Tintern Abbey
Tintern Abbey was founded on 9 May 1131 by Walter de Clare, Lord of Chepstow. It is situated adjacent to the village of Tintern in Monmouthshire, on the Welsh bank of the River Wye, which at this location forms the border between Monmouthshire in Wales and Gloucestershire in England, it was the first Cistercian foundation in Wales, only the second in Britain. The abbey fell into ruin after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, its remains have been celebrated in painting from the 18th century onwards. In 1984, Cadw took over responsibility for managing the site. Tintern Abbey is visited by 70,000 people every year; the Monmouthshire writer Fred Hando records the tradition of Tewdrig, King of Glywysing who retired to a hermitage above the river at Tintern, emerging to lead his son's army to victory against the Saxons at Pont-y-Saeson, a battle in which he was killed. The Cistercian Order was founded in 1098 at the abbey of Cîteaux. A breakaway faction of the Benedictines, the Cistercians sought to re-establish observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict.
Considered the strictest of the monastic orders, they laid down requirements for the construction of their abbeys, stipulating that "none of our houses is to be built in cities, in castles or villages. Let there be no towers of stone for bells, nor of wood of an immoderate height, which are unsuited to the simplicity of the order"; the Cistercians developed an approach to the Benedictine requirement for a dual commitment to pray and work that saw the evolving of a dual community, the monks and the lay brothers, illiterate workers who contributed to the life of the abbey and to the worship of God through manual labour. The order proved exceptionally successful and by 1151, five hundred Cistercian houses had been founded in Europe; the Carta Caritatis laid out their basic principles, of obedience, chastity, silence and work. With this austere way of life, the Cistercians were one of the most successful orders in the 12th and 13th centuries; the lands of the Abbey were divided into agricultural units or granges, on which local people worked and provided services such as smithies to the Abbey.
William Giffard, Bishop of Winchester introduced the first colony of Cistercian monks to England at Waverley, Surrey, in 1128. His first cousin, Walter de Clare, of the powerful family of Clare, established the second Cistercian house in Britain, the first in Wales, at Tintern in 1131; the Tintern monks came from a daughter house of Cîteaux, L'Aumône Abbey, in the diocese of Chartres in France. In time, Tintern established two daughter houses, Kingswood in Gloucestershire and Tintern Parva, west of Wexford in southeast Ireland; the present-day remains of Tintern are a mixture of building works covering a 400-year period between 1131 and 1536. Little of the first buildings still survive today; the church of that time was smaller than the present building, to the north. The Abbey was rebuilt during the 13th century, starting with the cloisters and domestic ranges, the great church between 1269 and 1301; the first mass in the rebuilt presbytery was recorded to have taken place in 1288, the building was consecrated in 1301, although building work continued for several decades.
Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk, the lord of Chepstow, was a generous benefactor. The earl's coat of arms was included in the glasswork of the Abbey's east window in recognition of his contribution, it is this great Decorated Gothic abbey church that can be seen today, representing the architectural developments of its period. The abbey is built with colours varying from purple to buff and grey, its total length from east to west is 228 feet. King Edward II stayed at Tintern for two nights in 1326; when the Black Death swept the country in 1349, it became impossible to attract new recruits for the lay brotherhood. In the early 15th century, Tintern was short of money, due in part to the effects of the Welsh uprising under Owain Glyndŵr against the English kings, when abbey properties were destroyed by the Welsh rebels; the closest battle to Tintern Abbey was at Craig-y-dorth near Monmouth, between Trellech and Mitchel Troy. In the reign of King Henry VIII, his Dissolution of the Monasteries ended monastic life in England and Ireland.
On 3 September 1536, Abbot Wych surrendered Tintern Abbey and all its estates to the King's visitors and ended a way of life that had lasted 400 years. Valuables from the Abbey were sent to the royal Treasury and Abbot Wych was pensioned off; the building was granted to the lord of Chepstow, Henry Somerset, 2nd Earl of Worcester. Lead from the roof was sold and the decay of the buildings began; the west front of the church, with its seven-light Decorated window, was completed around 1300. The nave is of six bays, had arcades to both the northern and southern sides; the presbytery is of four bays, with a great east window of eight lights. All of the tracery, with the exception of the central column and the mullion above is gone; the cloister retains its original width, but its length was extended in the 13th century rebuilding, creatin
Pub
A pub, or public house, is an establishment licensed to sell alcoholic drinks, which traditionally include beer and cider. It is a relaxed, social drinking establishment and a prominent part of British, Breton, New Zealand, South African and Australian cultures. In many places in villages, a pub is the focal point of the community. In his 17th-century diary Samuel Pepys described the pub as "the heart of England". Pubs can be traced back to Roman taverns, through the Anglo-Saxon alehouse to the development of the tied house system in the 19th century. In 1393, King Richard II of England introduced legislation that pubs had to display a sign outdoors to make them visible for passing ale tasters, who would assess the quality of ale sold. Most pubs focus on offering beers and similar drinks; as well, pubs sell wines and soft drinks and snacks. The owner, tenant or manager is known as the pub landlord or landlady, or publican. Referred to as their "local" by regulars, pubs are chosen for their proximity to home or work, the availability of a particular beer or ale or a good selection, good food, a social atmosphere, the presence of friends and acquaintances, the availability of recreational activities such as a darts team, a skittles team, a pool or snooker table.
The pub quiz was established in the UK in the 1970s. The inhabitants of the British Isles have been drinking ale since the Bronze Age, but it was with the arrival of the Roman Empire on its shores in the 1st century, the construction of the Roman road networks that the first inns, called tabernae, in which travellers could obtain refreshment, began to appear. After the departure of Roman authority in the 5th century and the fall of the Romano-British kingdoms, the Anglo-Saxons established alehouses that grew out of domestic dwellings; the Anglo-Saxon alewife would put a green bush up on a pole to let. These alehouses evolved into meeting houses for the folk to congregate and arrange mutual help within their communities. Herein lies "pub" as it is colloquially called in England, they spread across the kingdom, becoming so commonplace that in 965 King Edgar decreed that there should be no more than one alehouse per village. A traveller in the early Middle Ages could obtain overnight accommodation in monasteries, but a demand for hostelries grew with the popularity of pilgrimages and travel.
The Hostellers of London were granted guild status in 1446 and in 1514 the guild became the Worshipful Company of Innholders. A survey in 1577 of drinking establishment in England and Wales for taxation purposes recorded 14,202 alehouses, 1,631 inns, 329 taverns, representing one pub for every 187 people. Inns are buildings where travellers can seek lodging and food and drink, they are located in the country or along a highway. In Europe, they first sprang up when the Romans built a system of roads two millennia ago; some inns in Europe are several centuries old. In addition to providing for the needs of travellers, inns traditionally acted as community gathering places. In Europe, it is the provision of accommodation, if anything, that now distinguishes inns from taverns and pubs; the latter tend to provide alcohol, but less accommodation. Inns tend to be older and grander establishments: they provided not only food and lodging, but stabling and fodder for the traveller's horse and on some roads fresh horses for the mail coach.
Famous London inns include The George and The Tabard. There is, other kinds of establishment. Many pubs use "Inn" in their name, either because they are long established former coaching inns, or to summon up a particular kind of image, or in many cases as a pun on the word "in", as in "The Welcome Inn", the name of many pubs in Scotland; the original services of an inn are now available at other establishments, such as hotels and motels, which focus more on lodging customers than on other services, although they provide meals. In North America, the lodging aspect of the word "inn" lives on in hotel brand names like Holiday Inn, in some state laws that refer to lodging operators as innkeepers; the Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery in London started as ordinary inns where barristers met to do business, but became institutions of the legal profession in England and Wales. The 18th century saw a huge growth in the number of drinking establishments due to the introduction of gin. Brought to England by the Dutch after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, gin became popular after the government created a market for "cuckoo grain" or "cuckoo malt" by allowing unlicensed gin and beer production while imposing a heavy duty on all imported spirits.
As thousands of gin-shops sprang up all over England, brewers fought back by increasing the number of alehouses. By 1740 the production of gin had increased to six times that of beer and, because of its cheapness, it became popular with the poor, leading to the so-called Gin Craze. Over half of the 15,000 drinking establishments in London were gin shops; the drunkenness and lawlessness created by gin was seen to lead to the ruination and degradation of the working classes. The different effects of beer and gin were illustrated by William Hogarth in his engravings Beer Street and Gin Lane; the Gin Act 1736 imposed high taxes on retailers and led to riots in the streets
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery; the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, collapse of centralized authority and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued in the Early Middle Ages; the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete.
The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or "Code of Justinian", was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became admired in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions. Monasteries were founded; the Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty established the Carolingian Empire during the 8th and early 9th century. It covered much of Western Europe but succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, Saracens from the south. During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and the Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. Manorialism, the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles, feudalism, the political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors, were two of the ways society was organised in the High Middle Ages.
The Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation-states, reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant. Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, by the founding of universities; the theology of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres are among the outstanding achievements toward the end of this period and into the Late Middle Ages. The Late Middle Ages was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine and war, which diminished the population of Europe. Controversy and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period.
The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history: classical civilisation, or Antiquity. The "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or "middle season". In early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or "middle age", first recorded in 1604, media saecula, or "middle ages", first recorded in 1625; the alternative term "medieval" derives from medium aevum. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the "Six Ages" or the "Four Empires", considered their time to be the last before the end of the world; when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being "modern". In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua and to the Christian period as nova. Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People, with a middle period "between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of city life sometime in late eleventh and twelfth centuries".
Tripartite periodisation became standard after the 17th-century German historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods: ancient and modern. The most given starting point for the Middle Ages is around 500, with the date of 476 first used by Bruni. Starting dates are sometimes used in the outer parts of Europe. For Europe as a whole, 1500 is considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used. English historians use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period. For Spain, dates used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516, the death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492. Historians from Romance-speaking countries tend to divide the Middle Ages into two parts: an earlier "High" and late
Severn Estuary
The Severn Estuary is the estuary of the River Severn, the longest river in Great Britain. It is the confluence of four major rivers, being the Severn, Wye and Avon, other smaller rivers, its high tidal range 50 feet, means that it has been at the centre of discussions in the UK regarding renewable energy. Definitions of the limits of the Severn Estuary vary. A narrower definition adopted by some maps is that the river becomes the Severn Estuary after the Second Severn Crossing near Severn Beach, South Gloucestershire, stretches to a line from Lavernock Point to Sand Point near Weston-super-Mare; the definition used on Admiralty Chart SC1179 and the Bristol Channel and Severn Cruising Guide is that the estuary extends upstream to Aust, the site of the old Severn Bridge. The estuary is about 2 miles wide at Aust, about 9 miles wide between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare; the Estuary forms the boundary between England in this stretch. On the northern side of the estuary are the Caldicot and Wentloog Levels which are on either side of the city of Newport.
On the southern, side, are Avonmouth, Portishead and Weston-super-Mare. Denny Island is a small rocky island of 0.24 hectares, with scrub vegetation three miles north of Portishead. Its rocky southern foreshore marks the boundary between England and Wales, but the island itself is reckoned administratively to Monmouthshire, Wales; the estuary has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world — about 50 feet. The estuary's funnel shape, its tidal range and the underlying geology of rock and sand, produce strong tidal streams and high turbidity, giving the water a notably brown coloration. West of the line between Lavernock Point and Sand Point is the Bristol Channel, which in turn discharges into the Celtic Sea and the wider Atlantic Ocean; the islands of Steep Holm and Flat Holm are located close to that line, in the middle of the estuary. Sometimes the term Severn Estuary is used to include the tidal upstream stretch between Gloucester and Aust. During the highest tides on the upper reaches of this stretch, the rising water is funnelled up the estuary into the Severn bore, a self-reinforcing solitary wave that travels upstream against the river current.
The tidal range results in the estuary having one of the most extensive intertidal wildlife habitats in the UK, comprising mudflats, rocky platforms and islands. These form a basis for plant and animal communities typical of extreme physical conditions of liquid mud and tide-swept sand and rock; the estuary is recognised as a wetland area of international importance and is designated as a Ramsar site. The estuary is recognised as a Special Protection Area under the EC Directive on the conservation of Wild Birds; the estuary is recognised as a Special Area of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive. Parts of the estuary have been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest; the SSSI includes most of the foreshore upstream from Cardiff and Brean Down and most of the upper estuary as far as Sharpness. The Upper Severn Estuary SSSI covers the tidal river between Frampton on Severn; the Severn Estuary SSSI original designation involves the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire in England, Gwent and South Glamorgan in Wales.
The Severn Estuary SSSI designation overlaps individual site designations for separate sites in Avon and South Glamorgan. The 1976 designation includes two sites notified in 1952; the SSSI forms the major part of a larger area which includes the Taf/Ely Estuary and Bridgwater Bay The Upper Severn Estuary SSSI designation involves the English county of Gloucestershire. The site is listed in the'Forest of Dean Local Plan Review' as a Key Wildlife Site. Both SSSI citations provide detail of the geological and biological interest and of particular note is the international importance for wintering and wading birds of passage, of estuarine habits of outstanding ornithological significance, it is stated that the estuary supports over 10% of the British wintering population and is the single most important wintering ground for dunlin, for significant numbers of Bewick's swans, European white-fronted geese and wigeon. Nationally important wintering populations are supported such as gadwall and pochard.
There are notably seven species of migratory fish. These include significant numbers of common eel. A huge tidal range and high level of surrounding industry and population have long made the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel a focus for tidal energy schemes and ideas. Plans for a Severn Barrage — running 16 km across the Bristol Channel from Lavernock Point near to and south west of Cardiff to Brean Down near and just south west of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset — would generate a massive 8640 MW when the tide flows, have been discussed for several decades now; the power generated would come from a lake of 185 square miles with a potential energy depth of 14 metres. Tidal power only runs for around ten hours a day, but by using the enclosed lake as a reservoir of potential energy more hours of operation could be achieved. Other energy sources, such as wind and solar power create electricity at times that do not always match when it is needed. Excess power could be stored by pumping water uphill
Baptismal font
A baptismal font is an article of church furniture used for baptism. The fonts of many Christian denominations are for baptisms using a non-immersive method, such as aspersion or affusion; the simplest of these fonts has a pedestal with a holder for a basin of water. The materials vary consisting of carved and sculpted marble, wood, or metal; the shape can vary. Many are eight-sided as a reminder of the new creation and as a connection to the practice of circumcision, which traditionally occurs on the eighth day; some are three-sided as a reminder of the Holy Trinity: Father and Holy Spirit. Fonts are placed at or near the entrance to a church's nave to remind believers of their baptism as they enter the church to pray, since the rite of baptism served as their initiation into the Church. In many churches of the Middle Ages and Renaissance there was a special chapel or a separate building for housing the baptismal fonts, called a baptistery. Both fonts and baptisteries were octagonal. Saint Ambrose wrote that fonts and baptisteries were octagonal "because on the eighth day, by rising, Christ loosens the bondage of death and receives the dead from their graves".
Saint Augustine described the eighth day as "everlasting... hallowed by the resurrection of Christ". The quantity of water is small. There are some fonts where water pumps, a natural spring, or gravity keeps the water moving to mimic the moving waters of a stream; this visual and audible image communicates a "living waters" aspect of baptism. Some church bodies use special holy water while others will use water straight out of the tap to fill the font. A special silver vessel called; the mode of a baptism at a font is one of sprinkling, washing, or dipping in keeping with the Koine Greek verb βαπτιζω. Βαπτιζω can mean "immerse", but most fonts are too small for that application. Some fonts are large enough to allow the immersion of infants, however; the earliest baptismal fonts were designed for full immersion, were cross-shaped with steps leading down into them. Such baptismal pools were located in a separate building, called a baptistery, near the entrance of the church; as infant baptism became more common, fonts became smaller.
Denominations that believe only in baptism by full immersion tend to use the term "baptismal font" to refer to immersion tanks dedicated for that purpose, however in the Roman Catholic tradition a baptismal font differs from an immersion. Full-immersion baptisms may take place in a man-made tank or pool, or a natural body of water such as a river or lake; the entire body is immersed, submerged or otherwise placed under the water. This practice symbolizes the death of the old nature, as found in Romans 6:3-4. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, baptism is always by full triple immersion in the case of infant baptism. For this reason, Eastern baptismal fonts tend to be larger than Western, are shaped like a large chalice, are fashioned out of metal rather than stone or wood. During the baptismal service, three candles will be lit on or around the baptismal font, in honor of the Holy Trinity. In many Orthodox churches, a special kind of holy water, called "Theophany Water", is consecrated on the Feast of Theophany.
The consecration is performed twice: the first time on the Eve in a baptismal font. In the Roman Catholic Church after its Second Vatican Council, greater attention is being given to the form of the baptismal font; the Roman Catholic Church encourages baptismal fonts that are suitable for the full immersion of an infant or child, for at least the pouring of water over the whole body of an adult. The font should be located in a space, visibly and physically accessible, should preferably make provision for flowing water. Baptisms of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are done in a simple font located in a local meetinghouse, although they can be performed in any body of water in which the person may be immersed. In Latter-day Saint temples, where proxy baptisms for the dead are performed, the fonts rest on the sculptures of twelve oxen representing the twelve tribes of Israel, following the pattern of the Molten Sea in the Temple of Solomon. Bronze laver Holy water font Nipson anomemata me monan opsin Fonts used to baptise the British royal family Combe, Thomas.
Illustrations of baptismal fonts. J. Van Voorst. Retrieved 25 September 2010. Catholic Encyclopedia article Church Furniture article in Christian Cyclopedia The Baptismal font of Renier d'Huy in Leige, Belgium "Font". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921
Wales
Wales is a country, part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Bristol Channel to the south, it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon, its highest summit; the country has a changeable, maritime climate. Welsh national identity emerged among the Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations. Llywelyn ap Gruffudd's death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of England's conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century; the whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party.
Welsh national feeling grew over the century. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, development of the mining and metallurgical industries transformed the country from an agricultural society into an industrial nation. Two-thirds of the population live in South Wales, including Cardiff, Swansea and the nearby valleys. Now that the country's traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, Wales' economy depends on the public sector and service industries and tourism. Although Wales shares its political and social history with the rest of Great Britain, a majority of the population in most areas speaks English as a first language, the country has retained a distinct cultural identity and is bilingual. Over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west.
From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the "land of song", in part due to the eisteddfod tradition. At many international sporting events, such as the FIFA World Cup, Rugby World Cup and the Commonwealth Games, Wales has its own national teams, though at the Olympic Games, Welsh athletes compete as part of a Great Britain team. Rugby union is seen as an expression of national consciousness; the English words "Wales" and "Welsh" derive from the same Germanic root, itself derived from the name of the Gaulish people known to the Romans as Volcae and which came to refer indiscriminately to all non-Germanic peoples. The Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term Wælisc when referring to the Britons in particular, Wēalas when referring to their lands; the modern names for some Continental European lands and peoples have a similar etymology. In Britain, the words were not restricted to modern Wales or to the Welsh but were used to refer to anything that the Anglo-Saxons associated with the Britons, including other non-Germanic territories in Britain and places in Anglo-Saxon territory associated with Britons, as well as items associated with non-Germanic Europeans, such as the walnut.
The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales. These words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning "fellow-countrymen"; the use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the location in the post-Roman Era of the Welsh people in modern Wales as well as in northern England and southern Scotland. It emphasised that the Welsh in modern Wales and in the Hen Ogledd were one people, different from other peoples. In particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage and language to the Welsh; the word came into use as a self-description before the 7th century. It is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. In Welsh literature, the word Cymry was used throughout the Middle Ages to describe the Welsh, though the older, more generic term Brythoniaid continued to be used to describe any of the Britonnic peoples and was the more common literary term until c. 1200. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh.
Until c. 1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. The Latinised forms of these names, Cambrian and Cambria, survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales and the Welsh people. Examples include the Cambrian Mountains, the newspaper Cambrian News, the organisations Cambrian Airways, Cambrian Railways, Cambrian Archaeological Association and the Royal Cambrian Academy of Art. Outside Wales, a related form survives as the name Cumbria in North West England, once a part of Yr Hen Ogledd; the Cumbric language, thought to
Fire services in the United Kingdom
The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty agencies; these are known as a fire and rescue service, the term used in modern legislation and by government departments. The older terms of fire brigade and fire service survive in informal usage and in the names of a few organisations. England and Wales have local fire services which are each overseen by a fire authority, made up of representatives of local governments. Fire authorities have the power to raise a Council Tax levy for funding, with the remainder coming from the government. Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire services, so their authorities are committees of the devolved parliaments; the total budget for fire services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. Central government maintains national standards and a body of independent advisers through the Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser, created in 2007, while Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services provides direct oversight.
The devolved government in Scotland has HMFSI Scotland. Firefighters in the United Kingdom are allowed to join unions, the main one being the Fire Brigades Union, while chief fire officers are members of the National Fire Chiefs Council, which has some role in national co-ordination; the fire services have undergone significant changes since the beginning of the 21st century, a process, propelled by a devolution of central government powers, new legislation and a change to operational procedures in the light of terrorism attacks and threats. See separate article History of fire safety legislation in the United Kingdom Comprehensive list of recent UK fire and rescue service legislation: Fire services are established and granted their powers under new legislation which has replaced a number of Acts of Parliament dating back more than 60 years, but is still undergoing change. 1938: Fire Brigades Act 1938. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain and made it mandatory for local authorities to arrange an effective fire service.
1947: Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004. 1959: Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act. It was repealed in 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 national fire strikes, with much of the discontent caused by the aforementioned report into the fire service conducted by Prof Sir George Bain. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the industrial action still ongoing. Bain's report led to a change in the laws relating to firefighting. 2002: Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004: Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 only applying to England and Wales. 2006: The Regulatory Reform Order 2005 This piece of secondary legislation or statutory instrument replaces several other acts that dealt with fire precautions and fire safety in premises, including the now defunct process of issuing fire certificates.
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 and rescue services. 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, its website outlines future changes, specific projects: "The aim of the Fire Modernisation Programme is to adopt modern work practices within the Fire & Rescue Service to become more efficient and effective, while strengthening the contingency and resilience of the Service to react to incidents. " 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.
Committee report The committee's brief is described on its website: The Communities and Local Government Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure and policy of the Department for Communities and Local Government and its associated bodies. Government response This document, the subsequent government response in September 2006, are important as they outlined progress on the FiReControl, efforts to address diversity and the planned closure of HMFSI in 2007 among many issues. Both documents are interesting as they refer back to Professor Bain's report and the many recommendations it made and continue to put forward the notion that there is an ongoing need to modernise FRSs. For example, where FRSs were 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 Governm
