1.
Metz
–
Metz is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Great East region, located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, the city forms a central place of the European Greater Region and the SaarLorLux euroregion. The city has been steeped in Romance culture, but has strongly influenced by Germanic culture due to its location. Because of its historical, cultural, and architectural background, Metz has been submitted on Frances UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List, Metz is home to some world-class venues including the Arsenal Concert Hall and the Centre Pompidou-Metz museum. A basin of urban ecology, Metz gained its nickname of The Green City, as it has extensive open grounds, the historic city centre is one of the largest commercial pedestrian areas in France. A historic garrison town, Metz is the heart of the Lorraine region, specialising in information technology. In ancient times, the town was known as city of Mediomatrici, after its integration into the Roman Empire, the city was called Divodurum Mediomatricum, meaning Holy Village or Holy Fortress of the Mediomatrici, then it was known as Mediomatrix. During the 5th century AD, the name evolved to Mettis, Metz has a recorded history dating back over 3,000 years. Before the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar in 52 BC, between the 6th and 8th centuries, the city was the residence of the Merovingian kings of Austrasia. After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, Metz became the capital of the Kingdom of Lotharingia and was integrated into the Holy Roman Empire. During the 12th century, Metz rose to the status of Republic, with the signature of the Treaty of Chambord in 1552, Metz passed to the hands of the Kings of France. Under French rule, Metz was selected as capital of the Three Bishoprics, with creation of the departments by the Estates-General of 1789, Metz was chosen as capital of the Department of Moselle. Metz remained German until the end of World War I, when it reverted to France, however, after the Battle of France during the Second World War, the city was annexed once more by the German Third Reich. In 1944, the attack on the city by the U. S, Third Army freed the city from German rule and Metz reverted one more time to France after World War II. During the 1950s, Metz was chosen to be the capital of the newly created Lorraine region, with the creation of the European Community and the later European Union, the city has become central to the Greater Region and the SaarLorLux Euroregion. Metz is located on the banks of the Moselle and the Seille rivers,43 km from the Schengen tripoint where the borders of France, Germany, and Luxembourg meet. The city was built in a place where branches of the Moselle river creates several islands. The terrain of Metz forms part of the Paris Basin and presents a plateau relief cut by river valleys presenting cuestas in the north-south direction
2.
French literature
–
This article is a general introduction to French literature. For detailed information on French literature in specific periods, see the separate historical articles in the template to the right. Literature written in French language, by citizens of nations such as Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Senegal, Algeria, Morocco. As of 2006, French writers have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, France itself ranks first in the list of Nobel Prizes in literature by country. French literature has been for French people an object of pride for centuries. The French language is a dialect derived from Latin and heavily influenced principally by Celtic. Today, French schools emphasize the study of novels, theater, the literary arts are heavily sponsored by the state and literary prizes are major news. The Académie française and the Institut de France are important linguistic and artistic institutions in France, Literature matters deeply to the people of France and plays an important role in their sense of identity. As of 2006, French literary people have been awarded more Nobel Prizes in Literature than novelists, poets and essayists of any other country, a writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution, even if it takes place in the most honorable form. For most of the 20th century, French authors had more Literature Nobel Prizes than those of any other nation. M. G, le Clézio 2014 – Patrick Modiano Grand Prix de Littérature Policière – created in 1948, for crime and detective fiction. Grand Prix du roman de lAcadémie française – created 1918, Prix Décembre – created in 1989. Prix Femina – created 1904, decided each year by an exclusively female jury, Prix Goncourt – created 1903, given to the author of the best and most imaginative prose work of the year. Prix Goncourt des Lycéens – created in 1987, Prix Littéraire Valery Larbaud – created in 1957. Prix Médicis – created 1958, awarded to an author whose fame does not yet match their talent, Prix Renaudot – created in 1926. Prix Tour-Apollo Award – 1972–1990, given to the best science fiction published in French during the preceding year. Prix des Deux Magots – created in 1933, a short history of French literature Burgwinkle, William, Nicholas Hammond, and Emma Wilson, eds. The Cambridge history of French literature Cobb, Richard, Promenades, an appreciation of modern French literature Harvey, Paul. The Oxford companion to French literature Denis Hollier, ed, a New History of French Literature, Harvard University Press,1989,1150 pp. France, Peter
3.
18th-century French literature
–
In common with a similar movement in England at the same time, the writers of 18th century France were critical, skeptical and innovative. Their lasting contributions were the ideas of liberty, toleration, humanitarianism, equality, and progress, the 18th century saw the gradual weakening of the absolute monarchy constructed by Louis XIV. France was forced to recognize the power of England and Prussia. The Monarchy finally ended with King Louis XVI, who was unable to understand or control the forces of the French Revolution. The new class began to challenge the cultural and social monopoly of the aristocracy, French cities began to have their own theaters, coffee houses and salons, the Rise of the Third Estate culminated in their political victory in the French Revolution. Faith in science and progress was the force behind the first French Encyclopedia of Denis Diderot. The Protestants achieved legal status in France in 1787, the exchange of ideas with other countries also increased. British ideas were important, particularly such ideas as constitutional monarchy and romanticism. Toward the end of the century, a sober style appeared, aimed at illustrating scenery, work. These writers, and others such as the Abbé Sieyès, one of the authors of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. They came from the upper class or Third Estate, sought a society founded upon talent and merit. Their ideas were influenced by those of John Locke in England. They introduced the values of liberty and equality which became the ideals of the French Republic founded at the end of the century and they defended the freedom of conscience and challenged the role of religious institutions in society. For them, tolerance was a value of society. When the Convention placed the ashes of Voltaire in the Pantheon in Paris, while the philosophes had widely different approaches, they all had as a common objective, both for mankind and for individuals, the ideal of happiness. Some, like Rousseau, dreamed of the happiness of the savage, rapidly disappearing, others, like Voltaire. The philosophes were optimists, and they saw their mission clearly, they did not simply observe, the comedies of Marivaux and of Beaumarchais also played a part in this debate about and diffusion of great ideas. The relaxing of morals under the French Regency brought the return in 1716 of the Comédie-Italienne and his major works include Les Fausses Confidences, le Jeu de lamour et du hasard, and lÎle des esclaves
4.
Anatole France
–
Anatole France was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers, ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters. Anatole France was also documented to have a brain size just three-quarters the normal weight, France is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcels literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Prousts In Search of Lost Time. The son of a bookseller, France spent most of his life around books and was a bibliophile and his fathers bookstore, called the Librairie France, specialized in books and papers on the French Revolution and was frequented by many notable writers and scholars of the day. France studied at the Collège Stanislas, a private Catholic school, after several years he secured the position of cataloguer at Bacheline-Deflorenne and at Lemerre. In 1876 he was appointed librarian for the French Senate, Anatole France began his literary career as a poet and a journalist. In 1869, Le Parnasse Contemporain published one of his poems, in 1875, he sat on the committee which was in charge of the third Parnasse Contemporain compilation. As a journalist, from 1867, he wrote articles and notices. He became famous with the novel Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard and its protagonist, skeptical old scholar Sylvester Bonnard, embodied Frances own personality. The novel was praised for its elegant prose and won him a prize from the Académie française, in La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque Anatole France ridiculed belief in the occult, and in Les Opinions de Jérôme Coignard, France captured the atmosphere of the fin de siècle. France was elected to the Académie française in 1896, France took an important part in the Dreyfus affair. He signed Émile Zolas manifesto supporting Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer who had been convicted of espionage. France wrote about the affair in his 1901 novel Monsieur Bergeret and it is a satirical history of France, starting in Medieval times, going on to the writers own time with special attention to the Dreyfus Affair and concluding with a dystopian future. Les dieux ont soif is a novel, set in Paris during the French Revolution, about a true-believing follower of Robespierre and it is a wake-up call against political and ideological fanaticism and explores various other philosophical approaches to the events of the time. La Revolte des Anges is often considered Frances most profound novel, loosley based on the Christian myth of the War in Heaven, it tells the story of Arcade, the guardian angel of Maurice dEsparvieu. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921 and he died in 1924 and is buried in the Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery near Paris. On 31 May 1922, Frances entire works were put on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum of the Roman Catholic Church and he regarded this as a distinction. This Index was abolished in 1966, in 1877, Anatole France married Valérie Guérin de Sauville, a granddaughter of Jean-Urbain Guérin a miniaturist who painted Louis XVI, with whom he had a daughter, Suzanne, in 1881
5.
Emmanuel Chabrier
–
Alexis Emmanuel Chabrier was a French Romantic composer and pianist. Although known primarily for two of his works, España and Joyeuse marche, he left an important corpus of operas, songs. He was admired by composers as diverse as Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Satie, Schmitt, Stravinsky, Chabrier was also associated with some of the leading writers and painters of his time. He was especially friendly with the painters Claude Monet and Édouard Manet, a number of such paintings from his personal collection are now housed in some of the worlds leading art museums. Alexis-Emmanuel Chabrier was born in Ambert, a town in the Auvergne region of central France and his father was an attorney, his childhood nanny Anne Delayre remained close to him throughout her life. He began his music lessons at the age of six, the earliest of his compositions to survive in manuscript are piano works from 1849, a piano piece from this period, Le Scalp. was later modified into the Marche des Cipayes. In 1856 the family made Paris their home, and the young Chabrier continued serious studies in both of his chosen fields, despite this, his passion was music, during the 1860s he composed a number of minor piano works. His enthusiasm for Wagners music began at this time, and he copied out the score of Tannhäuser. From 1862 he entered the circle of the Parnassians in Paris and his passion for poetry led to a long friendship with Paul Verlaine, who contributed librettos to two early operettas that Chabrier did not complete. The wife of Renoir, a friend of Chabrier, wrote, one day Chabrier came and it sounded as if a hurricane had been let loose. He pounded and pounded the keyboard, the street was full of people, and they were listening, fascinated. When Chabrier reached the last crashing chords, I swore to myself I would never touch the piano again Besides, Chabrier had broken several strings and put the piano out of action. Alfred Bruneau recalled that he played the piano as no one has played it before. During the Franco-Prussian War and Commune, Chabrier continued with his job as the ministry moved from Tours to Bordeaux to Versailles. In 1873, he married Marie Alice Dejean, with whom he had three sons, one of whom died in early childhood and he began several stage works during the 1870s. His first one to be completed was Létoile, which achieved 48 successful performances at the Théâtre des Bouffes Parisiens in 1877, on a trip to Munich with Henri Duparc in 1879, he discovered Wagners opera Tristan und Isolde. This event led him to realize his passion for composition. That year he composed his piano cycle Pièces pittoresques, of which the Idylle greatly influenced Francis Poulenc, Chabrier plunged himself into the scores of Wagner, and became an assistant to Charles Lamoureux in preparing concert performances of the German composers works in Paris
6.
French Third Republic
–
It came to an end on 10 July 1940. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but confusion as to the nature of that monarchy, thus, the Third Republic, which was originally intended as a provisional government, instead became the permanent government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic and it consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s the form of government that divides France least, however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood Reformist France, heir to the French Revolution, on the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Roman Catholic Church and the army. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France, after Napoleons capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as a provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president and this first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, French territories occupied by Prussia at this time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers as head of a provisional government, due to the revolutionary and left-wing political climate that prevailed in the Parisian population, the right-wing government chose the royal palace of Versailles as its headquarters. The new government negotiated a settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities. The following repression of the communards would have consequences for the labor movement. The Orléanists supported a descendant of King Louis Philippe I, the cousin of Charles X who replaced him as the French monarch in 1830, his grandson Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris. The Bonapartists were marginalized due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of his family, the Bonaparte family. Legitimists and Orléanists came to a compromise, eventually, whereby the childless Comte de Chambord would be recognised as king, consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution in order to restore the unity between the monarchy and the nation, which the revolution had sundered apart. Compromise on this was if the nation were to be made whole again
7.
National Guard (France)
–
The National Guard was originally a French militia which existed from 1789 until 1872, including a period of official disbandment from 1827 to 1830. It was separate from the French Army and existed both for policing and as a military reserve, for most of its history the National Guard, particularly its officers, were widely viewed as loyal to middle-class interests. This had rapidly spread anger and violence throughout Paris, the National Assembly declared the formation of a Bourgeois Militia on 13 July. In the early morning of the day, the search for weapons for this new militia led to the storming of the Hotel des Invalides. Lafayette was elected to the post of commander in chief of the Bourgeois Militia on 15 July, similar bodies were spontaneously created in the towns and rural districts of France in response to widespread fears of chaos or counter-revolution. When the French Guards mutinied and were disbanded during the same month, the officers of the National Guard were elected. Under the law of 14 October 1791, all active citizens and their role was the maintenance of law and order and, if necessary, the defence of the territory. Following a nationwide scheme decided on in September 1791, the National Guard was organised on the basis of district or canton companies, five of these neighbourhood units made up a battalion. Eight to ten battalions comprised a legion, districts might also provide companies of veterans and young citizens, respectively drawn from volunteers of over 60 or under 18. Where possible, there was provision for mounted detachments and artillerymen, the citizens kept their weapons and their uniforms at home, and set forth with them when required. This combination of colours matched those of the revolutionary tricolour, the former Guet royal had held responsibility for the maintenance of law and order in Paris from 1254 to 1791, when the National Guard took over this role. In fact, the last commander of the Guet royal, de La Rothière, was elected to head the National Guard in 1791, in the summer of 1792, the fundamental character of the guard changed. After 9 Thermidor, year II, the new government of the Thermidorian Reaction placed the National Guard under the control of conservative leadership. The Paris National Guard thereafter ceased to play a significant political role, napoleon did not believe that the middle-class National Guard would be able to maintain order and suppress riots. Therefore, he created a Municipal Guard of Paris, a full-time gendarmerie which was strongly militarised, however, he did not abolish the National Guard, but was content to partially disarm it. He kept the force in reserve and mobilised it for the defence of French territory in 1809 and 1814, between 1811 and 1812 the National Guard, was organized in cohorts to distinguish it from the regular army, and for home defence only. By a skilful appeal to patriotism, and judicious pressure applied through the prefects, with the invasion of France by allied Austrian, Prussian, Russian and British armies in 1814, the National Guard was suddenly called on to provide support for regular Imperial forces. Existing National Guard units, such as those of Paris, were deployed as defence corps in their areas of recruitment, mass conscription was extended to age groups previously exempt from military service, to provide more manpower for the expanded National Guard
8.
Communards
–
The Communards were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War and Frances defeat. The working class of Paris were feeling ostracized after the decadence of the Second Empire, the Prussians besieged Paris in September 1870, causing suffering among Parisians. The poor ate cat or rat meat or went hungry, out of resentment from this situation grew radical and socialist political clubs and newspapers. While Paris was occupied, socialist groups tried twice to overthrow the provisional government, in January 1871, Otto von Bismarck and the French minister of foreign affairs, Jules Favre, decided that France would hold national elections. Adolphe Thiers, who had been loyal to the Second Empire, was elected head of the newly monarchist republic, during the war, the capital had moved from Paris to Bordeaux. When the war ended, the government declined to back to Paris. In the early morning of March 18, the government stationed in Versailles sent military forces into Paris to collect a reserve of cannons, the detachment was still gathering the munitions when the Parisians awoke, and soon the soldiers were surrounded. In the chaos that followed, the soldiers killed two of their own, and by the end of the day, they were mainly sided with the Parisians. Insurgents now controlled the city, and they declared a new government called the Paris Commune, Thiers refused to bargain with the Communards, despite their attempts to do so. He taught newly released French soldiers the evils of the Communards as the government prepared for a battle, starting on May 21 and continuing through May 28, soldiers chased the National Guard members who sided with the Communards through the streets. Around 18,000 Parisians were killed,25,000 were imprisoned, the violence of Bloody Week became a rallying cry for the working classes, politicians would later proudly brag about their participation with the Commune. After Bloody Week, the government asked for an inquest into the causes of the uprising, the inquest concluded that the main cause of the insurrection was a lack of belief in God, and that this problem had to be corrected immediately. It was decided that a revival was needed, and a key part of this was deporting 4,500 Communards to New Caledonia. There was a goal in this, as the government also hoped that the Communards would civilize the native Kanak people on the island. The government hoped that being exposed to the order of nature would return the Communards to the side of good, New Caledonia had become a French colony in 1853, but just ten years later it still only had 350 European colonists. After 1863, New Caledonia became the destination of convicts transported from France after French Guiana was deemed too unhealthy for people of European descent. Thereafter, convicts from France made up the largest number of arriving residents, during the busiest time of deportation, there were estimated to be about 50,000 total people on the island. There were four main sites on the island, one of which
9.
Mons
–
Mons is a Belgian city and municipality, and the capital of the province of Hainaut. Together with the Czech city of Plzeň, Mons was the European Capital of Culture in 2015, the first signs of activity in the region of Mons are found at Spiennes, where some of the best flint tools in Europe were found dating from the Neolithic period. When Julius Caesar arrived in the region in the 1st century BC, the region was settled by the Nervii, a Belgian tribe. A castrum was built in Roman times, giving the settlement its Latin name Castrilocus, soon after, Saint Waltrude, daughter of one of Clotaire II’s intendants, came to the oratory and was proclaimed a saint upon her death in 688. Like Ath, its neighbour to the north-west, Mons was made a city by Count Baldwin IV of Hainaut in the 12th century. The population grew quickly, trade flourished, and several buildings were erected near the Grand’Place. The 12th century also saw the appearance of the first town halls, the city had 4,700 inhabitants by the end of the 13th century. Mons succeeded Valenciennes as the capital of the county of Hainaut in 1295, in the 1450s, Matheus de Layens took over the construction of the Saint Waltrude church from Jan Spijkens and restored the town hall. In 1515, Charles V took an oath in Mons as Count of Hainaut, after the murder of de Coligny during the St. Bartholomews Day massacre, the Duke of Alba took control of Mons in September 1572 in the name of the Catholic King of Spain. This spelled the ruin of the city and the arrest of many of its inhabitants, from 1580 to 1584, on 8 April 1691, after a nine-month siege, Louis XIV’s army stormed the city, which again suffered heavy casualties. From 1697 to 1701, Mons was alternately French or Austrian, after being under French control from 1701 to 1709, the Dutch army gained the upper hand in the Battle of Malplaquet. In 1715, Mons returned to Austria under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, but the French did not give up easily, Louis XV besieged the city again in 1746. After the Battle of Jemappes, the Hainaut area was annexed to France, following the fall of the First French Empire in 1814, King William I of the Netherlands fortified the city heavily. In 1830, however, Belgium gained its independence and the decision was made to dismantle fortified cities such as Mons, Charleroi, the actual removal of fortifications only happened in the 1860s, allowing the creation of large boulevards and other urban projects. The Industrial Revolution and coal mining made Mons a center of heavy industry and it was to become an integral part of the sillon industriel, the industrial backbone of Wallonia. On 17 April 1893, between Mons and Jemappes, seven strikers were killed by the guard at the end of the Belgian general strike of 1893. The proposed law on universal suffrage was approved the day after by the Belgian Parliament and this general strike was one of the first general strikes in an industrial country. On 23–24 August 1914, Mons was the location of the Battle of Mons—the first battle fought by the British Army in World War I
10.
Boston, Lincolnshire
–
Boston is a town and small port in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. It is the largest town of the wider Borough of Boston local government district, the borough had a total population of 66,900, at the ONS mid 2015 estimates, while the town itself had a population of 35,124 at the 2001 census. It is due north of Greenwich on the Prime Meridian, residents of Boston are known as Bostonians. Emigrants from Boston named several other settlements after the town, most notably Boston, Massachusetts, the name Boston is said to be a contraction of Saint Botolphs town, stone, or tun for a hamlet or farm, hence the Latin villa Sancti Botulfi St. Botulfs village). The towns link to the life is probably apocryphal. The town was held to have been a Roman settlement. The early medieval geography of The Fens was much more fluid than it is today and, at that time, Botolphs establishment is most likely to have been in Suffolk. However, he was a missionary and saint, to whom many churches between Yorkshire and Sussex are dedicated. The 1086 Domesday Book does not mention Boston by name, Skirbeck had two churches and one is likely to have been that dedicated to St Botolph, in what was consequently Botolphs town. Skirbeck is now considered part of Boston, but the remains, as a church parish. The order of importance was the way round, when the Boston quarter of Skirbeck developed at the head of the Haven. At that stage, The Haven was the part of the stream, now represented by the Stone Bridge Drain. The line of the road through Wide Bargate, to A52 and it led, as it does now, to the relatively high ground at Sibsey, and thence to Lindsey. The Sleaford route, into Kesteven, passed via Swineshead, thence following the old course of the River Slea, the Salters Way route into Kesteven, left Holland from Donington. This route was more thoroughly developed, in the later Medieval period. The River Witham seems to have joined The Haven after the flood of September 1014, the Town Bridge still maintains the pre-flood route, along the old Haven bank. After the Norman Conquest, Ralph the Stallers property was taken over by Count Alan and it subsequently came to be attached to the Earldom of Richmond, North Yorkshire, and known as the Richmond Fee. It lay on the bank of The Haven
11.
Bournemouth
–
Bournemouth /ˈbɔːrnməθ/ is a large coastal resort town on the south coast of England directly to the east of the Jurassic Coast, a 96-mile World Heritage Site. According to the 2011 census, the town has a population of 183,491 making it the largest settlement in Dorset. With Poole to the west and Christchurch in the east, Bournemouth forms the South East Dorset conurbation, before it was founded in 1810 by Lewis Tregonwell, the area was a deserted heathland occasionally visited by fishermen and smugglers. Initially marketed as a resort, the town received a boost when it appeared in Dr Granvilles book. Bournemouths growth really accelerated with the arrival of the railway and it became a town in 1870. Historically part of Hampshire, it joined Dorset with the reorganisation of government in 1974. Since 1997, the town has been administered by a unitary authority, the local council is Bournemouth Borough Council. The town centre has notable Victorian architecture and the 202-foot spire of St Peters Church, Bournemouths location has made it a popular destination for tourists, attracting over five million visitors annually with its beaches and popular nightlife. The town is also a centre of business, home of the Bournemouth International Centre or BIC. The word bourne, meaning a stream, is a derivative of burna. A travel guide published in 1831 calls the place Bourne Cliffe or Tregonwells Bourne after its founder, the Spas of England, published ten years later, calls it simply Bourne as does an 1838 edition of the Hampshire Advertiser. In the late 19th century Bournemouth became predominant, although its two-word form appears to have remained in use up until at least the early 20th century, in the 12th century the region around the mouth of the River Bourne was part of the Hundred of Holdenhurst. Although the Dorset and Hampshire region surrounding it had been the site of settlement for thousands of years, Westover was largely a remote. In 1574 the Earl of Southampton noted that the area was Devoid of all habitation, on this barren and uncultivated heath there was not a human to direct us. Bronze Age burials near Moordown, and the discovery of Iron Age pottery on the East Cliff in 1969, Hengistbury Head, added to the borough in 1932, was the site of a much older Palaeolithic encampment. No-one lived at the mouth of the Bourne river and the regular visitors to the area before the 19th century were a few fishermen, turf cutters. Prior to the Christchurch Inclosures Act 1802, more than 70% of the Westover area was common land, in 1809 the Tapps Arms public house appeared on the heath. A few years later, in 1812, the first official residents, retired army officer Lewis Tregonwell and his wife, the area was well known to Tregonwell who, during the Napoleonic wars, spent much of his time searching the heath and coastline for French invaders and smugglers
Media from Wikimedia Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource
Data from Wikidata
