aldermaston March was conceived by the Direct Action Committee, the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment was established on 1 April 1950, by the Ministry of Supply, at the former RAF Aldermaston airfield. AWREs first Director was William Penney, in 1954 AWRE was transferred to the newly created United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. In 1971 the production activities of UKAEA were transferred to the newly created British Nuclear Fuels Ltd, in 1973 AWRE was transferred to the Procurement Executive of the Ministry of Defence. Parts of AWREs weapons production processes were carried out at two Royal Ordnance Factories, ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff, in 1984 these two ROFs were separated from the other ROFs, which were then formed into a government-owned defence company, Royal Ordnance plc and was privatised in 1987. ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff remained within the Procurement Executive and came under the control of AWRE, in 1987, AWRE was combined with ROF Burghfield and ROF Cardiff to form the Atomic Weapons Establishment. These sites being renamed AWE Burghfield and AWE Cardiff and it remained with the Ministry of Defence, Procurement Executive. However, in 1989, the UK government announced its intention to find a private company to run AWE under a Government Owned/Contractor Operated arrangement. In 1993 the government awarded a contract to Hunting-BRAE, a consortium of Hunting Engineering, Brown and Root, during Hunting-BRAEs management AWE decommissioned the RAFs WE177 freefall nuclear bomb. In 1998 the company suffered two prosecutions for safety breaches, one for discharge of tritium into a stream and another for an incident where two workers inhaled plutonium. In 1999 Hunting-BRAE lost the contract to AWE Management Ltd, a consortium of BNFL, Lockheed Martin, AWE MLs subsidiary, AWE plc, assumed responsibility for the operation of all AWE sites on 1 April 2000. This was not full privatisation as the Ministry of Defence continued to own all the AWE sites as well as a share in AWE plc. Critics pointed out that BNFL and Lockheed Martin did not have perfect safety records either, BNFL suffered embarrassing revelations of falsified quality checks in nuclear fuels and Lockheed was the subject of scathing reports on the operation of US nuclear facilities. Lockheeds failings included safety concerns at the Y-12 facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in December 2008, the BNFL share in AWE Management Ltd was sold to Jacobs Engineering Group, an American engineering services company. Scientists at AWE were involved in testing for radioactive poison after the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, further tests using spectroscopy designed to detect alpha radiation confirmed the result
29.
George Wimpey
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George Wimpey was formed in 1880 and, based in Hammersmith, operated largely as a road surfacing contractor. The business was acquired by Godfrey Mitchell in 1919, and he developed it into a construction, in July 2007, Wimpey merged with Taylor Woodrow to create Taylor Wimpey. Wimpey was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1934, the business was founded by George Wimpey and Walter Tomes as a stone working partnership in 1880 in Hammersmith. The company built Hammersmith Town Hall in 1896, and went on to lay the foundations for the first electric tramway in London in the late 1890s, George Wimpey died in 1913 at the age of 58. His family put the business up for sale in 1919, Godfrey Way Mitchell bought the firm and decided to retain the Wimpey name. Sir Godfrey Mitchell remained George Wimpeys executive chairman until 1973, Mitchell built up a fleet of steam rollers and took contracts for public and private paving jobs. By 1930, Wimpey was building five hundred houses a year. However, private housebuilding ceased on the outbreak of war in 1939 and it built 93 aerodromes, factories and army camps, and finished the war as one of the countrys largest contractors. It was also expanding its building and civil engineering divisions, particularly overseas where it became one of the larger international contractors, the end of building controls in 1954 allowed Wimpey to re enter the private housing market. Although Wimpey experienced rising profits in the 1970s, thanks to its middle east contracting, Godfrey Mitchell may have retired as Chairman in 1973 but he remained a director and a dominant figure until his eventual retirement from the Board in 1981, following his 90th birthday. Operational control was diffused between four joint managing directors, and the rather than the centre were the dominant force. Unlike some of the newer housebuilders, Wimpeys housing was mixed in operationally with its construction business, volumes declined and, by the end of the 1980s, private housing sales were down to around 5,000 houses a year. Wimpey was once again selling 12,000 private houses a year, two more major housing acquisitions followed, both divisions of contractors seeking to focus on their core contracting business. In March 2007, the announced plans for a £6 billion nil premium merger with Taylor Woodrow. The merger was effected by means of a scheme of arrangement, Taylor Woodrow provided the new chairman and finance director, while the chief executive and the managing director came from Wimpey. When Mitchell took George Wimpey public in 1934, he set up a unique ownership scheme wherein the charitable Tudor Trust held about half of the firms shares, the Tudor Trust later diluted its stake to 5% from 34%, which was in itself steadily reduced over the years. Just before the Taylor Wimpey merger on 2 July 2007, the Tudor Trust no longer held a reportable interest in its own name in George Wimpey, advertising, featuring the famous Wimpey cat, ensured Wimpey Homes became a household name in house building. By 2002, there were four brands, Wimpey Homes, McLean Homes, McAlpine Homes, Laing Homes was retained due to its more upmarket status and its greater brand recognition
30.
Barratt Developments
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Barratt Developments plc is one of the largest residential property development companies in the United Kingdom operating a network of over 30 divisions. It was founded in 1958 as Greensitt Bros. but control was assumed by Sir Lawrie Barratt. It was originally based in Newcastle upon Tyne but is now located at David Wilsons former offices in Coalville and it has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1968 and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. In 1962, Lewis Greensitt and Lawrie Barratt acquired control of the Company, the Company was floated on the Stock Exchange in 1968 as Greensitt & Barratt by which time the growth plan had been fully achieved. Lewis Greensitt left shortly after the flotation and in 1963 the Company was renamed Barratt Developments. The 1970s saw Barratt making a series of acquisitions, transforming the Company from a local housebuilder to a national firm building around 10,000 houses a year, the largest of these acquisitions were the Manchester firm of Arthur Wardle and the Luton-based Janes. Central to Barratt’s expansion was its high-profile marketing, with advertising, featuring Patrick Allan. Barratt provided starter homes for the buyer and offered part-exchange to those trading up. In the year to June 1983, Barratt sold a record 16,500 houses making it by far the largest housebuilder in the country. In 1983 and 1984 Barratt was hit by two successive ITV World in Action programmes, the first criticising timber-framed housing and the latter, starter homes, within two years, unit sales had more than halved. Lawrie Barratt led a total restructuring of the Company, abandoning timber framed construction, launching a new product range, in the late 1980s, Margaret Thatcher famously purchased a house on one of Barratts most upmarket estates, in Dulwich, London. In 1991 the company was hit by a recession and recalled Lawrie Barratt from retirement, he retired for good in 1997. In 2004 the company sold Barratt American, its US operation and this brought the David Wilson, Ward Homes and Wilson Bowden Developments brands to the group. In 2008 the company secured a restructuring of its banking covenant package, the non-profit Barrett Residential Asset Management division was established in 2012 to provide property management services on Barratt London developments. David Thomas was appointed chief executive in succession to Mark Clare in 2015, in January 2016 the company has announced plans to open new sites and create over 1,400 new homes across Scotland. Barratt used to have an upmarket brand, KingsOak Homes. Barratt owns and operates Wilson Bowden Developments, which develops commercial property in the UK, among projects led by Wilson Bowden Developments is Optimus Point, a 74 acre greenfield site at Glenfield. The relaunch included a massive TV and newspaper advertising campaign, official website Barratt Developments companies grouped at OpenCorporates
31.
Victoria Cross
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The Victoria Cross is the highest award of the United Kingdom honours system. It is awarded for gallantry in the face of the enemy to members of the British armed forces and it was previously awarded to Commonwealth countries, most of which have established their own honours systems and no longer recommend British honours. It may be awarded to a person of any rank in any service. Since the first awards were presented by Queen Victoria in 1857 and these investitures are usually held at Buckingham Palace. The VC was introduced on 29 January 1856 by Queen Victoria to honour acts of valour during the Crimean War, since then, the medal has been awarded 1,358 times to 1,355 individual recipients. Only 15 medals,11 to members of the British Army, the traditional explanation of the source of the metal from which the medals are struck is that it derives from Russian cannon captured at the Siege of Sevastopol. Some research has suggested a variety of origins for the material, research has established that the metal for most of the medals made since December 1914 came from two Chinese cannons that were captured from the Russians in 1855. Owing to its rarity, the VC is highly prized and the medal has fetched over £400,000 at auction, a number of public and private collections are devoted to the Victoria Cross. The private collection of Lord Ashcroft, amassed since 1986, contains over one-tenth of all VCs awarded, following a 2008 donation to the Imperial War Museum, the Ashcroft collection went on public display alongside the museums Victoria and George Cross collection in November 2010. These are unique awards of honours system, recommended, assessed, gazetted and presented by each country. In 1854, after 39 years of peace, Britain found itself fighting a war against Russia. The Crimean War was one of the first wars with modern reporting, before the Crimean War, there was no official standardised system for recognition of gallantry within the British armed forces. This structure was limited, in practice awards of the Order of the Bath were confined to officers of field rank. Brevet promotions or Mentions in Despatches were largely confined to those who were under the notice of the commanders in the field. Other European countries had awards that did not discriminate against class or rank, France awarded the Légion dhonneur and The Netherlands gave the Order of William. There was a feeling among the public and in the Royal Court that a new award was needed to recognise incidents of gallantry that were unconnected with a mans lengthy or meritorious service. Queen Victoria issued a Warrant under the Royal sign-manual on 29 January 1856 that officially constituted the VC, the order was backdated to 1854 to recognise acts of valour during the Crimean War. Queen Victoria had instructed the War Office to strike a new medal that would not recognise birth or class, the medal was meant to be a simple decoration that would be highly prized and eagerly sought after by those in the military services
32.
Tasker Watkins
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Sir Tasker Watkins VC GBE PC QC DL was a Lord Justice of Appeal and deputy Lord Chief Justice. He was President of the Welsh Rugby Union from 1993 to 2004, in World War II, he was awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest British award for gallantry in the face of the enemy. A war hero who was prominent in the law and in Rugby Union, Watkins was born in the small town of Nelson, Glamorgan. He won a scholarship to Pontypridd Boys Grammar School, in 1931 he moved with his parents to Dagenham in east London. He attended school in Romford where he captained the cricket and football teams, after leaving school he worked for export agents and a halibut oil company and became a teacher in London. Following the outbreak of World War II, Watkins joined the British Army as a private in October 1939, after serving for a year as a private he was sent for officer training and was commissioned into the Welch Regiment on 17 May 1941 as second lieutenant. He was given the service number 187088, a lieutenant in the 1/5th Battalion, Welch Regiment, he was one officer in a group in Normandy after D-Day, leading an assault on a German Army machine gun post. He was the first Welsh member of the Army to be awarded a VC during the Second World War and his citation read, Wales rugby coach Graham Henry had Watkins citation pinned up on the wall of the Welsh changing room before Six Nations encounters. Watkins Victoria Cross is on display in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery in the Imperial War Museum, Watkins later achieved the rank of major, and on leaving the Army, studied law. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1948 and he became a Queens Counsel in 1965, and in 1966 served as Counsel to the Tribunal on the inquiry into the Aberfan disaster. Watkins served as deputy chairman of Radnorshire Quarter Sessions between 1962 and 1971, and of Carmarthenshire Quarter Sessions from 1966 until 1971 and he was Recorder of Merthyr Tydfil between 1968 and 1970 and of Swansea during 1970 and 1971. He was Leader of the Wales and Chester Circuit from 1970–71, in 1971, he was appointed to the High Court bench, where he sat in the Family Division between 1971 and 1974, and thereafter in the Queens Bench Division. He was a Presiding Judge of the Wales and Chester Circuit from 1975 until he was promoted to the Court of Appeal in 1980 and he became the first Senior Presiding Judge in 1983. Watkins was a chairman of the Mental Health Review Tribunal, Wales Region, Watkins played Rugby Union football as an outside-half for the Army, Cardiff RFC and Glamorgan Wanderers. He became president of the Welsh Rugby Union in 1993, overseeing the switch from the era to professionalism. He stepped down on 26 September 2004 as the first man since Sir David Rocyn Jones in 1953 to hold office for more than one season and his 11 years of service made him the second longest serving president in the WRUs 123-year history. Watkins was also chairman, President of Glamorgan Wanderers, and patron until his death, Watkins is now honoured by Glamorgan Wanderers as their First XV team shirt has the letters STW-VC in a green box on the right shoulder. The Wanderers also have a working model statue of Watkins in their club house donated by Llantwit Major based sculptor Roger Andrews and it stands in a corner that has been called Taskers Corner by members of the club
33.
S4C
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S4C is a Welsh-language public-service television channel based in Cardiff and broadcast throughout Wales. When digital television arrived several years later, S4C added a second, 100% Welsh-language service, S4C does not commission programming in English, but when English is used on the channel it is left untranslated. A high-definition service called S4C Clirlun, simulcasting S4Cs main channel, Channel 4 HD began broadcasting in Wales from 2 December 2012 in its place. In 1962 the ITV network had created an area for North and West Wales. This traded as Teledu Cymru and provided significant levels of Welsh-language programming, however, problems with transmission infrastructure and poor market research led to financial difficulties within two years and the station was taken over by its neighbour Television Wales and West. During the 1970s, Welsh-language activists had campaigned for a TV service in the language, both the Conservative and Labour parties promised a Welsh-language fourth channel, if elected to government in the 1979 general election. This led to acts of disobedience, including refusals to pay the television licence fee, thereby running the risk of prosecution or even a prison sentence. Some took more extreme measures, including attacking television transmitters in Welsh-speaking areas, the channel started broadcasting on 1 November 1982, the night before Channel 4s opening. S4C appointed its first female CEO, Iona Jones in 2005, S4Cs remit is to provide a service which features a wide range of programmes in the Welsh language. BBC Wales fulfils its public service requirement by producing programmes in Welsh, including Newyddion, S4Cs news bulletin, and an opera, Pobol y Cwm. It has also provided Welsh-language versions of English-language programmes, e. g, on the analogue service, S4C showed programmes produced for Channel 4 in the rest of the United Kingdom ― either simultaneously or time-shifted ― outside of peak hours. These programmes were provided to S4C by Channel 4, free of charge, to make content more accessible to English speakers, all Welsh-language programming carries English subtitles. Originally these were on Teletext page 888, with Welsh subtitles on page 889, TV films produced for S4C have received some good foreign reviews, Hedd Wyn was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Oscar in 1994 and Solomon & Gaenor was nominated in 2000. The S4C analogue signal also spilled over on to the east coast of the Republic of Ireland, in the past it was rebroadcast in a number of areas there on UHF terrestrial signals by so-called deflectors, however Channel 4 is now re-transmitted from satellite by the few remaining deflectors. Up until the 1990s, S4C was also carried by some Irish cable, the S4C signal also continues to overspill into the Republic of Ireland via the Freesat satellite service. Up until 2009, S4C ran its own service, Sbectel. According to S4Cs latest annual report,9.9 million people viewed the channel throughout the UK during 2015-2016, with 629,000 viewers throughout the UK in an average week. Following the switch-off of analogue terrestrial signals on 31 March 2010, Wales became the first fully digital region in the UK, with both S4C and Channel 4 now available to all homes
34.
Television
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Television or TV is a telecommunication medium used for transmitting moving images in monochrome, or in color, and in two or three dimensions and sound. The term can refer to a set, a television program. Television is a medium for entertainment, education, news, politics, gossip. Television became available in experimental forms in the late 1920s. After World War II, a form of black-and-white TV broadcasting became popular in the United States and Britain, and television sets became commonplace in homes, businesses. During the 1950s, television was the medium for influencing public opinion. In the mid-1960s, color broadcasting was introduced in the US, for many reasons, the storage of television and video programming now occurs on the cloud. At the end of the first decade of the 2000s, digital television transmissions greatly increased in popularity, another development was the move from standard-definition television to high-definition television, which provides a resolution that is substantially higher. HDTV may be transmitted in various formats, 1080p, 1080i, in 2013, 79% of the worlds households owned a television set. Most TV sets sold in the 2000s were flat-panel, mainly LEDs, major manufacturers announced the discontinuation of CRT, DLP, plasma, and even fluorescent-backlit LCDs by the mid-2010s. In the near future, LEDs are gradually expected to be replaced by OLEDs, also, major manufacturers have announced that they will increasingly produce smart TVs in the mid-2010s. Smart TVs with integrated Internet and Web 2.0 functions became the dominant form of television by the late 2010s, Television signals were initially distributed only as terrestrial television using high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the signal to individual television receivers. Alternatively television signals are distributed by cable or optical fiber, satellite systems and. Until the early 2000s, these were transmitted as analog signals, a standard television set is composed of multiple internal electronic circuits, including a tuner for receiving and decoding broadcast signals. A visual display device which lacks a tuner is correctly called a video monitor rather than a television, the word television comes from Ancient Greek τῆλε, meaning far, and Latin visio, meaning sight. The Anglicised version of the term is first attested in 1907 and it was. formed in English or borrowed from French télévision. In the 19th century and early 20th century, other. proposals for the name of a technology for sending pictures over distance were telephote. The abbreviation TV is from 1948, the use of the term to mean a television set dates from 1941
35.
National Eisteddfod of Wales
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The National Eisteddfod of Wales is the most important of several eisteddfodau that are held annually, mostly in Wales. Its eight days of competitions and performances are considered the largest music, competitors typically number 6,000 or more, and overall attendance generally exceeds 150,000 visitors. The National Eisteddfod is traditionally held in the first week of August, the venue is officially proclaimed a year in advance, at which time the themes and texts for the competitions are published. The organisation for the location will have begun a year or more earlier, the Eisteddfod Act of 1959 allowed local authorities to give financial support to the event. Occasionally the Eisteddfod has been held in England, this is noted in italics in the table of past locations. Hundreds of tents, pavilions and booths are erected in a space to create the maes. The space required for this means that it is rare for the Eisteddfod to be in a city or town, car parking for day visitors alone requires several large fields, and many people camp on the site for the whole week. However, the Gorsedd is not an ancient institution or a pagan ceremony but rather a romantic creation by Iolo Morganwg in the 1790s, nevertheless, it is taken very seriously, and an award of a crown or a chair for poetry is a great honour. The Chairing and Crowning ceremonies are the highlights of the week, other important awards include the Prose Medal. If no stone circle is already, one is created out of Gorsedd stones. These stone circles are all across Wales and signify the Eisteddfod having visited a community. As a cost-saving measure, the 2005 Eisteddfod was the first to use a temporary fibre-glass stone circle for the druidic ceremonies instead of a permanent stone circle. This also has the benefit of bringing the Gorsedd ceremonies onto the maes, previously they were held many miles away. The ceremonies may still be held if the weather at the maes is not considered suitable. As well as the pavilion with the main stage, there are other venues through the week. Some are fixtures every year, hosting gigs, some eisteddfod-goers never go near the main pavilion, but spend their time wandering the maes and meeting friends. Since 2004, alcohol has been sold on the maes, previously there was a no-alcohol policy, local theatres are likely to time Welsh-language productions for around the time of the Eisteddfod, hoping to benefit from the influx of visitors. One of the most dramatic events in Eisteddfod history was the award of the 1917 chair to the poet Ellis Humphrey Evans, bardic name Hedd Wyn, for the poem Yr Arwr
36.
HM Revenue and Customs
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HMRC was formed by the merger of the Inland Revenue and Her Majestys Customs and Excise which took effect on 18 April 2005. The departments logo is the St Edwards Crown enclosed within a circle, responsibility for the protection of the UKs borders passed to UK Visas and Immigration of the UK Border Agency within the Home Office on 1 April 2008 and then to UK Visas and Immigration in 2013. This includes all of the previous HMCE criminal work such as Tobacco Alcohol and they have aligned their previous Customs and Excise powers to tackle previous Inland Revenue criminal offences. They are responsible for seizing billions of pounds of HMGs revenue. Their skills and resources include the range of intrusive and covert surveillance. HMRC inland detection officers have wide-ranging powers of arrest, entry, search, the main power is to detain anyone who has committed, or whom the officer has reasonable grounds to suspect has committed, any offence under the Customs and Excise Acts. HMRC is also listed under parts of the British Government which contribute to intelligence collection, analysis and their prosecution cases may be coordinated with the Police or the Crown Prosecution Service. The department is organised around four groups, each led by a director general. The next 8,400 business are dealt with via Customer Co-ordinators who provide a point of contact with HMRC. The merger of the Inland Revenue and HM Customs & Excise was announced by then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown in the Budget on 17 March 2004, the name for the new department and its first executive chairman, David Varney, were announced on 9 May 2004. The Act also creates a Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office responsible for the prosecution of all Revenue, the old Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise departments had very different historical bases, internal cultures and legal powers. The merger was described by the Financial Times on 9 July 2004, legislation to introduce new information and inspection powers was included in Finance Act 2008. The new consolidated penalty regime was introduced via Finance Act 2007, in addition,2,500 staff would be redeployed to front-line activities. Estimates suggested this may save around £300 million in staff costs, in addition, certain investigatory functions moved to the new Serious Organised Crime Agency, as well as prosecutions moving to the new Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office. A further programme of job cuts and office closures was announced on 16 November 2006, whilst some of the offices closed will be in bigger cities where other offices already exist, many will be in local, rural areas, where there is no other HMRC presence. In May 2009, staff morale in HMRC was the lowest of 11 government departments surveyed. In 2013, HMRC began to introduce an update to the PAYE system, a trial of the new system began in April 2012, and all employers switched by October 2013. In 2012 Revenue Scotland was formed and on 1 April 2015 it took HMRC responsibility to collect Stamp Duty Land Tax, on 12 November 2015 HMRC proposed to close 137 local offices and replace them with 13 regional centres by 2027
37.
HM Government
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Her Majestys Government, commonly referred to as the UK government or British government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The government is led by the Prime Minister, who all the remaining ministers. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, the government ministers all sit in Parliament, and are accountable to it. After an election, the monarch selects as prime minister the leader of the party most likely to command a majority of MPs in the House of Commons. Under the uncodified British constitution, executive authority lies with the monarch, although this authority is exercised only by, or on the advice of, the prime minister, the Cabinet members advise the monarch as members of the Privy Council. They also exercise power directly as leaders of the Government Departments, the current prime minister is Theresa May, who took office on 13 July 2016. She is the leader of the Conservative Party, which won a majority of seats in the House of Commons in the election on 7 May 2015. Prior to this, Cameron and the Conservatives led a government from 2010 to 2015 with the Liberal Democrats. A key principle of the British Constitution is that the government is responsible to Parliament, Britain is a constitutional monarchy in which the reigning monarch does not make any open political decisions. All political decisions are taken by the government and Parliament and this constitutional state of affairs is the result of a long history of constraining and reducing the political power of the monarch, beginning with the Magna Carta in 1215. Parliament is split into two houses, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the House of Commons is the lower house and is the more powerful. The House of Lords is the house and although it can vote to amend proposed laws. Parliamentary time is essential for bills to be passed into law, Ministers of the Crown are responsible to the House in which they sit, they make statements in that House and take questions from members of that House. For most senior ministers this is usually the elected House of Commons rather than the House of Lords, since the start of Edward VIIs reign, in 1901, the prime minister has always been an elected member of Parliament and therefore directly accountable to the House of Commons. Under the British system the government is required by convention and for reasons to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons. It requires the support of the House of Commons for the maintenance of supply, by convention if a government loses the confidence of the House of Commons it must either resign or a General Election is held. The support of the Lords, while useful to the government in getting its legislation passed without delay, is not vital, a government is not required to resign even if it loses the confidence of the Lords and is defeated in key votes in that House. The House of Commons is thus the Responsible house, the prime minister is held to account during Prime Ministers Question Time which provides an opportunity for MPs from all parties to question the PM on any subject
38.
Marks and Spencer
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Marks and Spencer plc is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index and it specialises in the selling of clothing, home products and luxury food products. M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds, the company also began to sell branded goods like Kelloggs Corn Flakes in November 2008. In recent years its clothing sales have fallen whilst food sales have increased after the axing of St. Michaels naming for their own brand. The company was founded by a partnership between Michael Marks, a Polish Jew from Słonim, and Thomas Spencer, a cashier from the English market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. On his arrival in England, Marks worked for a company in Leeds, called Barran, in 1884 he met Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst while looking for work. Dewhirst lent Marks £5 which he used to establish his Penny Bazaar on Kirkgate Market, Dewhirst also taught him a little English. Dewhirsts cashier was Tom Spencer, a bookkeeper, whose wife, Agnes. In 1894, when Marks acquired a permanent stall in Leeds covered market, in 1901 Marks moved to the Birkenhead open market where he amalgamated with Spencer. The pair were allocated stall numbers 11 &12 in the aisle in 1903. The company left Birkenhead Market on 24 February 1923 and it also accepted the return of unwanted items, giving a full cash refund if the receipt was shown, no matter how long ago the product was purchased, which was unusual for the time. M&S staff raised £5,000 to pay for a Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft called The Marksman in 1941, by 1950, virtually all goods were sold under the St Michael label. M&S lingerie, womens clothes and girls uniform were branded under the St Margaret label until the whole range of general merchandise became St Michael. Simon Marks, son of Michael Marks, died in 1964, Israel Sieff, the son-in-law of Michael Marks, took over as chairman and in 1968, John Salisse became the company Director. A cautious international expansion began with the introduction of Asian food in 1974, M&S opened stores in continental Europe in 1975 and in Ireland four years later. The company put its emphasis on quality, including a 1957 stocking size measuring system. For most of its history, it also had a reputation for offering fair value for money, when this reputation began to waver, it encountered serious difficulties. Arguably, M&S has historically been an iconic retailer of British Quality Goods, the uncompromising attitude towards customer relations was summarised by the 1953 slogan, The customer is always and completely right
39.
Boots Group
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Boots UK Limited, trading as Boots, is a pharmacy chain in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with outlets in most high streets, shopping centres and airport terminals. The companys former parent, The Boots Company Plc, merged with Alliance UniChem in 2006 to form Alliance Boots, in 2012, Walgreens bought a 45% stake Alliance Boots, with the option to buy the rest within three years. It exercised this option in 2014, and as a result Boots became a subsidiary of the new company, Walgreens Boots Alliance, the company operates over 2,500 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland ranging from local pharmacies to large health and beauty stores. Their stores are located on the high streets and in shopping centres. It sells many health and beauty products, and also provides optician and hearing care services within stores, Boots also operates a retail website and runs a loyalty card programme branded as the Boots Advantage Card. Boots was established in 1849, by John Boot, in 1920, Jesse Boot sold the company to the American United Drug Company. However, because of deteriorating economic circumstances in North America Boots was sold back into British hands in 1933, the grandson of the founder, John Boot, who inherited the title Baron Trent from his father, headed the company. The Boots Pure Drug Company name was changed to The Boots Company Limited in 1971, Boots diversified into the research and manufacturing of drugs with its development of the Ibuprofen painkiller during the 1960s, invented by Stewart Adams. The company was awarded the Queens Award For Technical Achievement for this in 1987, a major research focus of Boots in the 1980s was the drug for congestive heart failure Manoplax. In 2006, it sold the Nurofen brand to Reckitt Benckiser, the 2006 sale of Boots Healthcare International included everything made by Crookes Healthcare, based on the Nottingham site. In 1968 Boots acquired the 622-strong Timothy Whites and Taylors Ltd chain, Boots expanded into Canada by purchasing the Tamblyn Drugs chain circa 1978. Most Canadian Boots stores were converted to Pharma Plus in 1989, although a handful of locations remained as late as 1993, in 1982, the company opened a new manufacturing plant in Cramlington, Northumberland. In the early 1990s, Boots began to diversify and bought Halfords and it also developed the Childrens World business but sold it in 1996 to Mothercare. Boots Opticians Ltd. was formed in 1987 with the acquisition of Clement Clarke Ltd. and Curry, Boots Opticians became the UKs second largest retail optics chain. Boots diversified into dentistry in 1998, with a number of stores offering this service, Boots sold its Do-It-All home furnishings chain to Focus in 1998. com to wellbeing. com In late 2004, Boots sold its laser eye surgery business to Optical Express. In October 2005, a merger with Alliance UniChem was announced by the then chairman, the CEO Richard Baker left, and the new group became Alliance Boots plc. The merger became effective on 31 July 2006 and this was the first ever instance of a FTSE100 company having been bought by a private equity firm. In June 2008, the headquarters were moved to Zug
40.
Laura Ashley plc
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Laura Ashley plc is a Welsh textile design company now controlled by the MUI Group of Malaysia. It was founded by Bernard Ashley, an engineer, and his wife Laura Ashley in 1953 then grew over the next 20 years to become a retail chain. Sales totalled over £276 million in 2000 and its products can be described as quintessentially English. After World War II, Bernard Ashley met Welsh secretary Laura Mountney at a club in Wallington, London. Lauras inspiration to start producing printed fabric came from a Womens Institute display of traditional handicrafts at the Victoria & Albert Museum, when Laura looked for small patches carrying Victorian designs to help her make patchworks, she found no such thing existed. Here was an opportunity, and she started to print Victorian style headscarves in 1953, audrey Hepburn inadvertently sparked the growth of one of the worlds most successful fashion and home furnishing companies. Hepburn appeared alongside Gregory Peck in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, as such a fashion icon, she instantly created a style that became popular around the globe. The Ashleys scarves quickly became successful with stores, retailing both via mail order and high street chains such as John Lewis, from 1953, Bernard left his city job and the couple began to expand the company, named Bernard Ashley Fabrics. Laura designed the prints and Bernard built the equipment, so forging a complementary partnership that was to give the company its unique strength throughout the years. Laura remained in charge of design until shortly before her death, employing staff to cope with the growth of sales, the company name was changed to Laura Ashley because Bernard felt a womans name was more appropriate for the type of products. The new company moved to Kent in 1955, but the business was nearly wiped out in 1958, when the River Darent overflowed – leaving equipment, dyes, turnover rose from £2,000 to £8,000 in 1960, which left them looking for new premises. The family moved to Wales in 1961, just after the birth of their third child, the first shop opened at 35 Maengwyn Street, which still today trades as an interior design shop, and the Laura Ashley association is commemorated by a small plaque. The family lived above the shop for 6 years before moving to Carno, the Ashleys first Welsh factory was originally located in the social club in Carno, in 1967 the factory moved across to the villages former railway station. These were crucial times in the development of the company, Bernard had developed his flat-bed printing process to produce 5,000 metres of fabric per week, and in 1966 Laura produced her first dress for social rather than work attire. The long length silhouette became the Laura Ashley trademark, the first shop under the Laura Ashley name opened in Pelham Street, South Kensington, in 1968, with additional shops opened in Shrewsbury and Bath in 1970. In one week alone, Londons Fulham Road shop sold 4,000 dresses – which resulted in the new factory in Newtown, a licensing operation led to the opening of department store concessions in Australia, Canada, and Japan from 1971 onwards. By 1975, turnover was £5million per year and the company employed 1,000 people worldwide, Laura turned down the offer of an OBE but a Queens Award for Export was accepted in 1977. Turnover reached £25 million in 1979, and a range of perfume was launched, the addition of a home in France enabled Laura to go back to her roots of fabric design, and the company launched its home furnishings collections
41.
HomeSense
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HomeSense is a chain of off-price home furnishing stores operated by TJX Companies with stores in Canada and Europe. As of 2014, HomeSense operates over 100 stores including its Mega-stores which include full Winners, the Canadian chain is similar to TJXs HomeGoods chain in the United States. HomeSense operates along with Winners in Canada both of which share common ownership with TJX Companies, homesense specializes in home furnishings, selling products that range from low end to name brand. Prices tend to be competitive to account for defects or discontinued lines however they also carry products that are in excellent condition. Some of their items can also be found in department stores. In April 2008, TJX launched the HomeSense brand in the United Kingdom, by the end of 2009 HomeSense are operating 14 stores and have opened an additional 6 stores between August and November in Worcester, Birmingham, Preston, Romford, Staples Corner and Nottingham. HomeSense have plans for approx 150 stores in the UK & Ireland over the next 5–7 years, in 2010 HomeSense plans to open stores in Reading, Chichester, Tunbridge Wells, and Chester. The HomeSense flagship store is located in Westfield Merry Hill, Dudley, England, throughout April and May 2009, the original launch stores received minor refurbishments to bring design and decoration into line with newer stores. This coincided with a relaunch of the website, and the adoption of a new slogan. Prior to this, the slogan was Unique Finds, Irresistible Prices, the results of a customer survey completed in 2009 showed a 100% recommendation rate from customers, something which had been targeted prior to the brands launch. Staff aprons, the most distinctive part of the uniform, partially change on a seasonal basis, as part of TJX Europes Real Responsibility initiative, HomeSense has partnered with the homeless charity Emmaus. As well as donating unsold stock, the company has started selling jute bags for £1.99, in 2009, the company also started selling Fairtrade cotton bags for 99p. The company does not give out any bags free in order to reduce its environmental footprint, plastic bags come in 3 sizes and customers are charged 10p for the medium and large sized bags and 15p for the extra large. The revenue gained is used to cover the cost of manufacturing the bags with any remaining sum donated to The Woodland Trust, by the end of the financial year 2009/10 HomeSense estimates it will have sales of £270m, a 40% increase on the previous year. By the end of fiscal year 14 they expect to be one of the largest home, TJX Companies T. J. Maxx HomeGoods Winners HomeSense Canada Official Website HomeSense Europe Official Website TJX Companies Official Website
42.
National Coal Board
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The National Coal Board was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdoms collieries on vesting day,1 January 1947, in 1987 the NCB was renamed the British Coal Corporation, and its assets were subsequently privatised. Collieries were taken under government control during the First and Second World Wars, the Sankey Commission in 1919 gave R. H. Tawney, Sidney Webb and Sir Leo Chiozza Money the opportunity to advocate nationalisation, but it was rejected. Coal reserves were nationalised during the war in 1942 and placed under the control of the Coal Commission, at the time, many coal companies were small, although some consolidation had taken place in the years before the war. The NCB was one of a number of public corporations created by Clement Attlees post-war Labour government to manage nationalised industries, the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act received the Royal Assent on 12 July 1946 and the NCB was formally constituted on 15 July, with Lord Hyndley as its chairman. On 1 January 1947 a notice posted at every colliery in the country read, open cast operations were taken over on 1 April 1952. The NCB acquired 958 collieries, the property of about 800 companies. Compensation of £164,660,000 was paid to the owners for the collieries and £78,457,000 to former owners, the board also took over power stations at some collieries and railway sidings. It managed an estate of more than 140,000 houses, at its inception the NCB employed nearly 800,000 workers which was four percent of Britains total workforce. Its national headquarters were established in Hobart House, London, the collieries it had acquired varied considerably in size and output. Coal was mined from seams that varied from 20 to 200 inches thick, more than a third of collieries produced less than 100,000 tons and 50 collieries produced more than 700,000 tons. The coal board divided the country into divisions corresponding to the major coalfields, in 1947 about half the collieries were in need of immediate attention and a development programme was begun. The Plan for Coal produced in 1950 aimed at increasing output from 184 million to 250 million tons by 1970, competition from cheap oil imports arrived in the late 1950s and from 1957 the coal industry began to contract. Colliery closures between 1958 and 1959 numbered 85, from 700,000 men producing 207 million tons of coal in 1956, output was 133 million tons produced by fewer than 290,000 workers at 292 collieries in 1971. As competition from oil increased, the government stopped subsidising the industry in the mid-1960s, when Alf Robens became chairman in 1960, he determined that the NCBs output would be from the best and most productive pits. During his ten-year tenure productivity increased by 70 percent but with far fewer pits, in 1967 the NCB reorganised its structure into 17 new areas each employing about 20,000 men and planned to operate 310 collieries in 1971. By 1983 the NCB would invest £3,000 million on developing new collieries, the strike was one of the longest and most bitter in history and cost more than £7 billion of tax-payers money. During the strike the NCB lost markets and 23 collieries had closed before the end of 1985, on 5 March 1987 the Coal Industry Act 1987 received Royal Assent signalling the end of the NCB and the formation of its successor, the British Coal Corporation
43.
Higher Education Funding Council for Wales
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The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales is the Welsh Government Sponsored Body responsible for funding the higher education sector. HEFCW distributes funds for education, research and related activities at Waless higher education institutions and it also funds higher education courses at further education colleges. These activities contribute to enhancing social justice and supporting a buoyant economy, HEFCW has identified the following in its Corporate Strategy as the areas on which it will primarily work, Widening access, ensuring equity, opportunity and success in higher education. Student experience, ensuring that the student learning experience is of high quality, skills, ensuring that all graduates are equipped for the world of work and for their role as citizens. Knowledge transfer, ensuring more productive relationships between higher education institutions and public/private sectors, local communities and other agencies, research, ensuring improved research performance to underpin the knowledge economy and cultural and social renewal. Governance, delivering continual improvement in the quality of governance and long term sustainability of the education system. The Higher Education Funding Council for Wales was established in May 1992 under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, HEFCWs responsibilities for initial teacher training, including the accreditation of ITT providers, are covered under the Education Regulations 2004 and the Education Act 2005. As a Welsh Government Sponsored Body, HEFCW receives its funds from, and is accountable to, at the same time, HEFCW provides advice to the Welsh Government on the funding needs, aspirations and concerns of the higher education sector. HEFCW also promotes Welsh interests in the wider UK higher education arena, around 45 members of staff work for HEFCWs Executive, which is based in Bedwas, Caerphilly County Wales. HEFCW is governed by a Council of up to 12 members, including the Chairman, Mr David Allen, and the Chief Executive, Dr David Blaney
