1.
Greater London
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London, or Greater London, is a region of England which forms the administrative boundaries of London. It is organised into 33 local government districts, the 32 London boroughs, the Greater London Authority, based in Southwark, is responsible for strategic local government across the region and consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The county of Greater London was created on 1 April 1965 through the London Government Act 1963, administratively, Greater London was first established as a sui generis council area under the Greater London Council between 1963 and 1986. The area was re-established as a region in 1994, and the Greater London Authority formed in 2000, the region covers 1,572 km2 and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census. In 2012, it had the highest GVA per capita in the United Kingdom at £37,232, the Greater London Built-up Area—used in some national statistics—is a measure of the continuous urban area of London, and therefore includes areas outside of the administrative region. The term Greater London has been and still is used to different areas in governance, statistics, history. In terms of ceremonial counties, London is divided into the small City of London, outside the limited boundaries of the City, a variety of arrangements has governed the wider area since 1855, culminating in the creation of the Greater London administrative area in 1965. The Greater London Arterial Road Programme was devised between 1913 and 1916, one of the larger early forms was the Greater London Planning Region, devised in 1927, which occupied 1,856 square miles and included 9 million people. The LCC pressed for an alteration in its boundaries soon after the end of the First World War, noting that within the Metropolitan, a Royal Commission on London Government was set up to consider the issue. The LCC proposed a vast new area for Greater London, with a boundary somewhere between the Metropolitan Police District and the home counties, protests were made at the possibility of including Windsor, Slough and Eton in the authority. The Commission made its report in 1923, rejecting the LCCs scheme, two minority reports favoured change beyond the amalgamation of smaller urban districts, including both smaller borough councils and a central authority for strategic functions. The London Traffic Act 1924 was a result of the Commission, Greater London originally had a two-tier system of local government, with the Greater London Council sharing power with the City of London Corporation and the 32 London Borough councils. The GLC was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985 and its functions were devolved to the City Corporation and the London Boroughs, with some functions transferred to central government and joint boards. Greater London was used to form the London region of England in 1994, a referendum held in 1998 established a public will to recreate an upper tier of government to cover the region. The Greater London Authority, London Assembly and the directly elected Mayor of London were created in 2000 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999, in 2000, the outer boundary of the Metropolitan Police District was re-aligned to the Greater London boundary. The 2000 and 2004 mayoral elections were won by Ken Livingstone, the 2008 and 2012 elections were won by Boris Johnson. The 2016 election was won by Sadiq Khan, Greater London continues to include the most closely associated parts of the Greater London Urban Area and their historic buffers. Thus it includes, in five boroughs, significant parts of the Metropolitan Green Belt which protects designated greenfield land in a way to the citys parks
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Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide
3.
Districts of England
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The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of government in England is not uniform. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs, these are purely honorific titles, prior to the establishment of districts in the 1890s, the basic unit of local government in England was the parish overseen by the parish church vestry committee. Vestries dealt with the administraction of both parochial and secular governmental matters, parishes were the successors of the manorial system and historically had been grouped into hundreds. Hundreds once exercised some supervising administrative function, however, these powers ebbed away as more and more civic and judicial powers were centred on county towns. From 1834 these parishes were grouped into Poor Law Unions, creating areas for administration of the Poor Law and these areas were later used for census registration and as the basis for sanitary provision. In 1894, based on these earlier subdivisions, the Local Government Act 1894 created urban districts and rural districts as sub-divisions of administrative counties, another reform in 1900 created 28 metropolitan boroughs as sub-divisions of the County of London. Meanwhile, from this date parish-level local government administration was transferred to civil parishes, the setting-down of the current structure of districts in England began in 1965, when Greater London and its 32 London boroughs were created. They are the oldest type of still in use. In 1974, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties were created across the rest of England and were split into metropolitan districts, in London power is now shared again, albeit on a different basis, with the Greater London Authority. During the 1990s a further kind of district was created, the unitary authority, metropolitan boroughs are a subdivision of a metropolitan county. These are similar to unitary authorities, as the county councils were abolished in 1986. Most of the powers of the county councils were devolved to the districts but some services are run by joint boards, the districts typically have populations of 174,000 to 1.1 million. Non-metropolitan districts are second-tier authorities, which share power with county councils and they are subdivisions of shire counties and the most common type of district. These districts typically have populations of 25,000 to 200,000, the number of non-metropolitan districts has varied over time. Initially there were 296, after the creation of unitary authorities in the 1990s and late 2000s and these are single-tier districts which are responsible for running all local services in their areas, combining both county and district functions. They were created in the out of non-metropolitan districts, and often cover large towns. In addition, some of the smaller such as Rutland, Herefordshire
4.
Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames
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The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames is a borough in southwest London, England. The main town is Kingston upon Thames and it includes Surbiton, Chessington, New Malden, Tolworth and it is the oldest of the four Royal Boroughs in England. The others are Kensington and Chelsea and Greenwich also in London, the local authority is Kingston upon Thames London Borough Council. Many Roman relics have been found in the surrounding areas, a church has stood on the site of All Saints Church, in the centre of Kingston, for more than a thousand years. An earlier church was sacked by the Vikings in 1009 AD, a coin from the reign of each of those kings is set into the base of the stone. The borough was formed in 1965 by the merger and the transfer from Surrey to Greater London of the Municipal boroughs of Kingston-upon-Thames, Malden and Coombe, the current name of the borough omits hyphens to distinguish it from the similarly named former municipal borough. The borough includes the whole of the Kingston and Surbiton Westminster Parliamentary Constituency and part of the Richmond Park Constituency, the previous constituencies re-arranged to form these two had been essentially Conservative. In 1997 the Liberal Democrats won both seats, goldsmith retained his seat at the 2015 general election, with a greatly increased majority of 23,015. Edward Davey overturned the previous Conservative majority of more than 10,000 in Kingston and Surbiton and he retained the seat in 2001 with a majority of 15,676 over the Conservative candidate David Shaw. In 2005 Daveys majority was 8,961 and in the May 2010 general election he retained the seat with a slightly reduced majority. In the 2015 general election, Daveys seat was taken by Conservative James Berry with a majority of 2,834, Daveys was one of six Liberal Democrat losses in London and 49 overall as the party suffered its worst election results since its formation in 1988. The Borough Council was controlled by the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1986 and it lost several by-elections due to its attempt to abolish the Boroughs grammar school system. The Conservatives regained control in 1987, the 1990 election gave no party a majority but the Conservatives kept power with the casting vote of the Mayor. In 1994 the Liberal Democrats took the Council for the first time, in 1998 the Liberal Democrats lost their majority on the Council and a minority Conservative Party administration was formed. This minority administration was weakened in 1999 by the expulsion of Tim Brown for expressing concerns about the leadership of the local Kingston & Surbiton Conservative Association, marks ward Councillors Dennis de Lord and Jan Jenner resigned in protest at hypocrisy within the Conservative group on the Council. With Tim Brown they formed a new Independent Group of Councillors with Dennis de Lord as leader and Tim Brown as deputy leader, to put People Before Politics. This was the first time that four parties were represented on the council, the group did not stand for re-election following the continuing ill-health of Dennis de Lord. At the 2002 elections, the Liberal Democrats took control of the Council with a majority of twelve seats and this was the first time any party had retained control of the Council since 1986
5.
London Borough of Merton
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The London Borough of Merton /ˈmɜːrtən/ is a borough in south-west London, England. The main commercial centres in Merton are Mitcham, Morden and Wimbledon, other smaller centres include Raynes Park, Colliers Wood, South Wimbledon, Wimbledon Park and Pollards Hill. The borough is the host of the Wimbledon tournament, one of tenniss Grand Slam competitions, the borough derives its name from the historic parish of Merton which was centred on the area now known as South Wimbledon. Merton was chosen as a compromise, following a dispute between Wimbledon and Mitcham over the new boroughs name. The local authority is Merton London Borough Council, Colliers Wood Lower Morden Merton Park Mitcham Mitcham Common Morden Morden Park Motspur Park New Malden Norbury Pollards Hill Raynes Park St. This followed four years as a minority administration, at the same time, it elects a deputy mayor to serve alongside the mayor. Since 1978, each Mayor must also be an elected councillor, a lot of filming for former ITV police drama The Bill took place in Merton, particularly in the districts of Mitcham and Colliers Wood. The set of Sun Hill police station was located in the Borough. The main local newspaper in Merton is the Wimbledon Guardian with two editions, Wimbledon along with Mitcham and Morden, the main difference between the papers is the front page. The Wimbledon Post is another newspaper published weekly. Both newspapers are available free, though there is a charge if bought from a newsagent, Square Enix Europe has its head office in Wimbledon Bridge House in Wimbledon. Eidos Interactive, a subsidiary of Square Enix, also shares the same head office, Merton is served by a wide range of National Rail stations across the borough, as well as the southern tip of London Undergrounds Northern line and the District line on the Wimbledon branch. The borough is served by several London Tramlink stops from Wimbledon. In 2001, the census recorded that 25% of the population of the borough was from an ethnic minority, the highest ethnic populations were recorded in wards in the east of the borough. The percentage of population from ethnic minorities is predicted to rise across the borough within the next decade, the most affluent wards were in the north and west of the borough. Comparative crime rates appear to be unrelated to the ranking of wards. Merton currently operates a Police Cadet scheme under the Metropolitan Police Service, the borough gained a football team in 1889 when Wimbledon Old Centrals were founded, and were soon a member of the local football leagues. The club later adopted the title Wimbledon FC and moved into a new stadium at Plough Lane in 1912, as the 20th century wore on, the club enjoyed considerable success in non league football
6.
Ceremonial counties of England
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk
7.
Regions of England
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The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards
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Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
9.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
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United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
11.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code. All mobile telephone numbers have 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code, regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long, the total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits. The area code is referred to as an STD or a dialling code in the UK. The code allocated to the largest population is for London, the code allocated to the largest area is for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—even though they are not part of the UK itself. Possible number formats for UK telephone numbers are as follows, Number ranges starting 01 can have NSN length as 10 or 9 digits, the 0800 range can have NSN length as 10,9 or 7 digits. The 0845 range can have NSN length as 10 or 7 digits, the 0500 range has NSN length as 9 digits only. There are no numbers in the UK with an NSN length of 8 digits. Geographic telephone numbers in the UK always have nine or ten digits, four-digit area codes have either six-digit subscriber numbers or a mix of five- and six-digit subscriber numbers. Xxxxxx This is the used by most areas. It has an area code and a six digit subscriber number. These area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995. Just short of 581 areas use this format, and the area range from 01200 to 01998. A small number of areas also have a few subscriber numbers that have only five digits. That is, almost all area codes now have only six digit local numbers, six of the four-digit area codes are known as mixed areas as they share those four digits with the twelve five-digit area codes. The numbers therefore have only nine digits after the initial zero trunk code and these area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the initial zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995
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Metropolitan Police Service
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As of March 2016, the Met employed 48,661 full-time personnel. This included 32,125 sworn police officers,9,521 police staff and this number excludes the 3,271 Special Constables, who work part-time and who have the same powers and uniform as their regular colleagues. This makes the Metropolitan Police the largest police force in the United Kingdom by a significant margin, the post of Commissioner was first held jointly by Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne. The post is occupied by the now-outgoing Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. The Commissioners deputy, the Deputy Commissioner, is currently Craig Mackey, a number of informal names and abbreviations exists for the Metropolitan Police Service, the most common being the Met. In colloquial London, it is referred to as the Old Bill. The Met is also referred to by the metonym Scotland Yard after the location of its headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The Mets current headquarters is New Scotland Yard, in Victoria, the Metropolitan Police Service, whose officers became affectionately known as bobbies, was founded in 1829 by Robert Peel under the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. In 1839, the Marine Police Force, which had formed in 1798, was amalgamated into the Metropolitan Police. In 1837, it also incorporated with the Bow Street Horse Patrol that had organised in 1805. Since January 2012, the Mayor of London is responsible for the governance of the Metropolitan Police through the Mayors Office for Policing, the mayor is able to appoint someone to act on his behalf, the current office-holder is Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden. The work of MOPAC is scrutinised by the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly, the area policed by the Metropolitan Police Service is known as the Metropolitan Police District. In terms of policing, the Met is divided into a number of Borough Operational Command Units. The City of London is a police area and is the responsibility of the separate City of London Police. The British Transport Police are responsible for policing of the network in the United Kingdom. Within London, they are responsible for the policing of the London Underground, Tramlink, The Emirates Air Line. There is also a park police force, the Kew Constabulary, responsible for the Royal Botanic Gardens. Officers also have limited powers in Scotland and Northern Ireland, within the MPD, the Met will take over the investigation of any serious crime from the British Transport Police and Ministry of Defence Police, if it is deemed appropriate
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Fire services in the United Kingdom
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The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They are distinct from and governed by an authority, which is the legislative, public and administrative body. Fire authorities in England and Wales, and therefore fire and rescue services, Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire and rescue services, and so their authorities are effectively committees of the devolved parliaments. The total budget for services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. The devolved government in Scotland has an agency, HMFSI Scotland. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain,1947, Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed entirely in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire,1959, Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act, it dealt with pensions, staffing arrangements and provision of services by other authorities. It was repealed in England and Wales along with the 1947 Act,1999, Greater London Authority Act 1999 This act was necessary to allow for the formation of the Greater London Authority and in turn the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2002, there was a series of fire strikes. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the action still ongoing. Bains report ultimately led to a change in the relating to firefighting. 2002, Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, generally only applying to England and it came into force on 1 October 2006. The DfCLG has published a set of guides for non-domestic premises,2006, The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave the National Assembly for Wales powers to pass laws on Fire, promotion of fire safety otherwise than by prohibition or regulation. But does not prevent future legislation being passed by the UK government which applies to two or more constituent countries, There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. The fire service in England and Wales is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee, in June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office, Fire Control On 8 February 2010 the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee heard evidence on the Fire Control project. Called to give evidence were Cllr Brian Coleman and Cllr James Pearson from the Local Government Association, also giving evidence Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union and John Bonney Chief Fire Officers Association
15.
London Fire Brigade
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The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London. It was formed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act of 1865 under the leadership of superintendent Eyre Massey Shaw. Dany Cotton is the Commissioner for Fire and Emergency Planning, which includes the position of Chief Fire Officer, statutory responsibility for the running of the brigade lies with the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2013/14 the LFB handled 171,067999 emergency calls, of the calls it actually mobilised to,20,934 were fires, including 10,992 that were of a serious nature, making it one of the busiest fire brigades in the world. In the same 12-month period, it received 3,172 hoax calls, the highest number of any UK fire service, in 2015/16 the LFB received 171,488 emergency calls. These consisted of,20,773 fires,30,066 special service callouts and it also conducts emergency planning and performs fire safety inspections and education. He introduced a uniform that, for the first time, included personal protection from the hazards of firefighting. With 80 firefighters and 13 fire stations, the unit was still a private enterprise, funded by the insurance companies, in 1904 it was renamed as the London Fire Brigade. The LFB moved into a new headquarters built by Higgs and Hill on the Albert Embankment in Lambeth in 1937, during the Second World War the countrys brigades were amalgamated into a single National Fire Service. The separate London Fire Brigade for the County of London was re-established in 1948, in 1986 the Greater London Council was disbanded and a new statutory authority, the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority, was formed to take responsibility for the LFB. The LFCDA was replaced in 2000 by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, at the same time, the Greater London Authority was established to administer the LFEPA and coordinate emergency planning for London. Consisting of the Mayor of London and other elected members, the GLA also takes responsibility for the Metropolitan Police Authority, Transport for London, in 2007 the LFB vacated its Lambeth headquarters and moved to a site in Union Street, Southwark. In the same year, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced that LFB Commissioner Ken Knight had been appointed as the first Chief Fire, Knight was succeeded as Commissioner at that time by Ron Dobson, who served for almost ten years. Dany Cotton took over in 2017, becoming the brigades first female commissioner, dany Cotton is the current commissioner, having taken up the role on 1 January 2017. She holds the Queens Fire Service Medal, frank Jackson, CBE1938 to 1941, Cdr. Sir Aylmer Firebrace, CBE1933 to 1938, Maj. Cyril Morris 1918 to 1933, Arthur Reginald Dyer 1909 to 1918, sir Sampson Sladen 1903 to 1909, RAdm. James de Courcy Hamilton 1896 to 1903, Capt, lionel de Latour Wells 1891 to 1896, James Sexton Simmonds 1861 to 1891, Capt. Both divisions were divided into three districts, each under a Superintendent with his headquarters at a superintendent station, the superintendent stations themselves were commanded by District Officers, with the other stations under Station Officers
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Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland. The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are also a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles. There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have also provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are also monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
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London Ambulance Service
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It is one of the busiest ambulance services in the world, and the busiest in the United Kingdom, providing care to more than 8.6 million people, who live and work in London. The service is currently under the leadership of chief executive Dr Fionna Moore MBE, the service employ around 4,500 staff. In exceptional cases, or where the service deems in necessary, specialist teams can be deployed from within the service, such as the Hazardous Area Response Team and these teams are specially trained and equipped to deal with incidents such as working at height or in confined spaces. It is one of 10 ambulance trusts in England providing emergency medical services, there is no charge to patients for use of the service, as every person in England has the right to the attendance of an ambulance in an emergency. The LAS responded to over 1.8 million calls for assistance, incidents rose by 20,000 in 2015/16, putting more pressure on the service. All 999 calls from the public are answered at the Emergency Operations Centre in Waterloo, to assist, the services command and control system is linked electronically with the equivalent system for Londons Metropolitan Police. This means that police updates regarding specific jobs will be updated directly on the computer-aided dispatch log, to be viewed by the EOC, the first became operational at The South Eastern Fever Hospital, Deptford, in October 1883. In all, six hospitals operated horse-drawn land ambulances, putting almost the whole of London within three miles of one of them, each ambulance station included accommodation for a married superintendent and around 20 drivers, horse keepers and attendants, nurses, laundry staff and domestic cleaners. At Deptford, in order to transfer patients between the hospitals at Joyce Green and Long Reach near Gravesend, a horse-drawn ambulance tramway was constructed in 1897, in 1902, the MAB introduced a steam driven ambulance and in 1904, their first motor ambulance. The last horse-drawn ambulances were used on 14 September 1912, although the MAB was legally supposed to be transporting only infectious patients, it increasingly also carried accident victims and emergency medical cases. Also in 1915, the MAB Ambulance Section were the first public body to women drivers. By July 1916 the London County Council Ambulance Corps was staffed entirely by women, the LCC also took control of the River Ambulance Service, but it was disbanded in 1932. During World War II, the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service was operated by over 10,000 auxiliaries, mainly women and they ran services from 139 Auxiliary Stations across London. A plaque at one of the last to close, Station 39 in Weymouth Mews, near Portland Place, in 1948 the National Health Service Act made it a requirement for ambulances to be available for anyone who needed them. On 1 April 1996, the LAS left the control of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority, as an NHS Trust, the LAS has a Trust Board consisting of 12 members. The board includes, a chairman, five of the Service’s executive directors. Special events in London are co-ordinated from the Services event control room, also located in east London, during mass casualty incidents, the command structure works on three levels, gold, silver and bronze. Silver control, tactical command, from a point in the vicinity of the incident, Bronze control
18.
London (European Parliament constituency)
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London is a constituency of the European Parliament. It currently elects 8 MEPs using the method of party-list proportional representation. The constituency corresponds to the Greater London region of England, in the south east of the United Kingdom, prior to 1999, London was represented by a number of single-member constituencies. The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 reduced this to a constituency returning a number of MEPs. Below are all the members since the creation of the London constituency, the number of seats allocated to London has been reduced from 10 to 8 between 1999 and 2009 due to EU enlargement. Members elected in 1999 who previously represented a London constituency were Pauline Green, elected candidates are shown in bold. Brackets indicate the number of votes per seat won, the 2014 results were delayed by Tower Hamlets, where there were recounts needed for six local election wards
19.
Kingston and Surbiton (UK Parliament constituency)
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Kingston and Surbiton /ˈkɪŋstᵿn ənd ˈsɜːr. bᵻˌtᵿn/ is a constituency created in 1997 represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by James Berry of the Conservatives. The constituency covers most of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, covering the town of Surbiton, Chessington, New Malden, Tolworth, the remainder of the borough, a northern part of Kingston, has remained since 1997 in the Richmond Park seat. It had been partly in Richmond Park until 2002 local elections, the associated public consultation received 11 submissions, of which 10 in support. The revisions came into effect at the 2010 general election, the constituency was created in 1997, when the number of seats covering the boroughs of Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames was reduced from four to three. It replaced the former Surbiton constituency completely and also covers the south of the former Kingston constituency, instead, the incumbent Surbiton MP Richard Tracey was selected, while Lamont unsuccessfully contested Harrogate and Knaresborough in North Yorkshire. In the event, Tracey was defeated by the Liberal Democrat candidate Edward Davey by the narrow margin of 56 votes. Davey held on to the seat until the election of 2015. The 2015 result gave the seat the 26th most marginal majority of the Conservative Partys 331 seats by percentage of majority, being majority middle-class suburbia, Kingston and Surbiton were during most of the 20th century strongholds for the Conservatives, with Norbiton being the sole Labour-majority ward. In local government since the seats creation wards have frequently been won by the Liberal Democrats, list of Parliamentary constituencies in Greater London Notes References Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames Kingston and Surbiton MP - Edward Davey TheyWorkForYou. com
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Richmond Park (UK Parliament constituency)
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Richmond Park is a parliamentary constituency which has been represented in the House of Commons by Sarah Olney of the Liberal Democrats since a December 2016 by-election. Richmond Park constituency was created in 1997 from Richmond and Barnes, jeremy Hanley, MP for Richmond and Barnes, was selected as the Conservative candidate for the seats first election but lost to Jenny Tonge. The seat was held by the Liberal Democrats until 2010, when it was gained by Zac Goldsmith, on 25 October 2016, Zac Goldsmith announced his resignation as the seats MP in protest against the Conservative governments decision to allow a third runway to be built at Heathrow Airport. This was the first by-election in the constituency since its creation in 1997, Richmond Park constituency stretches from Barnes in the north to Kingston upon Thames in the south, and includes the whole of East Sheen, Mortlake, Kew, Richmond, Petersham and Ham. The boundaries also include the Royal Park itself, from Kingston Railway Bridge, the boundary follows the middle of the River Thames north to Hammersmith Bridge and then southeast as far as Barn Elms. From here it is bounded by the outside of Putney Common, at the south end of Dyers Lane the boundary runs along the Upper Richmond Road westwards as far as the Beverley Brook which it then follows south to the northern wall of Richmond Park itself. The boundary then follows the wall of the park as far as the Robin Hood Gate on the A3 road and follows the Beverley Brook south, until it turns west after Malden Golf Course. It then cuts across the course to Coombe Road, Coombe Vale. Then the boundary north to follow the Kingston branch of the railway line as far as the railway bridge over the River Thames. This means that the constituency includes Coombe, Norbiton, and half of Kingston upon Thames and this involved moving the entirety of the Beverley ward into Kingston and Surbiton. It had been split between the two constituencies after ward boundaries were changed in 2002, the public consultation on proposed changes across the boroughs of Kingston and Richmond received 11 submissions, of which ten were in support. The new boundaries came into effect at the 2010 general election, list of Parliamentary constituencies in Greater London Notes References
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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
22.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
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Charing Cross
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Charing Cross denotes the junction of Strand, Whitehall and Cockspur Street, just south of Trafalgar Square in central London. It gives its name to several landmarks, including Charing Cross railway station, Charing Cross is named after the Eleanor cross that stood on the site, in what was once the hamlet of Charing. The site of the cross has been occupied since 1675 by a statue of King Charles I. A loose Victorian replica of the cross, the Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross, was erected a short distance to the east outside the railway station. Until 1931, Charing Cross referred to the part of Whitehall between Great Scotland Yard and Trafalgar Square, at least one property retains a Charing Cross postal address, Drummonds Bank, on the corner of Whitehall and The Mall, which is designated 49 Charing Cross. Since the early 19th century, Charing Cross has often been regarded as the centre of London. Erect a rich and stately carved cross, Whereon her statue shall with glory shine, George Peele The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First The name of the area, Charing, is derived from the Old English word cierring, referring to a bend in the River Thames. Folk etymology suggests the name derives from chère reine — dear queen in French — and this wooden sculpted cross was the work of the medieval sculptor, Alexander of Abingdon. It was destroyed in 1647 on the orders of Parliament during the Civil War, a 70 ft -high stone sculpture in front of Charing Cross railway station is a copy of the original cross. Erected in 1865, it is situated a few hundred yards to the east of the original cross and it was designed by the architect E. M. Barry and carved by Thomas Earp of Lambeth out of Portland stone, Mansfield stone and Aberdeen granite. It is not a replica, being more ornate than the original. A variation on the name appears to be Charygcrouche, near St Martin in the Fields, since 1675 the site of the cross has been occupied by a statue of King Charles I mounted on a horse. The site is recognised by convention as the centre of London for the purpose of indicating distances by road in favour of other measurement points. Charing Cross is marked on maps as a road junction. Since 1 January 1931 this section of road has been designated part of the Whitehall thoroughfare, the cross has given its name to a railway station, a tube station, police station, hospital, a hotel, a theatre, and a music hall. Charing Cross Road the main route from the north was named after the railway station, at some time between 1232 and 1236, the Chapel and Hospital of St Mary Rounceval was founded at Charing. It occupied land at the corner of the modern Whitehall and into the centre of Northumberland Avenue and it was an Augustinian house, tied to a mother house at Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees. The house and lands were seized for the king in 1379, protracted legal action returned some rights to the prior, but in 1414, Henry V suppressed the alien houses
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Kingston upon Thames
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Kingston upon Thames, also known as Kingston, is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London. It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned, Kingston is situated 10 miles southwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. Kingston lies approximately 33 feet above sea level, Kingston was part of a large ancient parish in the county of Surrey and the town was an ancient borough, reformed in 1835. It has been the location of Surrey County Hall from 1893, most of the town centre is part of the KT1 postcode area, but some areas north of Kingston railway station have the postcode KT2 instead. The population of the town itself, comprising the four wards of Canbury, Grove, Norbiton, Kingston was called Cyninges tun in 838, Chingestune in 1086, Kingeston in 1164, Kyngeston super Tamisiam in 1321 and Kingestowne upon Thames in 1589. The name means the manor or estate from the Old English words cyning. It belonged to the king in Saxon times and was the earliest royal borough and it was first mentioned in 838 as the site of a meeting between King Egbert of Wessex and Ceolnoth, Archbishop of Canterbury. Kingston lay on the boundary between the ancient kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, until in the tenth century when King Athelstan united both to create the kingdom of England. Probably because of the symbolic location, several tenth-century kings were crowned in Kingston, Æthelstan in 925, Eadred in 946. Other kings who may have been crowned there are Edward the Elder in 902, Edmund in 939, Eadwig in 956, Edgar in about 960 and Edward the Martyr in 975. It was initially used as a block, but in 1850 it was moved to a more dignified place in the market before finally being moved to its current location in the grounds of the guildhall. Well known aviation personalities Sydney Camm, Harry Hawker and Tommy Sopwith were responsible for much of Kingstons achievements in aviation. British Aerospace finally closed its Lower Ham Road factory in 1992, part of the site was redeveloped for housing but the riverside part houses a community centre. The growth and development of Kingston Polytechnic and its transformation into Kingston University has made Kingston a university town, Kingston upon Thames formed an ancient parish in the Kingston hundred of Surrey. The parish of Kingston upon Thames covered an area including Hook, Kew, New Malden, Petersham, Richmond, Surbiton, Thames Ditton. The town of Kingston was granted a charter by King John in 1200, but the oldest one to survive is from 1208, other charters were issued by later kings, including Edward IVs charter that gave the town the status of a borough in 1481. The borough covered a smaller area than the ancient parish, although as new parishes were split off the borough. The borough was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, becoming the Municipal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames and it had been known as a Royal borough through custom and the right to the title was confirmed by George V in 1927
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Raynes Park
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Raynes Park is a residential suburb and local centre within the London Borough of Merton, situated between Wimbledon, to the east, and New Malden, to the west, in South West London. It is 8.2 miles south-west of Charing Cross, Raynes Park had a population of 19,619 in 2011, which refers to the populations of the wards of Raynes Park and West Barnes. Raynes Park is 8.2 miles from Central London and has one of the largest proportions of green space in South West London. The area has a number of parks including Cottenham Park Recreation Ground, named after Charles Pepys, 1st Earl of Cottenham, Cannon Hill Common covers 21 hectares of open space, and is a site of borough importance – Grade 1 for Nature Conservation. It contains mature woodland that is over 140 years old and provides a habitat for a variety of fauna, for earlier history see Merton and Wimbledon. Historically, the area of Raynes Park south of Coombe Lane and Kingston Road was part of the parish of Merton, the area remained rural until late into the 19th century. The first development in the area was the opening of the London & South Western Railway in May 1838 which crossed the area on a high embankment, although the station did not open until later. Cottenham Park to the north of the station was the first part of the area to be out for development in the 1870s. It takes its named from Charles Pepys, 1st Earl of Cottenham who lived in Wimbledon until his death in 1851, the name refers to the Rayne family, the previous landowners of the farmland on which Garth intended to build. Garth laid out the section of Grand Drive, about as far south as Heath Drive. A number of detached houses were constructed, but Garths absence as Chief Justice of Bengal slowed the development and much of the rest of the area became a golf course and cricket grounds. South of the railway, the twelve terraced roads known locally as the Apostles were laid out over a former cricket ground starting during the Victorian period, in the 1920s, the Kingston Bypass and its spur, Bushey Road, were built as dual carriageways. South of the railway, the majority of development occurred in the 1930s with Grand Drive being extended south into Lower Morden. Much of the area remains open space, during World War II the area suffered considerable bombing, especially in 1944 from the V-1 flying bomb. Raynes Park station is on the National Rail network, the station is at the junction of the branch line heading towards Epsom and Dorking and has four platforms. A distinctive local landmark is the footbridge which spans all four main running lines at an angle of about 45 degrees. Another distinctive feature of the station is that the platforms are not opposite each other, the station benefits from frequent train services to central London, with approximately 210 trains to Waterloo each day, averaging about 12 per hour during service hours. Raynes Park is effectively divided into two by the Waterloo - Southampton mainline railway, Bushey Road connects the Kingston Bypass to Wimbledon Chase and Merton Park
26.
Surbiton
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Surbiton is a suburban area of south-west London within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. It is situated next to the River Thames,11.0 miles south west of central London, Surbiton possesses a mixture of Art-Deco courts, more recent residential blocks and grand 19th century townhouses blending into a sea of semi-detached 20th century housing estates. See the article on Thomas Pooley for his rôle in the establishment of the town of Surbiton. See also the article on the Municipal Borough of Surbiton for the period 1855–1965 and this resulted in the line being routed further south, through a cutting in the hill south of Surbiton. Surbiton railway station opened in 1838, and was originally named Kingston-upon-Railway and it was only renamed Surbiton to distinguish it from the new Kingston railway station on the Shepperton branch line, which opened on 1 January 1869. The present station has an art deco façade and it was once home to Surbiton Studios which were owned by Stoll Pictures, before the company shifted its main production to Cricklewood Studios. The Pre-Raphaelite painters John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt came to Surbiton in 1851,26 years before Richard Jefferies, Millais used the Hogsmill River, in Six Acre Meadow, Tolworth, as the background for his painting Ophelia. Holman Hunt used the fields just south of this spot as the background to The Hireling Shepherd, in the mid-1870s the novelist Thomas Hardy lived in a house called St. Davids Villa in Hook Road, Surbiton for a year after his marriage to Emma Gifford. H. G. Wells, in his comic novel The Wheels of Chance, describes the cycle collision of Mr Hoopdriver and a Young Lady in Grey, the young lady approaching along an affluent from the villas of Surbiton. The writer Enid Blyton was governess to a Surbiton family for four years from 1920, at a house called Southernhay, middelton, who broadcast on gardening during the Second World War, lived in Surbiton, where he died suddenly outside his home. The artist who brought Rupert the Bear to life for a whole generation Alfred Bestall sketched out his cartoons from his home in Cranes Park, other names for the town include the Surbs and the Tron in reference to 80s movies The Burbs and Tron. Surbiton station features in the 2009 film version of Harry Potter, filming took place in November 2007. The station also appears in Agatha Christies Poirot, The Adventure of the Clapham Cook, a TV adaptation of the story by Agatha Christie. Surbiton receives a mention in the seventh chapter of the James Bond novel On Her Majestys Secret Service by Ian Fleming. The guitarist and singer-songwriter Eric Clapton purchased one of his first guitars from a shop in Surbiton called Bells, Surbiton is served by a number of regular bus services. London Buses routes 71,281,406,418,465, K1, K2, K3, Surbiton railway station provides rail links with London, Surrey and Hampshire. For education in Surbiton see the main Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames article, until the early 19th century, Surbiton, like Norbiton, lay in the parish of All Saints, Kingston upon Thames. As a result, Surbitons three parish churches all date back to the Victorian era, the two Anglican ones, Saint Marks and Saint Andrews, are located in the town centre
27.
Tolworth
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Tolworth is a suburban area of southwest London in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, located 11 miles south west of Charing Cross. Neighbouring places include Long Ditton, New Malden, Kingston, Surbiton, Berrylands, Hinchley Wood, Chessington, Ewell, Surbiton is the nearest, about a mile north west. Tolworth is divided in two, with part of it to the east and part of it to the west of the Kingston by-pass, Tolworth, in the Domesday Book, was called Taleorde. Its Domesday assets were held partly by Picot from Richard de Tonebrige and it rendered, 2½ hides, also 4 hides with Long Ditton,1 mill without dues,8 ploughs, 10½ acres and ½ rod of meadow. The Evelyn family, who had settled in Surrey, played a prominent role and established mills at Tolworth. In 1870-72, John Marius Wilsons Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Tolworth like this, TALWORTH, an ancient manor-house here was held by the Earl of Kent, uncle of Edward III. and is now a farmhouse. With a proper sewerage system Tolworth was ready for development, St Matthew’s Church had been built for a congregation of 800 and trams now ran from the Red Lion. In 1919 the Medical Officer of Health reported that Surbiton was a neighbourhood with no dominating factories or works. The only new feature of late, he said, is the springing up of a few Motor Garages, each employing a few hands on the care and he advised that the Electric Light Works and a belated resuscitation of the Tolworth Brickfields represented the leading Works in Surbiton. In 1916 the council sold the Surbiton and District Electricity Co, based in Hollyfield Road, the opening of the Kingston by Pass in 1927 was a major catalyst for expansion which included six and a half miles of new residential roads, containing 2000 houses. This period also saw the construction of Tolworth Broadway, aligning with the Kingston Road, the Civil Defence Corps used to have a training site with a full-size mock-up of a bomb-damaged housing estate. This land has been reclaimed and is now a recreation ground, the Tolworth Brickworks Company Ltd. decided in September 1946 that the company should be voluntarily wound up – a process that continued until at least 1951. Dean Court and Drayton Court were constructed in 1959 on part of the Station Estate land, earlier plans had envisaged 6 semi detached and one detached house between the Toby Jug and Tolworth Station. During World War II a number of V1 flying bombs came down on Surbiton and Tolworth, the pub was burnt down in the 1950s. The shelter was removed after TfL decided that it was the bus stop they were not prepared to maintain. David Bowie launched his Ziggy Stardust stage show with the Spiders from Mars—Ronson, Bolder and it is reported that there was a Maestrovox Electronic Organ attached to the piano in the pub dining room and dance hall. Architecturally, Tolworth consists mainly of low-density 1930s semi-detached properties, and small to medium commercial, there is a concentration of industrial activity in an area bounded on the north by A3 London-to-Portsmouth trunk route, which runs through the area. The area is served by a branch railway line running from London Waterloo to Chessington South two stops to the south, with services run by South West Trains
28.
Wimbledon, London
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Wimbledon had a population of 68,187 in 2011 which includes the electoral wards of Abbey, Dundonald, Hillside, Trinity, Village, Raynes Park and Wimbledon Park. It is home to the Wimbledon Tennis Championships and New Wimbledon Theatre, Wimbledon has been inhabited since at least the Iron Age when the hill fort on Wimbledon Common is thought to have been constructed. In 1087 when the Domesday Book was compiled, Wimbledon was part of the manor of Mortlake, the village developed with a stable rural population coexisting alongside nobility and wealthy merchants from the city. The location of the station shifted the focus of the subsequent growth away from the original village centre. Since 2005, the north and west of the Borough has been represented in Westminster by Stephen Hammond, the eastern and southern of the Borough are represented by Siobhain McDonagh, a Labour MP. It has established minority groups, among the most prominent are British Asians, British Ghanaians, Wimbledon has been inhabited since at least the Iron Age when the hill fort on Wimbledon Common, the second-largest in London, is thought to have been constructed. The original nucleus of Wimbledon was at the top of the close to the common – the area now known locally as the village. The village is referred to as Wimbedounyng in a signed by King Edgar the Peaceful in 967. The name Wimbledon means Wynnmans hill, with the element of the name being the Old English dun. At the time the Domesday Book was compiled, Wimbledon was part of the manor of Mortlake, the ownership of the manor of Wimbledon changed hands many times during its history. The manor was held by the church until 1398 when Thomas Arundel, the manor was confiscated and became crown property. The manor remained crown property until the reign of Henry VIII when it was granted briefly to Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, until Cromwell was executed in 1540 and the land was again confiscated. The manor was held by Henry VIIIs last wife and widow Catherine Parr until her death in 1548 when it again reverted to the monarch. In the 1550s, Henrys daughter, Mary I, granted the manor to Cardinal Reginald Pole who held it until his death in 1558 when it again become royal property. Marys sister, Elizabeth I held the property until 1574 when she gave the house to Christopher Hatton who sold it in the same year to Sir Thomas Cecil. The lands of the manor were given to the Cecil family in 1588, the Cecil family retained the manor for fifty years before it was bought by Charles I in 1638 for his Queen, Henrietta Maria. On his death in 1677 the manor was sold on again to the Lord High Treasurer, Thomas Osborne, the Osborne family sold the manor to Sir Theodore Janssen in 1712. Janssen, a director of the South Sea Company, began a new house to replace the Cecil-built manor house but, due to the collapse of the company
29.
Worcester Park
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The area is 10.2 miles south-west of Charing Cross. The suburbs population was 16,031 at the time of the 2001 census, beverley Brook runs through Worcester Park, alongside Green Lane and past Green Lane Primary School, traversing up to Cuddington Recreation Ground. Green Lane appears in the Domesday Book, the Huntsmans Hall was situated on what was the far boundary of a hunting ground for Henry VIII. In 2011, around 78% of residents of Worcester Park ward were White, Worcester Park takes its name from the 4th Earl of Worcester, who was appointed Keeper of the Great Park in 1606. The area was part of the Great Park which covered around 1100 acres and was adjacent to the Little Park which contained Nonsuch Palace of Henry VIII. Both parks were used as deer parks. Henry VIII had obtained the land from Sir Richard de Codington, during the ownership by Sir Richard de Codington, there was a manor house on a site which was later replaced by Worcester House and is now the site of Worcester Close. There was also a church of St. Mary on roughly the site where the church of St Mary the Virgin, Cuddington. In 1809 Worcester Park was acquired by William Taylor and he used a mill on the banks of the Hogsmill Riverto continue the manufacture of gunpowder which had been carried out on and off in the area for several centuries. Manufacturing continued until the 1850s when the mill blew up, in 1890 Worcester Park Baptist Church was formed in Longfellow Road. It moved to its present location on The Avenue in the 1950s, Cheam Common Infants and Junior schools are pre-World War II school buildings. Air raid shelters were found underground during an extension to the building of the junior school. The school is located at the top of the high street, Blakesley School was a private primary school run by the Headmaster Eric Dudley. It closed in the summer of 1958, when the land was sold for housing. It occupied the land at grid reference TQ214654 bordered by the portion of Delta Road which was not surfaced, Delta Close. It occupied a plot of land and was a modern manor house style building referred to on local maps as Worcester Court. The surrounding wall is said to go back to Henry VIIIs reign and this headquarters was erected after the previous building was destroyed by arsonists and still serves the 2nd Cuddington Scout Group. In the 1950s, the ruins of an ornamental lake with a multi-arched bridge
30.
New Malden railway station
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New Malden railway station is in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in South London. The station is served by South West Trains, and is in Travelcard Zone 4, the station was opened by the London and South Western Railway in December 1846, originally being named Malden. The deaths of members of staff in an air raid during WWII is commemorated on a plaque on a wall in the ticket office. New platform signage was installed in 2009, adhering to the new national standard using the Brunel typeface in white on a navy background. New Malden was one of the selected by South West Trains to have automatic ticket gates which were installed in the main ticket hall in September 2009. The gates with Oyster Card readers allow use of the Oyster Pay as you go system, in practice the ticket barriers are very often left open and unstaffed and as such the southern entrance is more than often open, outside of the closed times. Train times and station information for New Malden railway station from National Rail
31.
London Waterloo station
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Waterloo main line station is one of 19 in the country that are managed by Network Rail and the station complex is in fare zone 1. The first railway station on site opened in 1848, the present structure was inaugurated in 1922. Part of the station is a Grade II listed building, with just under 100 million National Rail passenger entries/exits in 2015/16, Waterloo is Britains busiest railway station by patronage. Waterloo railway station alone is the 15th-busiest passenger station in Europe, however, including National Rail interchanges, the Underground station, and Waterloo East, the complex handled a total of 211 million passengers in the 2015/2016 financial year. It is therefore the busiest transport hub in Europe and it has more platforms and a greater floor area than any other station in the UK. The station was the London terminus for Eurostar international trains from 1994 until 2007, the London and South Western Railway opened the station on 11 July 1848 as Waterloo Bridge Station when its main line was extended from Nine Elms. The station, designed by William Tite, was raised above ground on a series of arches. The unfulfilled intention was for a station with services to the City of London. In 1886, it officially became Waterloo Station, reflecting long-standing common usage, the L&SWRs aim throughout much of the 19th century was to extend its main line eastward beyond Waterloo into the City of London. Given this, it was reluctant to construct a grand terminus at Waterloo. However traffic and passenger usage continued to grow and the company expanded the station at regular intervals and this resulted in the station becoming increasingly ramshackle. The original 1848 station became known as the Central Station as other platforms were added, each of these stations-within-a-station had its own booking office, taxi stand and public entrances from the street, as well as often poorly marked and confusing access to the rest of the station. Passengers were, not surprisingly, confused by the layout and by the two adjacent stations called Waterloo, from 1897 there had also been the adjacent Necropolis Company station. This complexity and confusion became the butt of jokes by writers and music hall comics for many years in the late 19th century, by the late 1890s the L&SWR accepted that main-line access to the City was impossible. In 1898, the company opened the Waterloo & City line and this gave the company the direct commuter service it had long desired. Legal powers to carry out the work were granted in 1899 and extensive groundwork and slum clearance were carried out until 1904, the new station was opened in stages, the first five new platforms being opened in 1910. The engineers J. W. Jacomb-Hood and Alfred Weeks Szlumper designed the roof and platforms, construction continued sporadically throughout the First World War, and the new station finally opened in 1922, with 21 platforms and a concourse nearly 800 feet long. The new station included a stained glass window depicting the L&SWRs company crest over the main road entrance
32.
Queen Victoria
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Victoria was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she adopted the title of Empress of India. Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, both the Duke of Kent and King George III died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne aged 18, after her fathers three brothers had all died, leaving no surviving legitimate children. The United Kingdom was already a constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, Victoria attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments, publicly, Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together, after Alberts death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength and her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. Her reign of 63 years and seven months is known as the Victorian era and it was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. She was the last British monarch of the House of Hanover and her son and successor, Edward VII, belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the line of his father. Victorias father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, until 1817, Edwards niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, was the only legitimate grandchild of George III. Her death in 1817 precipitated a crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent. In 1818 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl and Feodora —by her first marriage to the Prince of Leiningen and her brother Leopold was Princess Charlottes widower. The Duke and Duchess of Kents only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a. m. on 24 May 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on 24 June 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace and she was baptised Alexandrina, after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina, Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of the Dukes eldest brother, George, the Duke of Clarence and the Duke of Kent married on the same day in 1818, but both of Clarences daughters died as infants. Victorias father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old, a week later her grandfather died and was succeeded by his eldest son, George IV. The Duke of York died in 1827, when George IV died in 1830, he was succeeded by his next surviving brother, William IV, and Victoria became heir presumptive
33.
British Royal Train
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In the United Kingdom, the Royal Train is used to convey senior members of the British Royal Family and associated staff of the Royal Household around the railway network of Great Britain. It is formed from a set of claret liveried sleeper, dining. The current stock dates from 1977-1987 and they are arranged according to requirements, and stored when not in use. Many are now in museums or on heritage railways, the National Railway Museum in York has a themed exhibition. Dedicated locomotives have never traditionally been part of the Royal Train, first appearing in special livery only in the 1990s, in the 21st Century, various preserved steam locomotives have also hauled the train on special occasions. The first member of the British Royal Family to travel by train was Queen Dowager Adelaide who took a train from Nottingham to Leeds on 22 July 1840. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch to travel by train, on 13 June 1842 on the Great Western Railway, the train transported the Queen from Slough to Paddington, and was hauled by the locomotive Phlegethon driven by Daniel Gooch assisted by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The Queen used a Royal Saloon which had constructed by the Great Western Railway in 1840. The first carriage built for the use of a member of the British Royal Family was constructed in 1842 by the London. This carriage is now on display in the National Railway Museum in York, in 1869, Queen Victoria commissioned a pair of coaches for £1,800 with the London and North Western Railway. In 1874, the Great Western Railway built a new royal saloon at their Swindon works for the use of the Queen and it was constructed under the supervision of Joseph Armstrong. In 1897 they marked the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria by providing a new Royal Train of six coaches, until now, railway companies had provided special saloon carriages, but there was no regular Royal Train until this one was constructed. It replaced the GWR Royal carriage of 1874 which was re-fitted and lengthened to 53.5 feet, in 1877 the London and South Western Railway built a royal saloon for the use of the Queen. It was built at the workshop at Nine Elms and was 50 feet long. In 1899 the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway provided a new train of five carriages, each 52 feet long, comprising the Royal saloon in the centre. In the matters of the decorations and furniture of the saloons the Company consulted their Royal Highnesses, whose choice rested on quiet, the chief woods employed are Karri pine, Cuba mahogany, and satinwood. Nearly sixty years later, after her funeral in 1901, Queen Victorias coffin was taken to London Paddington station, in 1902, her son Edward VII commissioned a new Royal saloons from the London and North Western Railway. They were built in the Wolverton railway works under the direction of C. A, two saloons were provided, one for the King and one for the Queen
34.
Norbiton railway station
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Norbiton railway station is in Norbiton, a suburb in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, in south west London. It is on the Kingston Loop Line, the station and all trains serving it are operated by South West Trains. It is in Travelcard Zone 5 and is a walk from Kingston Hospital. It is the most convenient station for Kingsmeadow football ground, home of AFC Wimbledon, coaching interests in Kingston were opposed to having a railway in the town and consequently the London and South Western Railway built its line to Southampton further south through Surbiton. This opposition continued even during the laying of the line from Twickenham although this line did reach a terminus in Kingston in 1863, in 1869 the line was extended through Norbiton to connect to the main line southwest of the present New Malden station. When Queen Victoria visited distinguished residents in the Coombe Hill area, the train stopped at Norbiton. New Malden and Kingston have many steps and it is the only remaining example of Victorian railway architecture in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames. During 2011 the single-width off-peak gated exit from platform 2 was doubled in width in order to cope with the numbers of passengers leaving the station when the barriers are not operational. During 2014 the gated exit was widened again, during the autumn of 2014 the platforms 1 and 2 were raised and the edges reconstructed to reduce the step and gap for passengers getting on and off the trains. Earlier in 2014 the platforms were extended in preparation for longer trains, there is a 38 space car park and space for 5 vehicles reserved for South West Trains staff. Platform 1 - Trains to London Waterloo via Wimbledon, platform 2 - Trains to London Waterloo via Kingston & Richmond and trains to Shepperton. Although Reggies home town in the series was called Climthorpe, a shot of the front of the station in the first episode shows him walking into Norbiton station. David Nobbs may have thought of Climthorpe as near Norbiton, since various other stations between New Malden and London are named in Reggies various excuses to explain his poor punctuality, the station also appeared briefly in a 1971 episode of the Rodney Bewes sitcom Dear Mother. Love Albert. London Buses routes K2, K3, K4 and K5 serve the station, train times and station information for Norbiton railway station from National Rail
35.
Terraced house
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They are also known in some areas as row houses or linked houses. Terrace housing can be throughout the world, though it is in abundance in Europe and Latin America. The Place des Vosges in Paris is one of the examples of the style. Sometimes associated with the class, historical and reproduction terraces have increasingly become part of the process of gentrification in certain inner-city areas. Yarmouth Rows in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk is an example where the building fronts uniformly ran right to the property line, Townhouses are generally two- to three-storey structures that share a wall with a neighbouring unit. As opposed to an apartment building, townhouses do not have neighbouring units above or below them and they are similar in concept to row houses or terraced houses, except they are usually divided into smaller groupings of homes. The first and last of these houses is called an end terrace, in Australia, the term terrace house refers almost exclusively to Victorian and Edwardian era terraces or replicas almost always found in the older, inner city areas of the major cities. Terraced housing was introduced to Australia from England in the century, basing their architecture on those in the UK, France. Large numbers of terraced houses were built in the suburbs of large Australian cities, particularly Sydney and Melbourne. Detached housing became the style of housing in Australia following Federation in 1901. The most common building material used was brick, often covered with cement render, many terraces were built in the Filigree style, a style distinguished through heavy use of cast iron ornament, particularly on the balconies and sometimes depicting native Australian flora. In the 1950s, many urban renewal programs were aimed at eradicating them entirely in favour of modern development, in recent decades these inner-city areas and their terraced houses have been gentrified. The suburbs in which houses are often found are often sought after in Australia due to their proximity to the CBD of the major cities. They are therefore sometimes quite expensive even though they are not the preferred accommodation style. The lack of windows on the side, the gardens. The lack of off-street parking that most have is also an issue for the majority Australians, terraced housing has long been a popular style in Paris, France. The Place des Vosges was one of the earliest examples of the style, in Parisian squares, central blocks were given discreet prominence, to relieve the façade. Terraced building including housing was used primarily during Haussmanns renovation of Paris between 1852 and 1870 creating whole streetscapes consisting of terraced rows
36.
Single-family detached home
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A single-family detached home, also called a single-detached dwelling, single-family residence or separate house is a free-standing residential building. It is defined in opposition to a residential dwelling. The definition of this type of house may vary between legal jurisdictions or statistical agencies and it does exclude, however, any short-term accommodation, large-scale rental accommodation, or condominia. Garages can also be found on most lots, houses with an attached front entry garage that is closer to the street than any other part of the house is often derisively called a snout house. It is important to note that In the United States, that the term Single Family Residence specifically refers to the not the occupants. Historically, Homeowners Associations have used the term to limit non-nuclear families, presently, these types of HOA policies are subject to Fair Housing Lawsuits, heavy penalties, and possibly personal liability for board members. Terms corresponding to single-family detached home in common use are single-family home, single-detached dwelling, detached house, in the United Kingdom, the term single-family home is almost unknown, except through Internet exposure to U. S. media. In pre-industrial societies most people live in multi-family dwelling for most of their lives and this type of arrangement also saves on the effort and materials used for construction and, in colder climates, heating. If people had to move to a new place or were wealthy enough, they could build or buy a home for their own family, of course and this has produced a cultural preference in settler societies for privacy and space. A countervailing trend has been industrialization and urbanization, which as seen more and more people around the world move into apartment blocks. Single-family homes are now common in rural and suburban and even urban areas across the New World and Europe. They are most common in low-density, high-income regions, for example, in Canada according to the 2006 Census 55. 3% of the population lived single-detached houses but this varied substantially by region. In the Ville of Montreal, Canadas second most populous municipality, only 7. 5% of the lived in a single-detached house, while in the city of Calgary. Note that this includes the city limits only, not the wider region. The term single-family detached describes how a house is built and who lives in it and it does not indicate size, shape, or location. Because they are not surrounded by buildings, the potential size of a single-family house is limited only by the budget of the builder. They can range from a country cottage or cabin or a small suburban prefabricated home to a large mansion. Sizes in real estate advertising are given in area, or by the number of bedrooms or bathrooms/toilets, the choice in materials used or the shape chosen will depend on what is common to the vernacular architecture of that region, or the lasted trends in professionally designed tract housing
37.
Semi-detached
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A semi-detached house is a single family dwelling house built as one of a pair that share one common wall. Often, each houses layout is a image of the other. Semi-detached houses are the most common property type in the UK and they account for 32% of UK housing transactions and 32% of the English housing stock as of 2008. Between 1945 and 1964, 41% of all properties built were semis, housing for the farm labourer in 1815 was typically a one-room shed with an outshot for a scullery and pantry, and two bedrooms upstairs. The house would be of brick, stone if it occurred locally and they were unsanitary, but the biggest problem was they were simply too few. Population was increasing, and after the acts, labourers could not find spare land to build their own homes. Estate villages followed vernacular patterns, but this changed to adopting model designs from pattern books, by the turn of the 18th century the landowners chose a picturesque style. They built double cottages as a means of reducing cost, smith in 1834 wrote this species of cottage can be built cheaper than two single ones, and, in general, these double cottages are found to be warmer and fully as comfortable as single ones. While there had been an increase in the population of the rural counties there was a greater shift in the population from the impoverished land to the large towns. At the same time, society was restructuring, with the labouring classes dividing into artisans, the cities offered labourers housing in tenement blocks, rookeries and lodging houses, and philanthropic societies turned their attention towards them. The earlier designs they published had been for semi-detached dwellings but the first properties they built were tenements, in their 1850 publication The Dwellings of the Labouring Classes, written by Henry Roberts, there were plans for model semi-detachedcottages for workers in towns and the city. This development initially comprised 16 pairs of semis but two later they had built 164 semis. In Birmingham, Wolverhampton and the Potteries there was a tradition dating from the 1790s of artisans saving through mutuals, in the 1840s, the permanent building society model was adopted. The Woolwich Equitable was founded in 1847, the Leeds Permanent in 1848, artisans could invest and then borrow a sum for a mortgage on their own property. In the wool towns of Yorkshire three families built villages for their workers, the model villages in Lancashire came later, with developments like Houldsworth Village. Semi detached housing in colliery villages was rare, status here was determined by the length of the terrace, the development of Port Sunlight and Bournville was important. Port Sunlight model village commenced in 1887, as it expanded after 1895 the village was made up of semis and short terraces. With industrialisation came material gain to the capitalist entrepreneur, New professions came into existence to serve their needs, insurers, engineers, designers
38.
A3 road
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The A3, known as the Portsmouth Road or London Road in sections, is a major road connecting London and Portsmouth passing close to Kingston upon Thames, Guildford, Haslemere and Petersfield. For much of its 67-mile length, it is classified as a trunk road, almost all of the road has been built to dual carriageway standards or wider. Apart from bypass sections in London the road travels in a southwest direction and, after Liss, the other section of such restriction is through Battersea, Clapham and Stockwell towards the northern end reflecting its urban setting and also accommodating bus lanes and parking meter bays. The construction of the Kingston and Guildford bypasses in the 1920s and 1930s made use of narrow gauge railways to move the construction materials. The Esher bypass, between Hook from the first mentioned bypass to the M25, is three lanes with a hard shoulder, from here to Guildford the road has three lanes. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu stressed the urgency of building a Kingston By-pass in 1911 however before the onset of World War I public funds were not secured and were not available in the aftermath. It was opened by the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Stanley Baldwin MP and it ran for 8.5 miles from the Robin Hood Gate of Richmond Park to the near outskirts of Esher. The opening ceremony concluded with refreshments for 800 guests in marquees near to the northern start/end and its construction immediately attracted developments of housing where access was easiest. The road was once the haunt of highwaymen such as Jerry Abershawe who terrorised the area around Kingston, another particularly dangerous location was in the vicinity of the wooded crest skirting the Devils Punch Bowl, Hindhead, about 8 miles south-west of Guildford. In 2011 the Hindhead Tunnel became the centre of the Hindhead Bypass around the road of the small town. Until 2011 the road through Hindhead was the last single carriageway section of the route, outside London and it continues along Newington Butts, and bounds then enters the London Borough of Lambeth on Kennington Park Road which becomes Clapham Road and Clapham High Street. The A3 then turns west as Clapham Common North Side, along this road it enters the London Borough of Wandsworth after which it runs concurrently with the A205 South Circular and goes through Wandsworth, then the A205 carries on west towards Richmond. The A3 then continues south-west between Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common before beginning to bypass Kingston upon Thames while going through Roehampton Vale. The A3 enters The Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames just before Kingston Vale where there is a junction with the A308 for Kingston upon Thames, the speed limit then increases to 50 mph before going under the Coombe Flyover. The A3 then goes on a flyover by Shannon Corner in Raynes Park, before having junctions for New Malden, Tolworth, brief features of a section of road contribute to a traffic pinch-point during peak hours around the Hook underpass. The road reduces from three lanes to two in the underpass, the speed limit at this point reduces from 70 miles per hour to 50 miles per hour, with the first of a handful of GATSO speed enforcement cameras. If returning to London traffic from the A309 also joins just before the underpass, after passing Claygate the motorway-standard section has junctions with the A244 between Esher and Oxshott, then the A245 between Cobham and Hersham. The roads Wisley Interchange with the M25 enables a flyover still with a 70 mph speed limit and it bypasses Wisley, Ockham, Ripley before cutting through the major town itself as a dual carriageway and changing to a 50 mph speed limit
39.
Old Malden
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Old Malden is a ward of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in southwest London,10 miles south west of Charing Cross. Along with Coombe and Kingston Vale it is one of the affluent areas in the borough. The area has a history as the ancient parish of Malden, derived from the Old English mæl duna. Malden appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Meldone, held partly by William de Wateville and partly by Robert de Wateville. Its domesday assets were,4 hides and 3 virgates,1 chapel,1 mill worth 12s, 6½ ploughs,5 acres of meadow, St John the Baptist Church, close to the Hogsmill, dates back to Saxon times. In 1611 the chancels old flint walls were repaired and the nave, in 1875 a new nave and chancel were added, and in 2004 a two storey extension was completed. The current Vicar is the Revd Kevin Scott MA, the house was later used as a court in the reign of Henry VIII, and in the mid 18th century the house was the home of Captain Cook. In 1852 the Hogsmill River was the setting for the background of Ophelia painted by John Everett Millais, Malden became Old Malden in 1870, with the development of New Malden, two miles to the north in the parish of Kingston upon Thames. To the west of Plough Green is Old Malden Library, the Parish Church of Old Malden is St John the Baptist, and can be found just beyond the width restriction in Church Road. There was a building here at the time of the Domesday Book. The present building comprises the 1611 re-build, the 1875 extension, the Vicar is the Revd Kevin Scott MA who was licensed to the parish in 2003. Old Malden is served by Malden Manor station to the north, Malden Road, joining the green and Worcester Park station was flanked by two rows of over forty mature poplar trees until 2010, when most were felled as a safety measure due to internal rotting. Replacement oaks were planted later that year, a minor tributary of the River Thames, the Hogsmill, flows through the west of Old Malden. John the Baptist, the site of its vicarage, the 18th century Manor House, Plough Green, A village green with a pond, a 15th-century public house, and a picturesque group of mainly 19th century cottages. The public house is operated as a restaurant by Harvester. Ian Hutchinson, former Chelsea footballer, lived in The Glebe during the 1970s, daley Thompson, British double-Olympic champion decathlete, lived near The Plough
40.
Anglo-Saxons
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The Anglo-Saxons are a people who have inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including government of shires. During this period, Christianity was re-established and there was a flowering of literature, charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, in scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English. The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity and it developed from divergent groups in association with the peoples adoption of Christianity, and was integral to the establishment of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish invasions and occupation of eastern England, this identity was re-established, the visible Anglo-Saxon culture can be seen in the material culture of buildings, dress styles, illuminated texts and grave goods. Behind the symbolic nature of these emblems, there are strong elements of tribal. The elite declared themselves as kings who developed burhs, and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms, above all, as Helena Hamerow has observed, local and extended kin groups remained. the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Use of the term Anglo-Saxon assumes that the words Angles, Saxons or Anglo-Saxon have the meaning in all the sources. Assigning ethnic labels such as Anglo-Saxon is fraught with difficulties and this term began to be used only in the 8th century to distinguish the Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The Old English ethnonym Angul-Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli-Saxones and became the name of the peoples Bede calls Anglorum, Anglo-Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo-Saxons themselves, it is not an autonym. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest. The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, Saxones who attacked the shores of Britain, procopius states that Britain was settled by three races, the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in writing of the 8th century. The name therefore seemed to mean English Saxons, the Christian church seems to have used the word Angli, for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, Non Angli sed angeli. The terms ænglisc and Angelcynn were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people, at other times he uses the term rex Anglorum, which presumably meant both Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex, the term Engla cyningc is used by Æthelred
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Old English
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
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Municipal Borough of Malden and Coombe
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Malden and Coombe was a local government district in Surrey, England from 1866 to 1965. New Malden Local Government District was formed in 1866 under the Local Government Act 1858 from part of the ancient parish of Kingston upon Thames and it was governed by a local board of 12 members. Under the Local Government Act 1894 the area briefly became New Malden Urban District, in the following year the neighbouring Kingston Rural District was abolished, and the two civil parishes of Malden and Coombe were added to New Malden to form The Maldens and Coombe Urban District. In 1936 the urban district council petitioned for a charter of incorporation. Malden and Coombe Borough Council was granted a coat of arms on 14 May 1936, the borough was abolished in 1965 under the London Government Act 1963, with its area becoming part of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in Greater London. Further details appear under New Malden and Coombe, a Vision of Britain - History of Surrey
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Edward VIII
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Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India, from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December the same year. Edward was the eldest son of George V and Mary of Teck and he was named Prince of Wales on his sixteenth birthday, nine weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, he served in the British Army during the First World War, Edward became king on his fathers death in early 1936. However, he showed impatience with court protocol, and caused concern among politicians by his apparent disregard for established constitutional conventions. Only months into his reign, he caused a crisis by proposing marriage to Wallis Simpson. When it became apparent that he could not marry Wallis and remain on the throne and he was succeeded by his younger brother, George VI. With a reign of 326 days, Edward was one of the monarchs in British history. After his abdication, he was created Duke of Windsor and he married Wallis in France on 3 June 1937, after her second divorce became final. Later that year, the couple toured Germany, after the war, Edward spent the rest of his life in retirement in France. Edward was born on 23 June 1894 at White Lodge, Richmond Park and he was the eldest son of the Duke and Duchess of York. His father was the son of the Prince and Princess of Wales and his mother was the eldest daughter of Francis and Mary Adelaide, Duke and Duchess of Teck. At the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession to the throne and he was baptised Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David in the Green Drawing Room of White Lodge on 16 July 1894 by Edward White Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury. The names were chosen in honour of Edwards late uncle, who was known to his family as Eddy or Edward and he was always known to his family and close friends by his last given name, David. As was common practice with children of the time, Edward. One of Edwards early nannies often abused him by pinching him before he was due to be presented to his parents and his subsequent crying and wailing would lead the Duke and Duchess to send him and the nanny away. The nanny was discharged after her mistreatment of the children was discovered, Edwards father, though a harsh disciplinarian, was demonstrably affectionate, and his mother displayed a frolicsome side with her children that belied her austere public image. She was amused by the children making tadpoles on toast for their French master, initially Edward was tutored at home by Helen Bricka. Upon his parents return, Edward was placed under the care of two men, Frederick Finch and Henry Hansell, who brought up Edward and his brothers
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London Government Act 1963
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The Act significantly reduced the number of local government districts in the area, resulting in local authorities responsible for larger areas and populations. The upper tier of government was reformed to cover the whole of the Greater London area and with a more strategic role. The Act classified the boroughs into inner and outer London groups, the City of London and its corporation were essentially unreformed by the legislation. Subsequent amendments to the Act have significantly amended the upper tier arrangements, with the Greater London Council abolished in 1986, and the Greater London Authority introduced in 2000. As of 2016, the London boroughs are more or less identical to those created in 1965, although with some enhanced powers over services such as waste management and education. The Act set up a local government system, with powers divided between the newly formed Greater London Council,32 new London borough councils and the existing City of London. The provisions of the Act came into effect on 1 April 1965, twelve of the boroughs, corresponding to the former County of London, were designated Inner London boroughs. The remaining twenty boroughs were designated Outer London boroughs, none of the boroughs were given names in the Act. Section 2 declared that the area comprising the areas of the London boroughs, the City, an elected Greater London Council was to govern the new area. No part of Greater London was to part of any administrative county, county district or parish. Three Middlesex urban districts not included in Greater London were transferred to other counties, Potters Bar to Hertfordshire, the Act also established the Inner London Education Authority to administer schools and colleges in the 12 inner London boroughs. The remaining 20 outer boroughs became local education authorities in their own right, the London Traffic Area and the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, set up in 1924, were abolished, with the GLC gaining powers to regulate road traffic. An alteration was made to the Metropolitan Police District to include the whole of Greater London. The composition of the London boroughs was given in Schedule 1 of the Act, The metropolitan boroughs of Westminster, Paddington, the metropolitan boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn and St Pancras. The metropolitan boroughs of Finsbury and Islington, the metropolitan boroughs of Hackney, Shoreditch and Stoke Newington. The metropolitan boroughs of Bethnal Green, Poplar and Stepney, the metropolitan borough of Greenwich and so much of the metropolitan borough of Woolwich as lay south of the centre of the navigable channel of the River Thames at low water. The metropolitan boroughs of Deptford and Lewisham, the metropolitan boroughs of Bermondsey, Camberwell and Southwark. The metropolitan borough of Battersea and the remainder of the borough of Wandsworth not included in borough 9
