St Bartholomew's Hospital
St Bartholomew's Hospital known as Barts, is a teaching hospital located in the City of London. It was founded in 1123 and is run by Barts Health NHS Trust. Barts was founded in 1123 by Rahere, a favourite courtier of King Henry I; the Dissolution of the Monasteries did not affect the running of Barts as a hospital, but left it in a precarious position by removing its income. It was refounded by King Henry VIII in December 1546, on the signing of an agreement granting the hospital to the Corporation of London; the hospital became styled as the "House of the Poore in Farringdon in the suburbs of the City of London of Henry VIII's Foundation", although the title was never used by the general public. The first Superintendent of the hospital was Thomas Vicary, sergeant-surgeon to King Henry, an early writer on anatomy, it was here that William Harvey conducted his research on the circulatory system in the 17th century, Percivall Pott and John Abernethy developed important principles of modern surgery in the 18th century, Mrs Bedford Fenwick worked to advance the nursing profession in the late 19th century.
In 1839 to 1872, the mortality reports show that surgical trauma and postoperative infection were the greatest causes of death. Tuberculosis, remained the most fatal nontraumatic cause of death. Nurses were expected to work 12 hours a day, sometimes 14, with meal breaks in 1890, they had 2 weeks annual holiday. Upon the creation of the National Health Service in 1948, it became known as St Bartholomew's Hospital. Barts is the oldest hospital in Britain still providing medical services which occupies the site it was built on, has an important current role as well as a long history and architecturally important buildings; the so-named Henry VIII entrance to the hospital continues to be the main public entrance. Its main square was designed by James Gibbs in the 1730s. Of the four original blocks only three survive; the first wing to be built was the North Wing, in 1732, which includes the Great Hall and the murals by William Hogarth. The South Wing followed in 1740, the West in 1752 and the East Wing in 1769.
In 1859, a fountain was placed at the square's centre with a small garden. St Bartholomew's Hospital has existed on the same site since its founding in the 12th century, surviving both the Great Fire of London and the Blitz, its museum, open Tuesdays to Fridays every week, shows how medical care has developed over this time and explains the history of the hospital. Part-way around the exhibition is a door. On the walls of the staircase are two murals painted by William Hogarth, The Pool of Bethesda and The Good Samaritan, they can only be seen at close quarters on Friday afternoons. Hogarth was so outraged by the news that the hospital was commissioning art from Italian painters that he insisted on doing these murals free of charge, as a demonstration that English painting was equal to the task; the Pool of Bethesda is of particular medical interest, as it depicts a scene in which Christ cures the sick: display material on the first floor speculates in modern medical terms about the ailments from which Christ's patients in the painting are suffering.
The room to which the staircase leads is the hospital's Great Hall, a double-height room in Baroque-style. Although there are a few paintings inside the Great Hall, nearly all are on movable stands: the walls themselves are given over to the display of the many large, painted plaques which list, in detail, the sums of money given to the hospital by its benefactors. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the hospital precincts of the ancient priory were redesignated as an Anglican ecclesiastical parish, with St Bartholomew-the-Less becoming the parish church – a unique situation amongst English hospital foundations. St Barts-the-Less is the only survivor of five chapels within the hospital's estate, the others failing to survive the Reformation; the church has a 15th-century tower and vestry, its connections with the hospital can be seen not only in its early-20th century stained glass window of a nurse, a gift from the Worshipful Company of Glaziers, but in commemorative plaques adorning its interior.
Throughout the whole of the 19th century, the Hardwick family were major benefactors of the hospital. Thomas Hardwick Jr. Philip Hardwick, Philip Charles Hardwick were all architects/surveyors to Barts Hospital. Philip Hardwick, a Royal Academician, was engaged in the rebuilding of the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Less in 1823 and donated the fountain in the hospital's courtyard. By 1872, Barts contained 676 beds. About 6,000 in-patients were admitted every year, as well as 101,000 out-patients; the average income of the hospital was £40,000 and the number of governors exceeded 300. In 1993 the controversial Tomlinson Review of London hospitals was published and concluded that there were too many hospitals in central London, it recommended. Barts was identified as a hospital with a catchment area that had a low population and the hospital was threatened with closure. A determined campaign was mounted to save the hospital by the Save Barts Campaign, supported by staff, local MPs and the City of London Corporation.
Some facilities were saved, but the accident and emergency department closed in 1995, with facilities reloca
Cheapside
Cheapside is a street in the City of London, the historic and modern financial centre of London, which forms part of the A40 London to Fishguard road. It links St. Martin's Le Grand with Poultry. Near its eastern end at Bank junction, where it becomes Poultry, is Mansion House, the Bank of England, Bank station. To the west is St. Paul's Cathedral, St. Paul's tube station and square. In the Middle Ages, it was known as Westcheap, as opposed to Eastcheap, another street in the City, near London Bridge; the boundaries of the wards of Cheap and Bread Street run along Cheapside and Poultry. The contemporary Cheapside is known as the location of a range of retail and food outlets and offices, as well as the City's only major shopping centre, One New Change. Cheapside is a common English street name, meaning "market place", from Old English ceapan,'to buy', whence chapman and chapbook. There was no connection to the modern meaning of cheap, though by the 18th century this association may have begun to be inferred.
Other cities and towns in England that have a Cheapside include Ambleside, Barnsley, Bradford, Bristol, Halifax, Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Reading and Wolverhampton. There is a Cheapside in Bridgetown, Barbados. Cheapside is the former site of one of the principal produce markets in London, cheap broadly meaning "market" in medieval English. Many of the streets feeding into the main thoroughfare are named after the produce, once sold in those areas of the market, including Honey Lane, Milk Street, Bread Street and Poultry. In medieval times, the royal processional route from the Tower of London to the Palace of Westminster would include Cheapside. During state occasions such as the first entry of Margaret of France, into London in September 1299, the conduits of Cheapside customarily flowed with wine. During the reign of Edward III in the 14th century, tournaments were held in adjacent fields; the dangers were, not limited to the participants: a wooden stand built to accommodate Queen Philippa and her companions collapsed during a tournament to celebrate the birth of the Black Prince in 1330.
No one died, but the King was displeased, the stand's builders would have been put to death but for the Queen's intercession. On the day preceding her coronation, in January 1559, Elizabeth I passed through a number of London streets in a pre-coronation procession and was entertained by a number of pageants, including one in Cheapside. Meat was brought in to Cheapside from Smithfield market, just outside Newgate. After the great Church of St. Michael-le-Querne, the top end of the street broadened into a dual carriageway known as the Shambles, with butcher shops on both sides and a dividing central area containing butchers. Further down, on the right, was Goldsmiths Row, an area of commodity dealers. From the 14th century to the Great Fire, the eastern end of Cheapside was the location of the Great Conduit. Cheapside was the birthplace of John Milton, Robert Herrick, it was for a long time one of the most important streets in London. It is the site of the'Bow Bells', the church of St. Mary-le-Bow, which has played a part in London's Cockney heritage and the tale of Dick Whittington.
Geoffrey Chaucer grew up around Cheapside and there are a scattering of references to the thoroughfare and its environs throughout his work. The first chapter of Peter Ackroyd's Brief Lives series on Chaucer colourfully describes the street at that time. Thomas Middleton's play A Chaste Maid in Cheapside both satirises and celebrates the citizens of the neighbourhood during the Renaissance, when the street hosted the city's goldsmiths. William Wordsworth, in his 1797 poem The Reverie of Poor Susan, imagines a naturalistic Cheapside of past: And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside. Jane Austen, in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, characterises Cheapside as a London neighbourhood frowned upon by the landed elite: "I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in Meryton." "Yes. "That is capital," added her sister, they both laughed heartily. "If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside," cried Bingley, "it would not make them one jot less agreeable." "But it must materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world," replied Darcy.
Charles Dickens, Jr. wrote in his 1879 book Dickens's Dictionary of London: Cheapside remains now what it was five centuries ago, the greatest thoroughfare in the City of London. Other localities have had their day, have risen, become fashionable, have sunk into obscurity and neglect, but Cheapside has maintained its place, may boast of being the busiest thoroughfare in the world, with the sole exception of London-bridge. Hugh Lofting's book Doctor Dolittle, published in 1951, names a quarrelsome London sparrow with a Cockney accent Cheapside, he lives most of the year in St. Edmund's left ear in St. Paul's Cathedral and is invited to the African country of Fantippo to deliver mail to cities because the other birds are not able to navigate city streets. Cheapside is depicted in Rosemary Sutcliff's 1951 children's historical novel The Armourer's House, along with other parts of Tu
Guy's Hospital
Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre, it is a large teaching hospital and is, with St Thomas' Hospital and King's College Hospital, the location of King's College London GKT School of Medical Education. The Tower Wing is the world's second tallest hospital building, standing at 148.65 metres with 34 floors. It is one of the tallest buildings in London; the hospital dates from 1721, when it was founded by philanthropist Thomas Guy, who had made a fortune from the South Sea Bubble and as a publisher of unlicensed Bibles. It was established as a hospital to treat "incurables" discharged from St Thomas' Hospital. Guy had been a Governor and benefactor of St Thomas' and his fellow Governors supported his intention by granting the south-side of St Thomas' Street for a peppercorn rent for 999 years.
Following his death in 1724, Thomas Guy was entombed at the hospital's chapel, in a tomb featuring a marble sculpture by John Bacon. The original buildings formed a courtyard facing St Thomas Street, comprising the hall on the east side and the Chapel, Matron's House and Surgeon's House on the west-side. A bequest of £180,000 by William Hunt in 1829, one of the largest charitable bequests in England in historic terms, allowed for a further hundred beds to be accommodated. Hunt's name was given to the southern expansion of the hospital buildings which took place in 1850. Two inner quadrangles were divided by a cloister, restyled and dedicated to the hospital's members who fell in the First World War; the east side comprised the care wards and the'counting house' with the governors'Burfoot Court Room'. The north-side quadrangle is dominated by a statue of Lord Nuffield, the chairman of governors for many years and a major benefactor. In 1974, the hospital added the 34-storey Guy's Tower and 29-storey Guy's House: this complex was designed by Watkins Gray.
The Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases, dedicated to improving outcomes of conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and spinal cord injury, was opened by the Princess Royal in December 2004. In October 2005 children's departments moved to the Evelina London Children's Hospital in the grounds next to St Thomas's close to the Palace of Westminster. A new cancer centre, built by Laing O'Rourke at a cost of £160 million, was completed in April 2016. Medical services at the Guy's site are now concentrated in the buildings to the east of Great Maze Pond: these buildings, which are connected, are known as Tower Wing, Bermondsey Wing, Southwark Wing and Borough Wing; the Cancer Centre is in a separate building just to the south. To the west of the Great Maze Pond is Guy's Campus. At 148.65 metres high, Guy's Tower regained its tallest hospital building in the world status in 2014. It has since been surpassed by the Outpatient Center at the Houston Methodist Hospital, in Houston, USA at 156.05 metres.
Healthcare in London List of hospitals in England King's Health Partners Francis Crick Institute Tall buildings in London Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust Guy's and St Thomas' Charity Wolfson Centre for Age Related Diseases Lists of Guy's Hospital students
Helipad
A helipad is a landing area or platform for helicopters and powered lift aircraft. While helicopters and powered lift aircraft are able to operate on a variety of flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a marked hard surface away from obstacles where such aircraft can land safely. Larger helipads, intended for use by helicopters and other vertical take-off and landing aircraft, may be called vertiports. An example is Vertiport Chicago, which opened in 2015. Helipads may be located at a heliport or airport where fuel, air traffic control and service facilities for aircraft are available. Most helipads are located remote from populated areas due to sounds, winds and cost constraints, some skyscrapers maintain a helipad on their roofs in order to accommodate air taxi services; some basic helipads are built on highrise buildings for evacuation in case of a major fire outbreak. Major police departments may use a dedicated helipad at heliports as a base for police helicopters. Large ships and oil platforms have a helipad on board for emergency use.
In such a case, the term "helideck" or "helodeck" has been used in the meaning of a helipad on board. Helipads are common features at hospitals where they serve to facilitate medical evacuation or air ambulance transfers of patients to trauma centers or to accept patients from remote areas without local hospitals or facilities capable of providing the level of emergency medicine required. In urban environments, these heliports are located on the roof of the hospital. Rooftop helipads sometimes display a large two-digit number, representing the weight limit of the pad. In addition, a second number may be present. Location identifiers are but not always, issued for helipads, they may be issued by the appropriate aviation authority. Authorized agencies include the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States, Transport Canada in Canada, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Air Transport Association; some helipads may have location identifiers from multiple sources, these identifiers may be of different format and name.
Helipads are constructed out of concrete and are marked with a circle and/or a letter "H", so as to be visible from the air. However, they are not always constructed out of concrete. Rig mats may be used to build helipads. Landing pads may be constructed in extreme conditions such as on ice; the world's highest helipad, built by India, is located on the Siachen Glacier at a height of 21,000 feet above sea level. The world's largest heliport is in Morgan City and has a total of 46 helipads, used to support offshore oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. A portable helipad is a helipad structure with a rugged frame that can be used to land helicopters in any areas with slopes of up to 30 degrees, such as hillsides and boggy areas. Portable helipads can be transported by helicopter or powered-lift to place them where a VTOL needs to land, as long as there are no insurmountable obstructions nearby. Helicopter deck Helicopter landing officer Heliport de Voogt, A. J. 2007. Helidrome Architecture. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers.
ICAO 1995. Heliport manual. Montreal, Canada: ICAO Publications
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized medical and nursing staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which has an emergency department to treat urgent health problems ranging from fire and accident victims to a sudden illness. A district hospital is the major health care facility in its region, with a large number of beds for intensive care and additional beds for patients who need long-term care. Specialized hospitals include trauma centers, rehabilitation hospitals, children's hospitals, seniors' hospitals, hospitals for dealing with specific medical needs such as psychiatric treatment and certain disease categories. Specialized hospitals can help reduce health care costs compared to general hospitals. Hospitals are classified as general, specialty, or government depending on the sources of income received. A teaching hospital combines assistance to people with teaching to medical nurses; the medical facility smaller than a hospital is called a clinic.
Hospitals have a range of departments and specialist units such as cardiology. Some hospitals have outpatient departments and some have chronic treatment units. Common support units include a pharmacy and radiology. Hospitals are funded by the public sector, health organisations, health insurance companies, or charities, including direct charitable donations. Hospitals were founded and funded by religious orders, or by charitable individuals and leaders. Hospitals are staffed by professional physicians, surgeons and allied health practitioners, whereas in the past, this work was performed by the members of founding religious orders or by volunteers. However, there are various Catholic religious orders, such as the Alexians and the Bon Secours Sisters that still focus on hospital ministry in the late 1990s, as well as several other Christian denominations, including the Methodists and Lutherans, which run hospitals. In accordance with the original meaning of the word, hospitals were "places of hospitality", this meaning is still preserved in the names of some institutions such as the Royal Hospital Chelsea, established in 1681 as a retirement and nursing home for veteran soldiers.
During the Middle Ages, hospitals served different functions from modern institutions. Middle Ages hospitals were hostels for pilgrims, or hospital schools; the word "hospital" comes from the Latin hospes, signifying a foreigner, hence a guest. Another noun derived from this, hospitium came to signify hospitality, the relation between guest and shelterer, hospitality and hospitable reception. By metonymy the Latin word came to mean a guest-chamber, guest's lodging, an inn. Hospes is thus the root for the English words host hospitality, hospice and hotel; the latter modern word derives from Latin via the ancient French romance word hostel, which developed a silent s, which letter was removed from the word, the loss of, signified by a circumflex in the modern French word hôtel. The German word'Spital' shares similar roots; the grammar of the word differs depending on the dialect. In the United States, hospital requires an article; some patients go to a hospital just for diagnosis, treatment, or therapy and leave without staying overnight.
Hospitals are distinguished from other types of medical facilities by their ability to admit and care for inpatients whilst the others, which are smaller, are described as clinics. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital known as an acute-care hospital; these facilities handle many kinds of disease and injury, have an emergency department or trauma center to deal with immediate and urgent threats to health. Larger cities may have several hospitals of facilities; some hospitals in the United States and Canada, have their own ambulance service. A district hospital is the major health care facility in its region, with large numbers of beds for intensive care, critical care, long-term care. In California, "district hospital" refers to a class of healthcare facility created shortly after World War II to address a shortage of hospital beds in many local communities. Today, district hospitals are the sole public hospitals in 19 of California's counties, are the sole locally-accessible hospital within nine additional counties in which one or more other hospitals are present at substantial distance from a local community.
Twenty-eight of California's rural hospitals and 20 of its critical-access hospitals are district hospitals. They are formed by local municipalities, have boards that are individually elected by their local communities, exist to serve local needs, they are a important provider of healthcare to uninsured patients and patients with Medi-Cal. In 2012, district hospitals provided $54 million in uncompensated care in California. Types of specialised hospitals incl
City, University of London
City, University of London is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. It has been a constituent college of the University of London since 2016, it was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute, became a university when The City University was created by royal charter in 1966. The Inns of Court School of Law, which merged with City in 2001, was established in 1852, making it the City University's oldest constituent part. City joined the federal University of London on 1 September 2016, becoming part of the eighteen colleges and ten research institutes that make up that university; the university has strong links with the City of London, the Lord Mayor of London serves as the university's rector. The university has its main campus in central London in the London Borough of Islington, with additional campuses in Islington, the City, the West End and East End, it is organised into five schools, within which there are around forty academic departments and centres, including the Department of Journalism, the Cass Business School, City Law School which incorporates the Inns of Court School of Law.
The annual income of the institution for 2016–17 was £227.0 million, of which £11.6 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £221.4 million. The Cass Business School is ranked 5th in the UK, in the top 40 in the world, in the Financial Times' 2017 Global MBA Rankings. City, University of London is a member of the Association of MBAs, EQUIS and Universities UK. City University traces its origin to the Northampton Institute, established in 1852 and named after the Marquess of Northampton who donated the land on which the institute was built, between Northampton Square and St John Street in Islington; the institute was established to provide for the welfare of the local population. It was constituted under the City of London Parochial Charities Act, with the objective of "the promotion of the industrial skill, general knowledge and well-being of young men and women belonging to the poorer classes". Northampton Polytechnic Institute was an institute of technology in Clerkenwell, founded in 1894.
Its first Principal was Robert Mullineux Walmsley. Alumni include Stuart Davies and Anthony Hunt. Arthur George Cocksedge, a British gymnast who competed in the 1920 Summer Olympics, was a member of the Northampton Polytechnic Institute's Gymnastics Club and was Champion of the United Kingdom in 1920. In 1937 Maurice Dennis of the was the 1937 ABA Middleweight Champion. Frederick Handley Page was a lecturer in aeronautics at the institute; the Handley Page Type A, the first powered aircraft designed and built by him, ended up as an instructional airframe at the school. The novelist Eric Ambler studied engineering at the institute; the six original departments at the institute were Electrical Engineering. A separate technical optics department was established in 1903–04. In 1909, the first students qualified for University of London BSc degrees in engineering as internal students; the Institute had been involved in aeronautics education since that year, the School of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences celebrated the centenary of aeronautics at City in 2009.
The Institute was used for the 1908 Olympic Games. In 1957, the Institute was designated a "College of Advanced Technology"; the Institute's involvement in information science began in 1961, with the introduction of a course on "Collecting and Communicating Scientific Knowledge". City received its royal charter in 1966, becoming "The City University" to reflect the institution's close links with the City of London; the Apollo 15 astronauts visited City in 1971, presented the Vice-Chancellor, with a piece of heat shield from the Apollo 15 rocket. In October 1995, it was announced that City University would merge with both the St Bartholomew School of Nursing & Midwifery and the Charterhouse College of Radiography, doubling the number of students in City's Institute of Health Sciences to around 2,500; the University formed a strategic alliance with Queen Mary, University of London in April 2001. In May 2001, a fire in the college building gutted the fourth-floor offices and roof. In August 2001 City and the Inns of Court School of Law agreed to merge.
Following a donation from Sir John Cass's Foundation, a multimillion-pound building was built at 106 Bunhill Row for the Cass Business School. A new £23 million building to house the School of Social Sciences and the Department of Language and Communication Science was opened in 2004; the reconstruction and redevelopment of the university's Grade II listed college building was completed in July 2006. In 2007 the School of Arts received a £10m building refurbishment. A new students' union venue opened in October 2008 called "TEN squared", which provides a hub for students to socialise in during the day and hosts a wide range of evening entertainment including club nights, society events and quiz nights. In January 2010, premises were shared with the University of East Anglia London, following City's partnership with INTO University Partnerships. Since City has resumed its own International Foundation Programme to prepare students for their pre-university year. In April 2011, it was announced that the current halls of residence and Saddler's Sports Centre will be closed and demolished for rebuilding in June 2011.
The new student halls and sports facility, now known as CitySport, opened in 2015. In September 2016 City University, London became a member institution of the federal University of London and chan
City of London
The City of London is a city and county that contains the historic centre and the primary central business district of London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, but the agglomeration has since grown far beyond the City's borders; the City is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though it remains a notable part of central London. Administratively, it forms one of the 33 local authority districts of Greater London, it is a separate county of England, being an enclave surrounded by Greater London. It is the smallest county in the United Kingdom; the City of London is referred to as the City and is colloquially known as the Square Mile, as it is 1.12 sq mi in area. Both of these terms are often used as metonyms for the United Kingdom's trading and financial services industries, which continue a notable history of being based in the City; the name London is now ordinarily used for a far wider area than just the City.
London most denotes the sprawling London metropolis, or the 32 London boroughs, in addition to the City of London itself. This wider usage of London is documented as far back as 1888; the local authority for the City, namely the City of London Corporation, is unique in the UK and has some unusual responsibilities for a local council, such as being the police authority. It is unusual in having responsibilities and ownerships beyond its boundaries; the Corporation is headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, an office separate from the Mayor of London. The Lord Mayor, as of November 2018, is Peter Estlin; the City is a major business and financial centre. Throughout the 19th century, the City was the world's primary business centre, it continues to be a major meeting point for businesses. London came top in the Worldwide Centres of Commerce Index, published in 2008; the insurance industry is focused around Lloyd's building. A secondary financial district exists at Canary Wharf, 2.5 miles to the east.
The City work there. About three quarters of the jobs in the City of London are in the financial and associated business services sectors; the legal profession forms a major component of the northern and western sides of the City in the Temple and Chancery Lane areas where the Inns of Court are located, of which two—Inner Temple and Middle Temple—fall within the City of London boundary. Known as "Londinium", the Roman legions established a settlement on the current site of the City of London around 43 AD, its bridge over the River Thames turned the city into a road nexus and major port, serving as a major commercial centre in Roman Britain until its abandonment during the 5th century. Archaeologist Leslie Wallace notes that, because extensive archaeological excavation has not revealed any signs of a significant pre-Roman presence, "arguments for a purely Roman foundation of London are now common and uncontroversial."At its height, the Roman city had a population of 45,000–60,000 inhabitants.
Londinium was an ethnically diverse city, with inhabitants from across the Roman Empire, including natives of Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, North Africa. The Romans built the London Wall some time between 190 and 225 AD; the boundaries of the Roman city were similar to those of the City of London today, though the City extends further west than Londonium's Ludgate, the Thames was undredged and thus wider than it is today, with Londonium's shoreline north of the City's present shoreline. The Romans built a bridge across the river, as early as 50 AD, near to today's London Bridge. By the time the London Wall was constructed, the City's fortunes were in decline, it faced problems of plague and fire; the Roman Empire entered a long period of instability and decline, including the Carausian Revolt in Britain. In the 3rd and 4th centuries, the city was under attack from Picts and Saxon raiders; the decline continued, both for Londinium and the Empire, in 410 AD the Romans withdrew from Britain.
Many of the Roman public buildings in Londinium by this time had fallen into decay and disuse, after the formal withdrawal the city became uninhabited. The centre of trade and population moved away from the walled Londinium to Lundenwic, a settlement to the west in the modern day Strand/Aldwych/Covent Garden area. During the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, the London area came in turn under the Kingdoms of Essex and Wessex, though from the mid 8th century it was under the control or threat of the Vikings. Bede records that in 604 AD St Augustine consecrated Mellitus as the first bishop to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Saxons and their king, Sæberht. Sæberht's uncle and overlord, Æthelberht, king of Kent, built a church dedicated to St Paul in London, as the seat of the new bishop, it is assumed, although unproven, that this first Anglo-Saxon cathedral stood on the same site as the medieval and the present cathedrals. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex and arguably the first king of the "English", occupied and began the resettlement of the old Roman walled area, in 886, appointed his son-in-law Earl Æthelred of Mercia over it as part of their reconquest of the Viking occupied parts of Englan
