1.
Greater London
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London, or Greater London, is a region of England which forms the administrative boundaries of London. It is organised into 33 local government districts, the 32 London boroughs, the Greater London Authority, based in Southwark, is responsible for strategic local government across the region and consists of the Mayor of London and the London Assembly. The county of Greater London was created on 1 April 1965 through the London Government Act 1963, administratively, Greater London was first established as a sui generis council area under the Greater London Council between 1963 and 1986. The area was re-established as a region in 1994, and the Greater London Authority formed in 2000, the region covers 1,572 km2 and had a population of 8,174,000 at the 2011 census. In 2012, it had the highest GVA per capita in the United Kingdom at £37,232, the Greater London Built-up Area—used in some national statistics—is a measure of the continuous urban area of London, and therefore includes areas outside of the administrative region. The term Greater London has been and still is used to different areas in governance, statistics, history. In terms of ceremonial counties, London is divided into the small City of London, outside the limited boundaries of the City, a variety of arrangements has governed the wider area since 1855, culminating in the creation of the Greater London administrative area in 1965. The Greater London Arterial Road Programme was devised between 1913 and 1916, one of the larger early forms was the Greater London Planning Region, devised in 1927, which occupied 1,856 square miles and included 9 million people. The LCC pressed for an alteration in its boundaries soon after the end of the First World War, noting that within the Metropolitan, a Royal Commission on London Government was set up to consider the issue. The LCC proposed a vast new area for Greater London, with a boundary somewhere between the Metropolitan Police District and the home counties, protests were made at the possibility of including Windsor, Slough and Eton in the authority. The Commission made its report in 1923, rejecting the LCCs scheme, two minority reports favoured change beyond the amalgamation of smaller urban districts, including both smaller borough councils and a central authority for strategic functions. The London Traffic Act 1924 was a result of the Commission, Greater London originally had a two-tier system of local government, with the Greater London Council sharing power with the City of London Corporation and the 32 London Borough councils. The GLC was abolished in 1986 by the Local Government Act 1985 and its functions were devolved to the City Corporation and the London Boroughs, with some functions transferred to central government and joint boards. Greater London was used to form the London region of England in 1994, a referendum held in 1998 established a public will to recreate an upper tier of government to cover the region. The Greater London Authority, London Assembly and the directly elected Mayor of London were created in 2000 by the Greater London Authority Act 1999, in 2000, the outer boundary of the Metropolitan Police District was re-aligned to the Greater London boundary. The 2000 and 2004 mayoral elections were won by Ken Livingstone, the 2008 and 2012 elections were won by Boris Johnson. The 2016 election was won by Sadiq Khan, Greater London continues to include the most closely associated parts of the Greater London Urban Area and their historic buffers. Thus it includes, in five boroughs, significant parts of the Metropolitan Green Belt which protects designated greenfield land in a way to the citys parks
2.
Ordnance Survey National Grid
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The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, different from using Latitude and Longitude. It is often called British National Grid, the Ordnance Survey devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys. Grid references are commonly quoted in other publications and data sources. The Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system is used to provide references for worldwide locations. European-wide agencies also use UTM when mapping locations, or may use the Military Grid Reference System system, the grid is based on the OSGB36 datum, and was introduced after the retriangulation of 1936–1962. It replaced the previously used Cassini Grid which, up to the end of World War Two, had issued only to the military. The Airy ellipsoid is a regional best fit for Britain, more modern mapping tends to use the GRS80 ellipsoid used by the GPS, the British maps adopt a Transverse Mercator projection with an origin at 49° N, 2° W. Over the Airy ellipsoid a straight grid, the National Grid, is placed with a new false origin. This false origin is located south-west of the Isles of Scilly, the distortion created between the OS grid and the projection is countered by a scale factor in the longitude to create two lines of longitude with zero distortion rather than one. Grid north and true north are aligned on the 400 km easting of the grid which is 2° W. 2° 0′ 5″ W. OSGB36 was also used by Admiralty nautical charts until 2000 after which WGS84 has been used, a geodetic transformation between OSGB36 and other terrestrial reference systems can become quite tedious if attempted manually. The most common transformation is called the Helmert datum transformation, which results in a typical 7 m error from true, the definitive transformation from ETRS89 that is published by the OSGB is called the National Grid Transformation OSTN02. This models the detailed distortions in the 1936–1962 retriangulation, and achieves backwards compatibility in grid coordinates to sub-metre accuracy, the difference between the coordinates on different datums varies from place to place. The longitude and latitude positions on OSGB36 are the same as for WGS84 at a point in the Atlantic Ocean well to the west of Great Britain. In Cornwall, the WGS84 longitude lines are about 70 metres east of their OSGB36 equivalents, the smallest datum shift is on the west coast of Scotland and the greatest in Kent. But Great Britain has not shrunk by 100+ metres, a point near Lands End now computes to be 27.6 metres closer to a point near Duncansby Head than it did under OSGB36. For the first letter, the grid is divided into squares of size 500 km by 500 km, there are four of these which contain significant land area within Great Britain, S, T, N and H. The O square contains an area of North Yorkshire, almost all of which lies below mean high tide
3.
Districts of England
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The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. As the structure of government in England is not uniform. Some districts are styled as boroughs, cities, or royal boroughs, these are purely honorific titles, prior to the establishment of districts in the 1890s, the basic unit of local government in England was the parish overseen by the parish church vestry committee. Vestries dealt with the administraction of both parochial and secular governmental matters, parishes were the successors of the manorial system and historically had been grouped into hundreds. Hundreds once exercised some supervising administrative function, however, these powers ebbed away as more and more civic and judicial powers were centred on county towns. From 1834 these parishes were grouped into Poor Law Unions, creating areas for administration of the Poor Law and these areas were later used for census registration and as the basis for sanitary provision. In 1894, based on these earlier subdivisions, the Local Government Act 1894 created urban districts and rural districts as sub-divisions of administrative counties, another reform in 1900 created 28 metropolitan boroughs as sub-divisions of the County of London. Meanwhile, from this date parish-level local government administration was transferred to civil parishes, the setting-down of the current structure of districts in England began in 1965, when Greater London and its 32 London boroughs were created. They are the oldest type of still in use. In 1974, metropolitan counties and non-metropolitan counties were created across the rest of England and were split into metropolitan districts, in London power is now shared again, albeit on a different basis, with the Greater London Authority. During the 1990s a further kind of district was created, the unitary authority, metropolitan boroughs are a subdivision of a metropolitan county. These are similar to unitary authorities, as the county councils were abolished in 1986. Most of the powers of the county councils were devolved to the districts but some services are run by joint boards, the districts typically have populations of 174,000 to 1.1 million. Non-metropolitan districts are second-tier authorities, which share power with county councils and they are subdivisions of shire counties and the most common type of district. These districts typically have populations of 25,000 to 200,000, the number of non-metropolitan districts has varied over time. Initially there were 296, after the creation of unitary authorities in the 1990s and late 2000s and these are single-tier districts which are responsible for running all local services in their areas, combining both county and district functions. They were created in the out of non-metropolitan districts, and often cover large towns. In addition, some of the smaller such as Rutland, Herefordshire
4.
London Borough of Camden
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The London Borough of Camden /ˈkæmdən/ is a borough in north west London, and forms part of Inner London. The southern reaches of Camden form part of central London, the local authority is Camden London Borough Council. The borough was created in 1965 from the area of the metropolitan boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and St Pancras. The borough was named after Camden Town, which had gained its name from Charles Pratt, the transcribed diaries of William Copeland Astbury, recently made available, describe Camden and the surrounding areas in great detail from 1829–1848. There are 162 English Heritage blue plaques in the borough of Camden representing the diverse personalities that have lived there. The area is in the part of the city, reaching from Holborn. Neighbouring areas are the City of Westminster and the City of London to the south, Brent to the west, Barnet and Haringey to the north and Islington to the east. It covers all or part of the N1, N6, N7, N19, NW1, NW2, NW3, NW5, NW6, NW8, EC1, WC1, WC2, W1 and it contains parts of central London. Camden Town Hall is located in Judd Street in St Pancras, Camden London Borough Council was controlled by the Labour Party continuously from 1971 until the 2006 election, when the Liberal Democrats became the largest party. In 2006, two Green Cllrs, Maya de Souza and Adrian Oliver, were elected and were the first Green Party councillors in Camden, Camden was the fourth to last council to drop out of the campaign, doing so in the early hours of 6 June. Borough councillors are elected every four years, between 2006 and 2010 Labour lost two seats to the Liberal Democrats through by-elections, in Kentish Town and Haverstock wards. A Labour Councillor in Haverstock ward also defected to the Liberal Democrats in February 2009, at the local elections on 6 May 2010 the Labour party regained full control of Camden council. The new council is made up of 30 Labour,13 Liberal Democrats,10 Conservatives, at the Councils AGM, Labours Nasim Ali took office as Camdens first leader from the Bengali community. Labour Councillor Jonathan Simpson was elected the Mayor of the Borough, the organisations staff are led by the Chief Executive who is currently Mike Cooke. Each directorate is divided into a number of divisions headed by an assistant director and they in turn are divided into groups which are themselves divided into services. This is a model to most local government in London. Pancras in the south, represented by Labours Keir Starmer, in 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise throughout the 19th century as the district became built up
5.
Ceremonial counties of England
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The ceremonial counties, also referred to as the lieutenancy areas of England, are areas of England to which a Lord Lieutenant is appointed. The Local Government Act 1888 established county councils to assume the functions of Quarter Sessions in the counties. It created new entities called administrative counties, the Act further stipulated that areas that were part of an administrative county would be part of the county for all purposes. The greatest change was the creation of the County of London, which was both an administrative county and a county, it included parts of the historic counties of Middlesex, Kent. Other differences were small and resulted from the constraint that urban sanitary districts were not permitted to straddle county boundaries, apart from Yorkshire, counties that were subdivided nevertheless continued to exist as ceremonial counties. In 1974, administrative counties and county boroughs were abolished, at this time, Lieutenancy was redefined to use the new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties directly. Following a further rearrangement in 1996, Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester, Cleveland was partitioned between North Yorkshire and Durham. Hereford and Worcester was divided into the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Humberside was split between Lincolnshire and a new county of East Riding of Yorkshire. Rutland was restored as a ceremonial county, many county boroughs were re-established as unitary authorities, this involved establishing the area as an administrative county, but usually not as a ceremonial county. Most ceremonial counties are therefore entities comprising local authority areas, as they were from 1889 to 1974, the Association of British Counties, a traditional counties lobbying organisation, has suggested that ceremonial counties be restored to their ancient boundaries, as nearly as practicable. In present-day England, the ceremonial counties correspond to the shrieval counties, the Lieutenancies Act 1997 defines counties for the purposes of lieutenancies in terms of metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties as well as Greater London and the Isles of Scilly. Although the term is not used in the Act, these counties are known as ceremonial counties. gov. uk
6.
Regions of England
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The regions are the highest tier of sub-national division in England. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within Government, while they no longer fulfil this role, they continue to be used for statistical and some administrative purposes. They define areas for the purposes of elections to the European Parliament, Eurostat also uses them to demarcate first level Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics regions within the European Union. The regions generally follow the boundaries of the former standard regions, the London region has a directly elected Mayor and Assembly. Six regions have local authority leaders boards to assist with correlating the headline policies of local authorities, the remaining two regions no longer have any administrative functions, having abolished their regional local authority leaders boards. In 1998, regional chambers were established in the eight regions outside of London, the regions also had an associated Government Office with some responsibility for coordinating policy, and, from 2007, a part-time regional minister within the Government. House of Commons regional Select Committees were established in 2009, Regional ministers were not reappointed by the incoming Coalition Government, and the Government Offices were abolished in 2011. Regional development agencies were public bodies established in all nine regions in 1998 to promote economic development and they had certain delegated functions, including administering European Union regional development funds, and received funding the central government as well. After about 500 AD, England comprised seven Anglo-Saxon territories – Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, Essex, Kent, the boundaries of some of these, which later unified as the Kingdom of England, roughly coincide with those of modern regions. During Oliver Cromwells Protectorate in the 1650s, the rule of the Major-Generals created 10 regions in England, proposals for administrative regions within England were mooted by the British government prior to the First World War. In 1912 the Third Home Rule Bill was passing through parliament, the Bill was expected to introduce a devolved parliament for Ireland, and as a consequence calls were made for similar structures to be introduced in Great Britain or Home Rule All Round. On 12 September the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, within England, he suggested that London, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands would make natural regions. While the creation of regional parliaments never became official policy, it was for a widely anticipated. In 1946 nine standard regions were set up, in central government bodies, statutory undertakings. However, these had declined in importance by the late 1950s, creation of some form of provinces or regions for England was an intermittent theme of post-Second World War British governments. The Redcliffe-Maud Report proposed the creation of eight provinces in England, one-fifth of the advisory councils would be nominees from central government. The boundaries suggested were the eight now existing for economic planning purposes, a minority report by Lord Crowther-Hunt and Alan T. Peacock suggested instead seven regional assemblies and governments within Great Britain, some elements of regional development and economic planning began to be established in England from the mid-1960s onwards
7.
Countries of the United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom comprises four countries, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Within the United Kingdom, a sovereign state, Northern Ireland, Scotland. England, comprising the majority of the population and area of the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are not themselves listed in the International Organization for Standardization list of countries. However the ISO list of the subdivisions of the UK, compiled by British Standards, Northern Ireland, in contrast, is described as a province in the same lists. Each has separate governing bodies for sports and compete separately in many international sporting competitions. Northern Ireland also forms joint All-Island sporting bodies with the Republic of Ireland for most sports, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are dependencies of the Crown and are not part of the UK. Similarly, the British overseas territories, remnants of the British Empire, are not part of the UK, southern Ireland left the United Kingdom under the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922. * Figures for GVA do not include oil and gas revenues generated beyond the UKs territorial waters, various terms have been used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Wales was described as the country, principality, and dominion of Wales, outside Wales, England was not given a specific name or term. The Laws in Wales Acts have subsequently been repealed, the Acts of Union 1707 refer to both England and Scotland as a part of a united kingdom of Great Britain The Acts of Union 1800 use part in the same way to refer to England and Scotland. The Northern Ireland Act 1998, which repealed the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Interpretation Act 1978 provides statutory definitions of the terms England, Wales and the United Kingdom, but neither that Act nor any other current statute defines Scotland or Northern Ireland. Use of the first three terms in other legislation is interpreted following the definitions in the 1978 Act and this definition applies from 1 April 1974. United Kingdom means Great Britain and Northern Ireland and this definition applies from 12 April 1927. In 1996 these 8 new counties were redistributed into the current 22 unitary authorities, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are regions in their own right while England has been divided into nine regions. The official term rest of the UK is used in Scotland, for example in export statistics and this term is also used in the context of potential Scottish independence to mean the UK without Scotland. The alternative term Home Nations is sometimes used in sporting contexts, the second, or civic group, contained the items about feeling British, respecting laws and institutions, speaking English, and having British citizenship. Contrariwise, in Scotland and Wales there was a much stronger identification with each country than with Britain, studies and surveys have reported that the majority of the Scots and Welsh see themselves as both Scottish/Welsh and British though with some differences in emphasis. The propensity for nationalistic feeling varies greatly across the UK, and can rise and it reported that 37% of people identified as British, whilst 29% identified as Irish and 24% identified as Northern Irish
8.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
9.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
10.
London postal district
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The London postal district is the area in England of 241 square miles to which mail addressed to the LONDON post town is delivered. It was integrated by the Post Office into the national system of the United Kingdom during the early 1970s and corresponds to the N, NW, SW, SE, W, WC, E. The postal district has also known as the London postal area. The County of London was much smaller at 117 square miles, by the 1850s, the rapid growth of the metropolitan area meant it became too large to operate efficiently as a single post town. A Post Office inquiry into the problem had been set up in 1837, in 1854 Charles Canning, the Postmaster General, set up a committee at the Post Office in St. Martins Le Grand to investigate how London could best be divided for the purposes of directing mail. In 1856, of the 470 million items of mail sent in the United Kingdom during the year, approximately one fifth were for delivery in London, the General Post Office thus at the control of the Postmaster General devised the area in 1856 project-managed by Sir Rowland Hill. Hill produced an almost perfectly circular area of 12 miles radius from the central post office at St. Martins Le Grand, within the district it was divided into two central areas and eight compass points which operated much like separate post towns. Each was constituted London with a suffix indicating the area it covered, the system was introduced during 1857 and completed on 1 January 1858. The remaining eight letter prefixes have not changed, at the same time, the London postal district boundary was retracted in the east, removing places such as Ilford for good. In 1868 the S district was split between SE and SW, the NE and S codes have been re-used in the national postcode system and now refer to the NE postcode area around Newcastle upon Tyne and the S postcode area around Sheffield. In 1917, as a measure to improve efficiency, the districts were further subdivided with a number applied to each sub-district. Exceptionally and esoterically, W2 and SW11 are also head districts, the numbered sub-districts became the outward code of the postcode system as expanded into longer codes during the 1970s. Ad hoc changes have taken place to the organisation of the districts, subdivisions of postcode sub-districts Owing to heavier demand, seven high-density postcode districts in central London have been subdivided to create new, smaller postcode districts. This is achieved by adding a letter after the postcode district. Where such sub-districts are used such as on street signs and maps. The districts subdivided are E1, N1, EC SW1, W1, WC1, similarly, there are solely non-geographic suffixed sub-districts for PO boxes in NW1 and SE1. The London postal district has never been aligned with the London boundary, when the initial system was designed, the London boundary was restricted to the square mile of the small, ancient City of London. The wider metropolitan area covered parts of Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Essex
11.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
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Postal codes used in the United Kingdom are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the GPO, a full postcode is known as a postcode unit and designates an area with a number of addresses or a single major delivery point. For example, the postcode of the University of Roehampton in London is SW15 5PU, the postcode of GCHQ is GL51 0EX, where GL signifies the postal town of Gloucester. The postal town refers to an area and does not relate to a specific town. GL51 is one of the postcodes for the town of Cheltenham which is where GCHQ is located, the London post town covers 40% of Greater London. On inception it was divided into ten districts, EC, WC, N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W. The S and NE sectors were later abolished and these divisions changed little, usually only changed for operational efficiency. Some older road signs in Hackney still indicate the North East sector/district, following the successful introduction of postal districts in London, the system was extended to other large towns and cities. Liverpool was divided into Eastern, Northern, Southern and Western districts in 1864/65, in 1917 Dublin – then still part of the United Kingdom – was divided into numbered postal districts. These continue in use in a form by An Post. In 1923 Glasgow was divided in a way to London. In January 1932 the Postmaster General approved the designation of some urban areas into numbered districts. In November 1934 the Post Office announced the introduction of numbered districts in every town in the United Kingdom large enough to justify it. Pamphlets were issued to each householder and business in ten areas notifying them of the number of the district in which their premises lay, the pamphlets included a map of the districts, and copies were made available at local head post offices. The public were invited to include the district number in the address at the head of letters. A publicity campaign in the following year encouraged the use of the district numbers, the slogan for the campaign was For speed and certainty always use a postal district number on your letters and notepaper. A poster was fixed to every box in the affected areas bearing the number of the district. Every post office in the district was also to display this information
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NW postcode area
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The NW postcode area, also known as the London NW postcode area, is a group of postcode districts covering part of northwest London, England. It is the successor of the NW sector, originally created as part of the London postal district in 1856, the district names are no longer included in the postal address because the first part of the postcode contains equivalent sorting information. The boundaries of the area and its districts have changed over time and are the result of the working requirements of Royal Mail. They are not tied to those of the local authority areas served, the NW7 district extends to the Greater London boundary with Hertfordshire and follows that boundary for a short distance near Scratch Wood. The remainder of northwest Greater London is covered by the HA, UB, part of the EN, list of postcode areas in the United Kingdom London postal district Postcode Address File Royal Mails Postcode Address File A quick introduction to Royal Mails Postcode Address File
13.
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
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Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom are administered by the UK governments Office of Communications. For this purpose Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, since 28 April 2001, almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code. All mobile telephone numbers have 10 national numbers after the 0 trunk code, regions with shorter area codes, typically large cities, permit the allocation of more telephone numbers as the local number portion has more digits. Local customer numbers are four to eight figures long, the total number of digits is ten, but in a very few areas the total may be nine digits. The area code is referred to as an STD or a dialling code in the UK. The code allocated to the largest population is for London, the code allocated to the largest area is for all of Northern Ireland. The UK Numbering Plan also applies to three British Crown dependencies—Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man—even though they are not part of the UK itself. Possible number formats for UK telephone numbers are as follows, Number ranges starting 01 can have NSN length as 10 or 9 digits, the 0800 range can have NSN length as 10,9 or 7 digits. The 0845 range can have NSN length as 10 or 7 digits, the 0500 range has NSN length as 9 digits only. There are no numbers in the UK with an NSN length of 8 digits. Geographic telephone numbers in the UK always have nine or ten digits, four-digit area codes have either six-digit subscriber numbers or a mix of five- and six-digit subscriber numbers. Xxxxxx This is the used by most areas. It has an area code and a six digit subscriber number. These area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995. Just short of 581 areas use this format, and the area range from 01200 to 01998. A small number of areas also have a few subscriber numbers that have only five digits. That is, almost all area codes now have only six digit local numbers, six of the four-digit area codes are known as mixed areas as they share those four digits with the twelve five-digit area codes. The numbers therefore have only nine digits after the initial zero trunk code and these area codes were changed by adding a 1 directly after the initial zero as a part of PhONEday in 1995
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Metropolitan Police Service
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As of March 2016, the Met employed 48,661 full-time personnel. This included 32,125 sworn police officers,9,521 police staff and this number excludes the 3,271 Special Constables, who work part-time and who have the same powers and uniform as their regular colleagues. This makes the Metropolitan Police the largest police force in the United Kingdom by a significant margin, the post of Commissioner was first held jointly by Sir Charles Rowan and Sir Richard Mayne. The post is occupied by the now-outgoing Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe. The Commissioners deputy, the Deputy Commissioner, is currently Craig Mackey, a number of informal names and abbreviations exists for the Metropolitan Police Service, the most common being the Met. In colloquial London, it is referred to as the Old Bill. The Met is also referred to by the metonym Scotland Yard after the location of its headquarters in a road called Great Scotland Yard in Whitehall. The Mets current headquarters is New Scotland Yard, in Victoria, the Metropolitan Police Service, whose officers became affectionately known as bobbies, was founded in 1829 by Robert Peel under the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. In 1839, the Marine Police Force, which had formed in 1798, was amalgamated into the Metropolitan Police. In 1837, it also incorporated with the Bow Street Horse Patrol that had organised in 1805. Since January 2012, the Mayor of London is responsible for the governance of the Metropolitan Police through the Mayors Office for Policing, the mayor is able to appoint someone to act on his behalf, the current office-holder is Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Sophie Linden. The work of MOPAC is scrutinised by the Police and Crime Committee of the London Assembly, the area policed by the Metropolitan Police Service is known as the Metropolitan Police District. In terms of policing, the Met is divided into a number of Borough Operational Command Units. The City of London is a police area and is the responsibility of the separate City of London Police. The British Transport Police are responsible for policing of the network in the United Kingdom. Within London, they are responsible for the policing of the London Underground, Tramlink, The Emirates Air Line. There is also a park police force, the Kew Constabulary, responsible for the Royal Botanic Gardens. Officers also have limited powers in Scotland and Northern Ireland, within the MPD, the Met will take over the investigation of any serious crime from the British Transport Police and Ministry of Defence Police, if it is deemed appropriate
15.
Fire services in the United Kingdom
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The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland. Emergency cover is provided by over fifty fire and rescue services, many FRS were previously known as brigades or county fire services, but almost all now use the standard terminology. They are distinct from and governed by an authority, which is the legislative, public and administrative body. Fire authorities in England and Wales, and therefore fire and rescue services, Scotland and Northern Ireland have centralised fire and rescue services, and so their authorities are effectively committees of the devolved parliaments. The total budget for services in 2014-15 was £2.9 billion. The devolved government in Scotland has an agency, HMFSI Scotland. This Act provided for centralised co-ordination of fire brigades in Great Britain,1947, Fire Services Act 1947 This Act transferred the functions of the National Fire Service to local authorities. Now repealed entirely in England and Wales by Schedule 2 of the Fire,1959, Fire Services Act 1959 This Act amended the 1947 Act, it dealt with pensions, staffing arrangements and provision of services by other authorities. It was repealed in England and Wales along with the 1947 Act,1999, Greater London Authority Act 1999 This act was necessary to allow for the formation of the Greater London Authority and in turn the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2002, there was a series of fire strikes. In December 2002, the Independent Review of the Fire Service was published with the action still ongoing. Bains report ultimately led to a change in the relating to firefighting. 2002, Independent Review of the Fire Service published 2004, Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004, generally only applying to England and it came into force on 1 October 2006. The DfCLG has published a set of guides for non-domestic premises,2006, The Government of Wales Act 2006 gave the National Assembly for Wales powers to pass laws on Fire, promotion of fire safety otherwise than by prohibition or regulation. But does not prevent future legislation being passed by the UK government which applies to two or more constituent countries, There are further plans to modernise the fire service according to the Local Government Association. The fire service in England and Wales is scrutinised by a House of Commons select committee, in June 2006, the fire and rescue service select committee, under the auspices of the Communities and Local Government Committee, published its latest report. For example, where FRSs were historically inspected by HMFSI, much of this work is now carried out by the National Audit Office, Fire Control On 8 February 2010 the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee heard evidence on the Fire Control project. Called to give evidence were Cllr Brian Coleman and Cllr James Pearson from the Local Government Association, also giving evidence Matt Wrack from the Fire Brigades Union and John Bonney Chief Fire Officers Association
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London Fire Brigade
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The London Fire Brigade is the statutory fire and rescue service for London. It was formed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act of 1865 under the leadership of superintendent Eyre Massey Shaw. Dany Cotton is the Commissioner for Fire and Emergency Planning, which includes the position of Chief Fire Officer, statutory responsibility for the running of the brigade lies with the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority. In 2013/14 the LFB handled 171,067999 emergency calls, of the calls it actually mobilised to,20,934 were fires, including 10,992 that were of a serious nature, making it one of the busiest fire brigades in the world. In the same 12-month period, it received 3,172 hoax calls, the highest number of any UK fire service, in 2015/16 the LFB received 171,488 emergency calls. These consisted of,20,773 fires,30,066 special service callouts and it also conducts emergency planning and performs fire safety inspections and education. He introduced a uniform that, for the first time, included personal protection from the hazards of firefighting. With 80 firefighters and 13 fire stations, the unit was still a private enterprise, funded by the insurance companies, in 1904 it was renamed as the London Fire Brigade. The LFB moved into a new headquarters built by Higgs and Hill on the Albert Embankment in Lambeth in 1937, during the Second World War the countrys brigades were amalgamated into a single National Fire Service. The separate London Fire Brigade for the County of London was re-established in 1948, in 1986 the Greater London Council was disbanded and a new statutory authority, the London Fire and Civil Defence Authority, was formed to take responsibility for the LFB. The LFCDA was replaced in 2000 by the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, at the same time, the Greater London Authority was established to administer the LFEPA and coordinate emergency planning for London. Consisting of the Mayor of London and other elected members, the GLA also takes responsibility for the Metropolitan Police Authority, Transport for London, in 2007 the LFB vacated its Lambeth headquarters and moved to a site in Union Street, Southwark. In the same year, the Department for Communities and Local Government announced that LFB Commissioner Ken Knight had been appointed as the first Chief Fire, Knight was succeeded as Commissioner at that time by Ron Dobson, who served for almost ten years. Dany Cotton took over in 2017, becoming the brigades first female commissioner, dany Cotton is the current commissioner, having taken up the role on 1 January 2017. She holds the Queens Fire Service Medal, frank Jackson, CBE1938 to 1941, Cdr. Sir Aylmer Firebrace, CBE1933 to 1938, Maj. Cyril Morris 1918 to 1933, Arthur Reginald Dyer 1909 to 1918, sir Sampson Sladen 1903 to 1909, RAdm. James de Courcy Hamilton 1896 to 1903, Capt, lionel de Latour Wells 1891 to 1896, James Sexton Simmonds 1861 to 1891, Capt. Both divisions were divided into three districts, each under a Superintendent with his headquarters at a superintendent station, the superintendent stations themselves were commanded by District Officers, with the other stations under Station Officers
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Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
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Emergency care including ambulance and emergency department treatment is free to everyone, regardless of immigration or visitor status. The NHS commissions most emergency services through the 14 NHS organisations with ambulance responsibility across the UK. As with other services, the public normally access emergency medical services through one of the valid emergency telephone numbers. This led to the formation of predominantly county based ambulance services, which gradually merged up and changed responsibilities until 2006, when there were 31 NHS ambulance trusts in England. Following further changes as part of the NHS foundation trust pathway, the commissioners in each region are responsible for contracting with a suitable organisation to provide ambulance services within their geographical territory. The primary contract for each area is held by a public NHS body, of which there are 11 in England. The service was operated before reorganisation in 1974 by the St Andrews’ Ambulance Association under contract to the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service was established in 1995 by parliamentary order, and serves the whole of Northern Ireland. The Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust was established on 1 April 1998, there is a large market for private and voluntary ambulance services, with the sector being worth £800m to the UK economy in 2012. This places the voluntary providers in direct competition with private services, expenditure on private ambulances in England increased from £37m in 2011−12 to £67. 5m in 2013/4, rising in London from £796,000 to more than £8. 8m. In 2014−15, these 10 ambulance services spent £57.6 million on 333,329 callouts of private or voluntary services - an increase of 156% since 2010−11, in 2013, the CQC found 97% of private ambulance services to be providing good care. These private, registered services are represented by the Independent Ambulance Association, there are also a number of unregistered services operating, who do not provide ambulance transport, but only provide response on an event site. These firms are not regulated, and are not subject to the checks as the registered providers, although they may operate similar vehicles. There are a number of ambulance providers, sometimes known as Voluntary Aid Services or Voluntary Aid Societies, with the main ones being the British Red Cross. The history of the ambulance services pre-dates any government organised service. As they are in competition for work with the private ambulance providers. Voluntary organisations have also provided cover for the public when unionised NHS ambulance trust staff have taken industrial action, there are a number of smaller voluntary ambulance organisations, fulfilling specific purposes, such as Hatzola who provide emergency medical services to the orthodox Jewish community in some cities. These have however run into difficulties due to use of vehicles not legally recognised as ambulances, all emergency medical services in the UK are subject to a range of legal and regulatory requirements, and in many cases are also monitored for performance. This framework is largely statutory in nature, being mandated by government through a range of primary and secondary legislation and this requires all providers to register, to meet certain standards of quality, and to submit to inspection of those standards
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London Ambulance Service
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It is one of the busiest ambulance services in the world, and the busiest in the United Kingdom, providing care to more than 8.6 million people, who live and work in London. The service is currently under the leadership of chief executive Dr Fionna Moore MBE, the service employ around 4,500 staff. In exceptional cases, or where the service deems in necessary, specialist teams can be deployed from within the service, such as the Hazardous Area Response Team and these teams are specially trained and equipped to deal with incidents such as working at height or in confined spaces. It is one of 10 ambulance trusts in England providing emergency medical services, there is no charge to patients for use of the service, as every person in England has the right to the attendance of an ambulance in an emergency. The LAS responded to over 1.8 million calls for assistance, incidents rose by 20,000 in 2015/16, putting more pressure on the service. All 999 calls from the public are answered at the Emergency Operations Centre in Waterloo, to assist, the services command and control system is linked electronically with the equivalent system for Londons Metropolitan Police. This means that police updates regarding specific jobs will be updated directly on the computer-aided dispatch log, to be viewed by the EOC, the first became operational at The South Eastern Fever Hospital, Deptford, in October 1883. In all, six hospitals operated horse-drawn land ambulances, putting almost the whole of London within three miles of one of them, each ambulance station included accommodation for a married superintendent and around 20 drivers, horse keepers and attendants, nurses, laundry staff and domestic cleaners. At Deptford, in order to transfer patients between the hospitals at Joyce Green and Long Reach near Gravesend, a horse-drawn ambulance tramway was constructed in 1897, in 1902, the MAB introduced a steam driven ambulance and in 1904, their first motor ambulance. The last horse-drawn ambulances were used on 14 September 1912, although the MAB was legally supposed to be transporting only infectious patients, it increasingly also carried accident victims and emergency medical cases. Also in 1915, the MAB Ambulance Section were the first public body to women drivers. By July 1916 the London County Council Ambulance Corps was staffed entirely by women, the LCC also took control of the River Ambulance Service, but it was disbanded in 1932. During World War II, the London Auxiliary Ambulance Service was operated by over 10,000 auxiliaries, mainly women and they ran services from 139 Auxiliary Stations across London. A plaque at one of the last to close, Station 39 in Weymouth Mews, near Portland Place, in 1948 the National Health Service Act made it a requirement for ambulances to be available for anyone who needed them. On 1 April 1996, the LAS left the control of the South West Thames Regional Health Authority, as an NHS Trust, the LAS has a Trust Board consisting of 12 members. The board includes, a chairman, five of the Service’s executive directors. Special events in London are co-ordinated from the Services event control room, also located in east London, during mass casualty incidents, the command structure works on three levels, gold, silver and bronze. Silver control, tactical command, from a point in the vicinity of the incident, Bronze control
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London (European Parliament constituency)
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London is a constituency of the European Parliament. It currently elects 8 MEPs using the method of party-list proportional representation. The constituency corresponds to the Greater London region of England, in the south east of the United Kingdom, prior to 1999, London was represented by a number of single-member constituencies. The European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999 reduced this to a constituency returning a number of MEPs. Below are all the members since the creation of the London constituency, the number of seats allocated to London has been reduced from 10 to 8 between 1999 and 2009 due to EU enlargement. Members elected in 1999 who previously represented a London constituency were Pauline Green, elected candidates are shown in bold. Brackets indicate the number of votes per seat won, the 2014 results were delayed by Tower Hamlets, where there were recounts needed for six local election wards
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Barnet and Camden (London Assembly constituency)
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Barnet and Camden is a territorial constituency represented on the London Assembly by one assembly member. The constituency was created in 2000 at the time as the London Assembly and has elections every four years. It consists of the area of the London Borough of Barnet. The current assembly member is Andrew Dismore of the Labour Party who was elected in 2012, the constituency is a pie slice pairing of the large Outer London borough of Barnet with the smaller Inner London borough of Camden. It stretches from Holborn in the south to the Greater London boundary in the north and it includes parts of central London, the inner city, suburban development and a semi-rural fringe. The constituency returns one member and is one of fourteen territorial constituencies in London. Represented from its creation in 2000 until the election in 2012 by Brian Coleman, elections are held every four years, with the first taking place in 2000. Pancras - Keir Starmer Barnet and Camden also includes part of the constituency, Hampstead
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Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
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London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
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North London
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North London is the northern part of London, England. It is a description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with south London, however, it is also often used in comparisons with central London, east London and west London. The River Thames divides Greater London into two parts, the northern part includes most of the historic central areas including the City, the East End and the West End, and the majority of the London Underground network. This definition is used by the Boundary Commission for England, the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames includes sections on both sides of the River Thames. The boundary commission class the entire district as part of South London, for the purposes of the London Plan, there has been a north London subregion in operation since 2004, originally consisting of Barnet, Enfield, Haringey and Waltham Forest. In 2001 this area had a population of 1,042,000 and this definition is used by organisations such as Connexions. In 2008 it was amended to consists of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington, in 2011 it was amended again to consist Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. This list includes all boroughs included in the Boundary Commission area, north London has, like other parts of London and the UK in general, a temperate maritime climate according to the Köppen climate classification system. Four Met Office weather stations collect climate data for London north of the river, Hampstead, Heathrow, Northolt. Long term climate observations dating back to 1910 are available for Hampstead and this both hilltop and urban position means severe frosts are rare. Occasionally snow can be seen to lie towards the Chilterns while central London is snow-free, typically the warmest day of the year at Hampstead will average 29.3 °C with around 14 days in total achieving a value of 25.1 °C or higher. The average coldest night should fall to −5.6 °C, on average 35.8 nights will report an air frost, some 119 days of the year will register at least 1mm of precipitation, and on 7.4 days a cover of snow will be observed. All annual averages refer to the observation period 1971–2000, north London v South London - The debate. North London v South London - The debate
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Euston railway station
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Euston railway station is a central London railway terminus located on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It is the terminus of the West Coast Main Line to Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh. The line is the busiest intercity passenger route in Britain and the gateway from London to the West Midlands, North West England, North Wales. The main line station is connected to Euston tube station and is near to Euston Square tube station on the London Underground and it is one of 19 stations in the country that are managed by Network Rail. Euston is the sixth-busiest station in Britain, virgin Trains provides high-speed intercity services, London Midland also operates local commuter and regional services as well as long-distance services. Euston is also the terminus of the suburban Watford DC Line operated by London Overground. It was the first intercity railway station to be built in London, as the terminus of the London, the original 1837 station was demolished and rebuilt in the 1960s. Euston is proposed to be the London terminus of the future High Speed 2 route and it is a short walk from Kings Cross, the southern terminus of the East Coast Main Line, and St Pancras for Midland Main Line and Eurostar services. These stations and Euston are all in Travelcard Zone 1, Euston was the first intercity railway station in London, opened on 20 July 1837 as the terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway. The building was demolished in the 1960s and replaced with the present building in the modern style. The site was chosen in the early 1830s by George and Robert Stephenson, the area was mostly farmland at the edge of the expanding city. The station was named after Euston Hall in Suffolk, the home of the Dukes of Grafton. Objections by local farmers meant that, when the Act authorising construction of the line was passed in 1833 and these objections were overcome, and in 1835 an Act authorised construction of the station, which then went ahead. It was designed by the classically trained architect Philip Hardwick with a 200 ft -long trainshed by structural engineer Charles Fox and it had two platforms, one for departures and one for arrivals. Also by Hardwick was a 72 ft -high Doric propylaeum, the largest ever built, erected at the entrance as a portico, the station grew rapidly as traffic increased. It was greatly expanded with the opening in 1849 of the Great Hall and it was 126 ft long,61 ft wide and 64 ft high, with a coffered ceiling and a sweeping double flight of stairs leading to offices at its northern end. Architectural sculptor John Thomas contributed eight allegorical statues representing the cities served by the line. The station stood on Drummond Street, further back from Euston Road than the front of the complex, Drummond Street now terminates at the side of the station
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St Pancras railway station
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St Pancras railway station, also known as London St Pancras and since 2007 as St Pancras International, is a central London railway terminus located on Euston Road in the London Borough of Camden. It was opened in 1868 by the Midland Railway as the terminus of its main line. When inaugurated, the train shed by William Henry Barlow was the largest single-span roof in the world. The restored station has 15 platforms, a centre. St Pancras is owned by London and Continental Railways and is managed by Network Rail, high-speed domestic services to Kent, run by Southeastern, began in December 2009. St Pancras is often termed the cathedral of the railways, the train shed, completed in 1868 by the engineer William Henry Barlow, was the largest single-span structure built up to that time. The terminal is one of relatively few stations in England to feature multilingual signage, all notices are written in English. Ashford International station has similar bilingual signs, other stations with foreign-language signs include Southall, which has signs in Punjabi, Wallsend Metro station, and Moreton-in-Marsh. In March 2014, the public relations team commissioned a study of mispronounced words. St Pancras occupies a site orientated north/south, deeper than it is wide, the south is bounded by the busy Euston Road, with the frontage provided by the former Midland Grand Hotel. Behind the hotel, the Barlow train shed is elevated 5 m above street level, to the west, the original station is bounded by Midland Road with the British Library on the other side of the road. To the east, it is bounded by Pancras Road and is opposite Kings Cross station, the new northern half of the station is mainly bounded to the east by Camley Street, with Camley Street Natural Park across the road. To the north-east is Kings Cross Central, formerly known as the Railway Lands, a complex of intersecting railway lines crossed by several roads, St Pancras contains four groups of platforms on two levels, accessed via the main concourse at ground level. The below-surface group contains through platforms A and B, and the level has three groups of terminal platforms, domestic platforms 1–4 and 11–13 on each side of international platforms 5–10. The international platforms do not occupy the width of the Barlow train shed. The southern end of The Arcade links to the ticket hall of Kings Cross St Pancras tube station. The main pedestrian entrance is at the end of this concourse, where a subway enables pedestrians to reach Kings Cross station. There are several items of art on display to the public at St Pancras, at the south end of the upper level, a 9-metre high 20-tonne bronze statue named The Meeting Place stands beneath the station clock
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London King's Cross railway station
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Kings Cross railway station, also known as London Kings Cross, is a central London railway terminus on the northern edge of the city. It is one of the busiest railway stations in the United Kingdom, the station was opened in 1852 by the Great Northern Railway in the Kings Cross area to accommodate the East Coast Main Line. It quickly grew to cater for services and was expanded several times in the 19th century. It came under ownership of the London and North Eastern Railway as part of the Big Four grouping in 1923, who introduced famous services such as the Flying Scotsman and Mallard. The station complex was redeveloped in the 1970s, simplifying the layout and providing electric suburban services, in the late 20th century, the area around the station became known for its seedy and downmarket character, and was used as a backdrop for several films as a result. Adjacent to Kings Cross station is St. Pancras International, the London terminus for Eurostar services to continental Europe, beneath both main line stations is Kings Cross St. Pancras on the London Underground, and combined they form one of the countrys largest transport hubs. The Kings Cross fire at the station in 1987 led to improved fire safety standards across the London rail network. The station is located on the London Inner Ring Road at the end of Euston Road, next to the junction with Pentonville Road, Grays Inn Road. To the west, at the side of Pancras Road, is St Pancras railway station. Several London bus routes, including 10,30,59,73,91,205,390,476 pass in front of or at the side of the station, Kings Cross is spelled both with and without an apostrophe. Kings Cross is used in signage at the Network Rail and London Underground stations, on the tube map and it has been used on official maps from Underground companies since 1951 – the apostrophe was used on them only very rarely before then. Kings Cross is used in the National Rail timetable database and other National Rail railway pages, Kings X, Kings + and London KX are abbreviations used in space-limited contexts. The National Rail station code is KGX, the area of Kings Cross was previously a village known as Battle Bridge which was an ancient crossing of the River Fleet, originally known as Broad Ford, later Bradford Bridge. The river flowed along what is now the west side of Pancras Road until it was rerouted underground in 1825, the name Battle Bridge is linked to tradition that this was the site of a major battle between the Romans and the British Iceni tribe led by Boudica. According to folklore, Kings Cross is the site of Boudicas final battle, platforms 9 and 10 have been suggested as possible sites. Boudicas ghost is also reported to haunt passages under the station, Kings Cross station was built in 1851–1852 as the London hub of the Great Northern Railway and terminus of the East Coast main line. It replaced a station next to Maiden Lane that had been quickly constructed with the lines arrival in London in 1850. The station took its name from the area of London, named after a monument to King George IV that was demolished in 1845
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Midland Railway
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The Midland Railway was a railway company in the United Kingdom from 1844 to 1922, when it became part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. It had a network of lines managed from its headquarters in Derby. It became the third-largest railway undertaking in the British Isles, the Midland Railway Consolidation Act was passed in 1844 authorising the merger of the Midland Counties Railway, the North Midland Railway, and the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway. These met at the Tri-Junct station at Derby, where the MR established its locomotive and later its carriage, leading it were George Hudson from the North Midland, dynamic but unscrupulous, and John Ellis from the Midland Counties, a careful businessman of impeccable integrity. James Allport from the Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway found a place elsewhere in Hudsons empire with the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway, though he later returned. Almost immediately it took over the Sheffield and Rotherham Railway and the Erewash Valley Line in 1845, passengers from Sheffield continued to use Rotherham Masborough until a direct route was completed in 1870. Meanwhile, it extended its influence in the Leicestershire coalfields, by buying the Leicester and Swannington Railway in 1846, after the merger, London trains were carried on the shorter Midland Counties route. The former Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway was left with the traffic to Birmingham and Bristol, the line south was the Birmingham and Bristol Railway, which reached Curzon Street via Camp Hill. These two lines had been formed by the merger of the standard gauge Birmingham and Gloucester Railway and they met at Gloucester via a short loop of the Cheltenham and Great Western Union Railway. In the event all that was necessary was for the later LNWR to share Birmingham New Street with the Midland when it was opened in 1854, the MR controlled all the traffic to the North East and Scotland from London. The LNWR was progressing slowly through the Lake District, and there was pressure for a line from London to York. Permission had been gained for the Northern and Eastern Railway to run through Peterborough and Lincoln, two obvious extensions of the Midland Counties line were from Nottingham to Lincoln and from Leicester to Peterborough. They were approved while the bill for the line was still before Parliament, forming the present day Lincoln Branch. The Leeds and Bradford Railway had been approved in 1844, by 1850 it was losing money but a number of railways offered to buy it. In spite of the objections of Hudson, for the MR and others, the London and York Railway led by Edmund Denison persisted, after Hudsons departure, the MR was in financial difficulties. Opposition to the Great Northern bill had cost a fortune, a deal of maintenance was overdue. Added to this, the Great Northern was taking much of the traffic from the North East, in 1851 the Ambergate, Nottingham, Boston and Eastern Junction Railway completed its line from Grantham as far as Colwick, from where a branch led to the MR Nottingham station. The Great Northern Railway by then passed through Grantham and both railway companies paid court to the fledgling line, meanwhile, Nottingham had woken up to its branch line status and was keen to expand
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Goods station
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This often takes the form of a container terminal and may also be known as a container station. Goods stations were more widespread in the days when the railways were common carriers and were converted from former passenger station whose traffic had moved elsewhere. The worlds first dedicated goods terminal was the 1830 Park Lane Goods Station at the South End Liverpool Docks, built in 1830 the terminal was reached by a 1. 24-mile tunnel from Edge Hill in the east of the city. The station was a part of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, where individual goods wagons are dispatched to specific goods stations, they are usually delivered to special shunting stations or marshalling yards where they are sorted and then collected. Sometimes there are combined shunting and goods stations, a goods station is usually equipped with a large number of storage and loading sidings in order to fulfil its task. On the loading sidings there may be fixed facilities, such as cranes or conveyor belts, or temporary equipment, stations where the primary purpose of the station is the handling of containers are also known as container terminals. They are equipped with cranes and fork-lift vehicles for loading containers from lorries or ships onto the railway vehicles. If only a section of a station is used for the loading and unloading of goods, it may be referred to as the loading area or loading dock and has its own access. Often there are no facilities for loading and the firm has to organise its own loading equipment such as conveyor belts or lorry cranes. Such loading areas were mainly to be found on branch lines, narrow gauge railways, in many European countries they are also equipped with a hump yard. In combined goods and hub stations with a yard, the latter was closed if the station lost its role as a railway hub. As a result, most of the remaining goods stations today are just used as container or transshipment stations, in French, gare aux marchandises or gare de fret. Freight yard Goods shed Goods train Railway station, which information on passenger stations. Container terminal Blum, Otto, Personen- und Güterbahnhöfe, kurt Leibrand, Handbuch für Bauingenieurwesen, Berlin/Göttingen/Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag. Bände 1 und 2, East Berlin, Transpress VEB Verlag für Verkehrswesen, europe-wide goods station search Goods stations search - Germany Container services
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British Library
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The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and the second largest library in the world by number of items catalogued. It holds well over 150 million items from many countries, as a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. The Librarys collections include around 14 million books, along with holdings of manuscripts. In addition to receiving a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland, the Library adds some three million items every year occupying 9.6 kilometres of new shelf space. Prior to 1973, the Library was part of the British Museum, the Euston Road building is classified as a Grade I listed building, of exceptional interest for its architecture and history. The British Library was created on 1 July 1973 as a result of the British Library Act 1972. Prior to this, the library was part of the British Museum. In 1983, the Library absorbed the National Sound Archive, which holds many sound and video recordings, with over a million discs, the core of the Librarys historical collections is based on a series of donations and acquisitions from the 18th century, known as the foundation collections. From 1997 to 2009 the main collection was housed in this new building. Construction work on the Newspaper Storage Building was completed in 2013, the collection has now been split between the St Pancras and Boston Spa sites. The British Library Document Supply Service and the Librarys Document Supply Collection is based on the site in Boston Spa. Collections housed in Yorkshire, comprising low-use material and the newspaper and Document Supply collections, the Library previously had a book storage depot in Woolwich, south-east London, which is no longer in use. The new library was designed specially for the purpose by the architect Colin St John Wilson, facing Euston Road is a large piazza that includes pieces of public art, such as large sculptures by Eduardo Paolozzi and Antony Gormley. It is the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century, in December 2009 a new storage building at Boston Spa was opened by Rosie Winterton. The building was Grade I listed on 1 August 2015, in England, Legal Deposit can be traced back to at least 1610. The other five libraries are, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the University Library at Cambridge, the Trinity College Library at Dublin, in 2003 the Ipswich MP Chris Mole introduced a Private Members Bill which became the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. The Act extends United Kingdom legal deposit requirements to electronic documents, such as CD-ROMs, the Library also holds the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections which include the India Office Records and materials in the languages of Asia and of north and north-east Africa
30.
Hampstead
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Hampstead, commonly known as Hampstead Village, is an area of London, England,4 miles northwest of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath and it has some of the most expensive housing in the London area. The village of Hampstead has more millionaires within its boundaries than any area of the United Kingdom. The name comes from the Anglo-Saxon words ham and stede, which means, and is a cognate of, the growth of Hampstead is generally traced back to the 17th century. Trustees of the Well started advertising the medicinal qualities of the waters in 1700. Although Hampstead Wells was initially most successful and fashionable, its popularity declined in the 1800s due to competition with other fashionable London spas, the spa was demolished in 1882, although a water fountain was left behind. Much luxurious housing was created during the 1870s and 1880s, in the area that is now the ward of Frognal & Fitzjohns. Much of this remains to this day. The large Victorian Hampstead Library and Town Hall was recently converted and extended as a creative industries centre, on 14 August 1975 Hampstead entered the UK Weather Records with the Highest 155-min total rainfall at 169 mm. As of November 2008 this record remains, Hampstead became part of the County of London in 1889 and in 1899 the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead was formed. The borough town hall on Haverstock Hill, which was also the location of the Register Office, Hampstead is part of the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency, formed at the 2010 general election. It was formerly part of the Hampstead and Highgate constituency, since May 2015 the area has been represented on Camden Council by Conservative Party councillors Tom Currie, Oliver Cooper and Stephen Stark. The area has a significant tradition of educated liberal humanism, often referred to as Hampstead Liberalism, michael Idov of The New Yorker stated that the community was the citadel of the moneyed liberal intelligentsia, posh but not stuffy. As applied to an individual, the term Hampstead Liberal is not synonymous with champagne socialist, the term is also rather misleading. As of 2016, all the component wards of Hampstead elect a full slate of Conservative councillors, the bridge pictured is known locally as The Red Arches or The Viaduct, built in fruitless anticipation of residential building on the Heath in the 19th century. The largest employer in Hampstead is the Royal Free Hospital, Pond Street, George Martins AIR recording studios, in converted church premises in Lyndhurst Road, is a current example, as Jim Hensons Creature Shop was before it relocated to California. It was recently restored by Notting Hill Housing Trust, notable and longstanding are La Gaffe, Gaucho Grill, Jin Kichi, Tip Top Thai, Villa Bianca and, in May 2016, Patara. Hampsteads rural feel lends itself for use on film, an example being The Killing of Sister George starring Beryl Reid
31.
Euston Road
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Euston Road in Central London, England, runs from Marylebone Road to Kings Cross. The road is part of the London Inner Ring Road and forms part of the London congestion charge zone boundary, traffic increased when major railway stations, including Euston, opened in the mid-19th century and led to the roads renaming in 1857. Euston Road was widened in the 1960s to cater for the demands of motor traffic. The road contains several significant buildings including the Wellcome Library, the British Library, the road starts as a continuation of the A501, a major road through Central London, at its junction with Marylebone Road and Great Portland Street. It meets the end of Tottenham Court Road at a large junction where there is an underpass. The road ahead to Islington is Pentonville Road, the road is part of the London Inner Ring Road and on the edge of the London congestion charge zone. Drivers are not charged for travelling on the road, but may be if they turn south into the zone during its hours of operation. Kings Cross and St Pancras railway stations are at the end of the road, the British Library is nearby. The Euston Tower is a landmark on the road, the old and new headquarters of the Wellcome Trust are on its south side. From west to east the road passes Regents Park, Great Portland Street, Warren Street, Euston Square, Euston, London Bus Route 205 runs along the entire extent of Euston Road from Great Portland Street to Kings Cross. Before the 18th century, the land along which Euston Road runs was fields, Camden Town was a village retreat for Londoners working in the city. Euston Road was originally part of New Road, promoted by Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, construction began in May that year, and it was open to traffic by September. The road provided a new road for moving sheep and cattle to Smithfield Market avoiding Oxford Street and Holborn. The Capper family, who lived on the side of the proposed route, opposed its construction. Capper Street, a street off Tottenham Court Road, is named after the family. A clause in the 1756 Act stipulated that no buildings should be constructed within 50 feet of the road, during the 19th century the law was increasingly ignored. Euston Station opened on the side of New Road in July 1837. It was planned by Robert Stephenson on the site of gardens called Euston Grove and its entrance, designed by Philip Hardwick, cost £35,000 and had the highest portico in London at 72 feet
32.
St Pancras, London
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St Pancras is an area of central London. The district now encompassed by the term St Pancras is not easy to define, the name is sometimes applied to the immediate vicinity of the eponymous railway station, but Kings Cross is the usual name for the area around the two mainline stations as a whole. However, as the choice of name for the borough suggests, the original focus of the area was the church, now known by the retronym of St Pancras Old Church. The building is in the half of the parish, and is believed by many to be one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in Great Britain. However, in the 14th century the population moved en masse to Kentish Town, probably due to flooding by the River Fleet and the availability of better wells at the new location. A chapel of ease was established there, and the old settlement was abandoned, except for a few farms, in the 1790s Earl Camden began to develop some fields to the north and west of the old church as Camden Town. About the same time, a district was built to the south and east of the church. In 1822 the new church of St Pancras was dedicated as the parish church, the site was chosen on what was then called the New Road, now Euston Road, which had been built as Londons first bypass, the M25 of its day. The two sites are about a kilometer apart, the new church is Grade I listed for its Greek Revival style, the old church was rebuilt in 1847. In the mid 19th century two major stations were built to the south of the Old Church, first Kings Cross. The new church is closer to Euston Station, by the end of the nineteenth century the ancient parish had been divided into 37 parishes, including one for the old church. The parish of St Pancras was administered by a vestry until the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras was established in 1900, in 1965 the former area of the borough was combined with that of two others to form the London Borough of Camden. Georges Church, Bloomsbury, and St George the Martyr, Holborn and these were all closed under the Extramural Interment Act in 1854, the parish was required to purchase land some distance away, and chose East Finchley for its new St Pancras Cemetery. The disused graveyard at St Pancras Old Church was left alone for over thirty years, Thomas Hardy, then a junior architect and later a novelist and poet, was involved in this work. Particularly, he placed a number of gravestones around a tree, the cemetery was disturbed again in 2002-03 by the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, but much more care was given to the removal of remains than in the 19th century. The name St Pancras survives in the name of the parliamentary constituency, Holborn. Old St Pancras Church and its graveyard have links to Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, immediately to the north of the churchyard is St Pancras Hospital, originally the parish workhouse and latterly the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases. St Pancras is one of the railway stations in England
33.
Regent's Canal
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Regents Canal is a canal across an area just north of central London, England. It provides a link from the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, just north-west of Paddington Basin in the west, to the Limehouse Basin, the canal is 13.8 kilometres long. As with many Nash projects, the design was passed to one of his assistants, in this case James Morgan. Work began on 14 October 1812, the Camden to Limehouse section, including the 886-metre long Islington tunnel and the Regents Canal Dock, opened four years later on 1 August 1820. Various intermediate basins were also constructed, many other basins such as Wenlock Basin, Kingsland Basin, St. Pancras Stone and Coal Basin, and one in front of the Great Northern Railways Granary were also built, and some of these survive. The City Road Basin, the nearest to the City of London, soon eclipsed the Paddington Basin in the amount of goods carried, principally coal and these were goods that were being shipped locally, in contrast to the canals original purpose of transshipping imports to the Midlands. The opening of the London and Birmingham Railway in 1838 actually increased the tonnage of coal carried by the canal. However, by the twentieth century, with the Midland trade lost to the railways, and more deliveries made by road. There were a number of projects to convert the route of the canal into a railway. The railway company failed, but in 1846 the directors of the canal went about trying to obtain an Act of Parliament to allow them to build a railway along its banks. The scheme was abandoned in the face of opposition, especially from the government who objected to the idea of a railway passing through Regents Park. In 1859, two schemes to convert the canal into a railway were proposed. One, from a company called the Central London Railway and Dock Company, was accepted by the directors, in 1860 the Regents Canal Company proposed a railway track alongside the canal from Kings Cross to Limehouse, but funds could not be raised. Further schemes over the twenty years also came to nothing. In 1883, after years of negotiation, the canal was sold to a company called the Regents Canal. A new purpose was found for the route in 1979. These 400 kV cables now form part of the National Grid, pumped canal water is circulated as a coolant for the high-voltage cables. The canal is used today for pleasure cruising, a regular waterbus service operates between Maida Vale and Camden, running hourly during the summer months
34.
Kings Cross, London
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London Kings Cross is an inner city area of London, England,2.5 miles north of Charing Cross. It is the location and namesake of London Kings Cross railway station, the area was previously a village known as Battle Bridge or Battlebridge which was an ancient crossing of the River Fleet. The original name of the bridge was Broad Ford Bridge, the corruption Battle Bridge led to a tradition that this was the site of a major battle in AD60 or 61 between the Romans and the Iceni tribe led by Boudica. Lewis Spences 1937 book Boadicea – warrior queen of the Britons includes a map showing the positions of the opposing armies. The suggestion that Boudica is buried beneath platform 9 or 10 at London Kings Cross Station seems to have arisen as urban folklore since the end of World War II. The area had settled in Roman times, and a camp here, known as The Brill was erroneously attributed to Julius Caesar. The name is commemorated in two streets lying behind Kings Cross and St Pancras stations, St Pancras Old Church, also set behind the stations, is said to be one of the oldest Christian sites in Britain. The current name has its origin in a monument to King George IV which stood in the area from 1830 to 1845 and it was built at the crossroads of Grays Inn Road, Pentonville Road and New Road, which later became Euston Road. It was sixty feet high and topped by a statue of the king. The statue itself, which cost no more than £25, was constructed of bricks and mortar, the architect was Stephen Geary, who exhibited a model of the Kings Cross at the Royal Academy in 1830. The upper storey was used as a camera obscura while the base in turn housed a police station, the unpopular building was demolished in 1845, though the area has kept the name of Kings Cross. A structure in the form of a lighthouse was built on top of a building almost on the site about 30 years later. Known locally as the Lighthouse Building, the structure was thought to be an advertisement for Nettens Oyster Bar on the ground floor. It is a grade II listed building, London Kings Cross railway station now stands by the junction where the monument stood and took its name. The station, designed by architect Lewis Cubitt and opened in 1852, succeeded an earlier station. St Pancras railway station, built by the Midland Railway, lies immediately to the west and they both had extensive land to house their associated facilities for handling general goods and specialist commodities such as fish, coal, potatoes and grain. The passenger stations on Euston Road far outweighed in public attention the economically important goods traffic to the north. Kings Cross and St Pancras stations, and indeed all London railway stations, after World War II the area declined from being a poor but busy industrial and distribution services district to a partially abandoned post-industrial district
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Euston Square tube station
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Euston Square is a London Underground station at the corner of Euston Road and Gower Street, just north of University College London and within walking distance of Euston railway station. It is between Great Portland Street and Kings Cross St. Pancras on the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines, the station opened in 1863 as Gower Street, changing to its present name in 1909. In late 2006 the new entrance on the side of Euston Road opened in a corner of the new headquarters of the Wellcome Trust replacing the old entrance. There is also an entrance on the north side of Euston Road. In 2011, two new lifts linking the platform to the street were opened. On top of these a new entrance was opened. In December 2005 Network Rail announced plans to create a link between the station and Euston station as part of the re-development of Euston station. This will create a link for users of main line rail services which depart from Euston. These plans would also be pursued during a rebuilding for High Speed 2, the station is served by the Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City and Circle lines, between Kings Cross St. Pancras to the east and Great Portland Street to the west. All three lines share the same pair of tracks from Baker Street Junction to Aldgate Junction making this section of one of the most intensely used on the London Underground network. Fast services run non-stop between Wembley Park, Harrow-On-The-Hill and Moor Park, Semi-fast services run non-stop between Wembley Park and Harrow-On-The-Hill, London Euston railway station to Euston Square tube station subway link
36.
St Pancras Old Church
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St Pancras Old Church is a Church of England parish church in Somers Town, central London. It is dedicated to the Roman martyr Saint Pancras, and is believed by many to be one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in England. The church is situated on Pancras Road in the London Borough of Camden, with the surrounding area, St Pancras Old Church, which was largely rebuilt in the Victorian era, should not be confused with St Pancras New Church about a kilometre away, on the Euston Road. Originally, the parish of St Pancras stretched from close to Oxford Street almost to Highgate, in the early Middle Ages there was a centre of population in the vicinity of what is now known as the old church. However, in the 14th century the population abandoned the site, the reasons for this were probably the vulnerability of the plain around the church to flooding and the availability of better wells at Kentish Town, where there is less clay in the soil. The church subsequently fell into disrepair, towards the end of the 18th century, services were only held in the church on one Sunday each month, on other weeks, the same congregation would use a chapel in Kentish Town. It lost its status as the church when the New Church on what was to become the Euston Road was consecrated in 1822. Documentary evidence for the history of the church is scanty. It is considered by some to have existed since AD314, the claim is discussed below under Legendary origins. Phil Emery and Pat Miller discuss the issue in Archaeological findings at the site of the St Pancras Burial Ground, the original cemetery around the church appears to have been sub-circular like many late Saxon cemeteries. Remnants of medieval features and references in the Domesday Book suggest it pre-dates the Norman Conquest. After the Reformation the isolation and decay of the church made it a resort for Catholics, indeed. Bachs name was misspelled in the burial register of the Saint Pancras Church. As it stood in the early 19th century the church consisted of a nave, a chancel without a chancel arch. The south porch had served as a vestry since the 18th century, by 1847 the Old Church was derelict, but in view of the growth of population in the southern part of the parish, it was decided to restore it. The architect of the alterations was Alexander Dick Gough, the old tower was removed, allowing the nave to be extended westwards, and a new tower was built on the south side. The south porch was removed, and a new vestry was added on the north side, the whole exterior of the church was refaced or reworked. The enlargement and the addition of increased the capacity of the church from about 120 to 500
37.
Charles Dickens
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Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the worlds best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era and his works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity, born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors prison. Dickenss literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers, within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the publication of narrative fiction. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audiences reaction, and he modified his plot. For example, when his wifes chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities and his plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. Masses of the poor chipped in hapennies to have each new monthly episode read to them, opening up. Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age and his 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also adapted, and, like many of his novels. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London, Dickens has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for his realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of depth, loose writing. The term Dickensian is used to something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings. Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on 7 February 1812, at 1 Mile End Terrace, Landport in Portsea Island and his father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and was temporarily stationed in the district. He asked Christopher Huffam, rigger to His Majestys Navy, gentleman, Huffam is thought to be the inspiration for Paul Dombey, the owner of a shipping company in Dickenss eponymous Dombey and Son. In January 1815 John Dickens was called back to London, when Charles was four, they relocated to Sheerness, and thence to Chatham, Kent, where he spent his formative years until the age of 11. His early life seems to have been idyllic, though he himself a very small. Charles spent time outdoors but also read voraciously, including the novels of Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding, as well as Robinson Crusoe
38.
Thomas Hardy
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Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the status of rural people in Britain. While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the dUrbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. During his lifetime, Hardys poetry was acclaimed by poets who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden, Two of his novels, Tess of the dUrbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBCs survey The Big Read. Jemima was well-read, and she educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at the age of eight, for several years he attended Mr. Lasts Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester, where he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential. Because Hardys family lacked the means for a university education, his formal education ended at the age of sixteen, when he apprenticed to James Hicks. Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London in 1862 and he won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. He joined Arthur Blomfields practice as assistant architect in April 1862 and worked with Blomfield on All Saints parish church in Windsor, a reredos, possibly designed by Hardy, was discovered behind panelling at All Saints in August 2016. Hardy never felt at home in London, because he was conscious of class divisions. During this time he became interested in reform and the works of John Stuart Mill. He was also introduced by his Dorset friend Horace Moule to the works of Charles Fourier, after five years, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset, settling in Weymouth, and decided to dedicate himself to writing. In 1870, while on a mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall, Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Gifford. In 1885 Thomas and his wife moved into Max Gate, a designed by Hardy. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior, however, he remained preoccupied with his first wifes death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry. In 1910, Hardy had been awarded the Order of Merit and was also for the first time nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and he would be nominated for the prize eleven years later. His funeral was on 16 January at Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the grave as his first wife
39.
John Soane
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Sir John Soane RA was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. The son of a bricklayer, he rose to the top of his profession, becoming professor of architecture at the Royal Academy and he received a knighthood in 1831. His best-known work was the Bank of England, a building which had an effect on commercial architecture. He also designed Dulwich Picture Gallery, which, with its galleries, was a major influence on the planning of subsequent art galleries. The museum is described in the Oxford Dictionary of Architecture as one of the most complex, intricate, Soane was born in Goring-on-Thames on 10 September 1753. He was the surviving son of John Soan and his wife Martha. The e was added to the surname by the architect in 1784 on his marriage and his father was a builder or bricklayer, and died when Soane was fourteen in April 1768. He was educated in nearby Reading in a school run by William Baker. After his fathers death Soanes family moved to nearby Chertsey to live with Soanes brother William,12 years his elder, William Soane introduced his brother to James Peacock, a surveyor who worked with George Dance the Younger. Soane began his training as an architect age 15 under George Dance the Younger and joining the architect at his home and office in the City of London at the corner of Moorfields and Chiswell Street. Dance was a member of the Royal Academy and doubtless encouraged Soane to join the schools there on 25 October 1771 as they were free. There he would have attended the lectures delivered by Thomas Sandby. Dances growing family was probably the reason that in 1772 Soane continued his education by joining the household, Soane, a non-swimmer, was going to be with the party but decided to stay home and work on his design for a Triumphal Bridge. By 1777, Soane was living in his own accommodation in Hamilton Street, in 1778 he published his first book Designs in Architecture. He sought advice from Sir William Chambers on what to study, must discover their true beauties, and the secrets by which they are produced. Using his traveling scholarship of £60 per annum for three years, plus an additional £30 travelling expenses for each leg of the journey, Soane set sail on his Grand Tour, his ultimate destination being Rome, at 5,00 am,18 March 1778. His travelling companion was Robert Furze Brettingham, they travelled via Paris and they finally reached Rome on 2 May 1778. Soane wrote home my attention is taken up in the seeing and examining the numerous
40.
William III of England
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It is a coincidence that his regnal number was the same for both Orange and England. As King of Scotland, he is known as William II and he is informally known by sections of the population in Northern Ireland and Scotland as King Billy. William inherited the principality of Orange from his father, William II and his mother Mary, Princess Royal, was the daughter of King Charles I of England. In 1677, he married his fifteen-year-old first cousin, Mary, a Protestant, William participated in several wars against the powerful Catholic king of France, Louis XIV, in coalition with Protestant and Catholic powers in Europe. Many Protestants heralded him as a champion of their faith, in 1685, his Catholic father-in-law, James, Duke of York, became king of England, Ireland and Scotland. Jamess reign was unpopular with the Protestant majority in Britain, William, supported by a group of influential British political and religious leaders, invaded England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. On 5 November 1688, he landed at the southern English port of Brixham, James was deposed and William and Mary became joint sovereigns in his place. They reigned together until her death on 28 December 1694, after which William ruled as sole monarch, Williams reputation as a staunch Protestant enabled him to take the British crowns when many were fearful of a revival of Catholicism under James. Williams victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is still commemorated by the Orange Order and his reign in Britain marked the beginning of the transition from the personal rule of the Stuarts to the more Parliament-centred rule of the House of Hanover. William III was born in The Hague in the Dutch Republic on 4 November 1650, baptised William Henry, he was the only child of stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange, and Mary, Princess Royal. Mary was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland, eight days before William was born, his father died of smallpox, thus William was the Sovereign Prince of Orange from the moment of his birth. Immediately, a conflict ensued between his mother the Princess Royal and William IIs mother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant. Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William or Willem to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder. William II had appointed his wife as his sons guardian in his will, however, Williams mother showed little personal interest in her son, sometimes being absent for years, and had always deliberately kept herself apart from Dutch society. Williams education was first laid in the hands of several Dutch governesses, some of English descent, including Walburg Howard, from April 1656, the prince received daily instruction in the Reformed religion from the Calvinist preacher Cornelis Trigland, a follower of the Contra-Remonstrant theologian Gisbertus Voetius. The ideal education for William was described in Discours sur la nourriture de S. H. Monseigneur le Prince dOrange, in these lessons, the prince was taught that he was predestined to become an instrument of Divine Providence, fulfilling the historical destiny of the House of Orange. From early 1659, William spent seven years at the University of Leiden for a formal education, under the guidance of ethics professor Hendrik Bornius. While residing in the Prinsenhof at Delft, William had a personal retinue including Hans Willem Bentinck, and a new governor, Frederick Nassau de Zuylenstein
41.
John Somers, 1st Baron Somers
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John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, PC, PRS was an English Whig jurist and statesman. Somers first came to attention in the trial of the Seven Bishops where he was on their defence counsel. He published tracts on political topics such as the succession to the crown and he played a leading part in shaping the Revolution settlement. He was Lord High Chancellor of England under King William III and was an architect of the union between England and Scotland achieved in 1707 and the Protestant succession achieved in 1714. He was a leading Whig during the years after 1688. He was the author of a pamphlet supporting the Exclusion Bill, A Brief History of the Succession, Collected out of the Records and the Most Authentical Historians. Somers showed that Parliament had for centuries regulated the succession of the English crown against the arguments of those who believed that Parliament had no right to alter the succession. Before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, the Anglo-Saxon kings had been elected, the authorship of this has been disputed. According to Bishop Burnet it was first penned by Sidney, but a new draught was made by Somers, Lord Hardwicke saw a copy in Somerss handwriting amongst his manuscripts before they were destroyed by fire in 1752. In 1681 Lord Shaftesbury was sent to the Tower of London without bail or recourse to a trial, in November he was charged at the Old Bailey for high treason, specifically for intending to levy war against the king. However the grand jury of Middlesex threw out the bill against Lord Shaftesbury, Somers published anonymously The Security of Englishmens Lives, or, The Trust, Power, and Duty of the Grand Juries of England in 1681. Somers acknowledged that judges may advise but juries are bound by their Oaths to present the Truth, the whole Truth, in Macaulays words, Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes, but every word was full of weighty matter, and when he sate down his reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer was established. In his speech Somers cited the case of Thomas v. Sorrel whereby it was ruled that no Act of Parliament could be abrogated except through Parliament, the bishops petition had been described as a false, malicious and seditious libel. In his peroration Somers answered this charge, My Lord, as to all the matters of fact alleged in the Petition, in every instance which the petitioners mention, this power of dispensation was considered in Parliament, and, on debate, declared to be contrary to law. They could have no design to diminish the prerogative, because the King hath no such prerogative, seditious, my Lord, the Petition could not be, for the matter of it must be seen to be strictly true. There could be nothing of malice, for the occasion, instead of being sought, was forced upon them, in the secret councils of those who were planning the Glorious Revolution Somers took a leading part, and in the Convention Parliament was elected a member for Worcester. On 6 February Somers advocated the word rather than desert to describe James flight to France
42.
Joseph Swain (engraver)
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Joseph Swain was an English wood-engraver. He is best known from his engravings in Punch magazine of cartoons by Sir John Tenniel, born in Oxford in 1820, he was second son of Ebenezer Swain by his wife Harriet James, Joseph Swain, pastor of East Street Baptist church, Walworth, was his grandfather. He was educated at schools, first in Oxford, and then in London. Swain died at Ealing in west London in 1909, Swain was one of the most prolific wood-engravers of the nineteenth century. His own work is not always signed, and the signature Swain sc must be taken to include the engraving of assistants working for his firm, in the later 19th century his wood-engravings were generally printed from electrotypes, but those done for Punch were printed from the original wood-blocks. He engraving extensively after Fred Walker, John Everett Millais, Frederick Sandys, Richard Doyle, Richard Ansdell, Fred Barnard, and other major illustrators, from 1860 onwards. A series of articles on Fred Walker, Charles Henry Bennett, George John Pinwell, and Fritz Eltze, in 1843 Swain married Martha Cooper. They had three daughters and a son, Joseph Blomeley Swain, who carried on the printing and engraving establishment, attribution This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Lee, Sidney, ed. Swain, Joseph. Dictionary of National Biography,1912 supplement, Works by Joseph Swain at Faded Page Works by or about Joseph Swain at Internet Archive
