Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. It is located in the wider Temple area of London, near the Royal Courts of Justice, within the City of London. During the 12th and early 13th centuries the law was taught in the City of London by the clergy, but a papal bull in 1218 prohibited the clergy from practising in the secular courts. As a result, law began to be taught by laymen instead of by clerics. To protect their schools from competition, first Henry II and Henry III issued proclamations prohibiting the teaching of the civil law within the City of London; as a result, the common law lawyers moved to premises outside the City, which in time became the inns of court. The Middle Temple is the western part of "The Temple", the headquarters of the Knights Templar until they were dissolved in 1312. There have been lawyers in the Temple since 1320, when they were the tenants of the Earl of Lancaster, who had held the Temple since 1315.
The Temple belonged to the Knights Hospitallers. In 1346 the knights again leased the premises to the lawyers – the eastern part to lawyers from Thavie's Inn, an Inn of Chancery in Holborn, the western part to lawyers from St George's Inn; the Cross of St George is still part of the arms of Middle Temple today. After Henry VIII seized the Temple from the Knights Hospitallers in 1540, each Inn continued to hold its share of the Temple as tenants of the Crown for £10 a year, until it was granted to them jointly in 1608 by James I, to be held in perpetuity so long as they continue to provide education and accommodation to lawyers and students and maintain the Temple Church and its Master; the Temple Church, consecrated in 1185, still stands as a "Royal Peculiar" church of the Inner and Middle Temples. Much of the Middle Temple was destroyed in a fire in 1678, which caused more damage to the Inn than the Great Fire of 1666; the Thames being frozen over, beer from the Temple cellars was used to fight the fire, only contained by blowing up some buildings with gunpowder.
The Lord Mayor of London tried to exploit the occasion to assert his own jurisdiction over the Temple –, independent of the City – and on being thwarted in this endeavour, he turned back a fire engine, on its way to the fire from the City. The Inns served as colleges for the education of lawyers until they stopped being responsible for legal education in 1852, although they continue to provide training in areas such as advocacy and ethics for students, pupil barristers and newly qualified barristers. Most of the Inn is occupied by barristers' offices, known as chambers. One of the Middle Temple's main functions now is to provide education and support to new members of the profession; this is done through advocacy training, the provision of scholarships, subsidised accommodation both in the Temple and in Clapham, by providing events where junior members may meet senior colleagues for help and advice. In 2008 the 400th anniversary of the charter of James I was celebrated by Elizabeth II issuing new letters patent confirming the original grant.
The Middle Temple owns 43 buildings. The ones in the Temple itself are still held under the 1608 letters patent of James I, but some others just outside the Temple were bought subsequently; some buildings are modern, replacing ones which were destroyed in The Blitz, but others date back to the 16th century. The Inn is jointly responsible, with Inner Temple, for Temple Church and the Master's House next to the church, a Georgian townhouse built in 1764. Construction of Middle Temple Hall began in 1562 and was completed in 1572, although it was opened in 1576, by Queen Elizabeth I, its hammerbeam roof has been said to be the best in London. One of the tables at the end of the hall is made from the timbers of the Golden Hinde, the ship used by Sir Francis Drake to circumnavigate the world. Above the table is a massive painting of King Charles I by Anthony van Dyck, portraits of Charles II, James II, William III, Elizabeth I, Queen Anne and George I. On the walls are panels bearing the coats of arms of Readers dating back to 1597.
The first recorded performance of Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night occurred in the hall on 2 February 1602. Shakespeare himself was present; the hall survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, but was damaged by bombing in the Second World War. Middle Temple Hall is at the heart of the Inn, the Inn's student members are required to attend a minimum of 12 qualifying sessions there. Qualifying sessions known as "dinners", combine collegiate and educational elements and will combine a dinner or reception with lectures, mooting, or musical performances. Middle Temple Hall is a popular venue for banqueting, weddings and parties. In recent years, it has become a much-used film location—the cobbled streets, historic buildings and gas lighting give it a unique atmosphere. Nothing is known about the original library, just a room in a barristers' chambers. All the books were stolen prior to the reign of Henry VIII. In 1625 a new library was established at the site of what is now Garden Court, in 1641 it was enlarged when a member of the Inn, Robert Ashley and left his collection of books and £300 to the Inn.
This library w
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is a large Gothic abbey church in the City of Westminster, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom's most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and British monarchs; the building itself was a Benedictine monastic church until the monastery was dissolved in 1539. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral. Since 1560, the building is no longer an abbey or a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England "Royal Peculiar"—a church responsible directly to the sovereign. According to a tradition first reported by Sulcard in about 1080, a church was founded at the site in the seventh century, at the time of Mellitus, a Bishop of London. Construction of the present church began in 1245, on the orders of King Henry III. Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all coronations of English and British monarchs have been in Westminster Abbey.
There have been 16 royal weddings at the abbey since 1100. As the burial site of more than 3,300 persons of predominant prominence in British history, Westminster Abbey is sometimes described as'Britain's Valhalla', after the iconic burial hall of Norse mythology. A late tradition claims that Aldrich, a young fisherman on the River Thames, had a vision of Saint Peter near the site; this seems to have been quoted as the origin of the salmon that Thames fishermen offered to the abbey in years – a custom still observed annually by the Fishmongers' Company. The recorded origins of the Abbey date to the 960s or early 970s, when Saint Dunstan and King Edgar installed a community of Benedictine monks on the site. Between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter's Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church, it was the first church in England built in the Romanesque style. The building was completed around 1060 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edward's death on 5 January 1066.
A week he was buried in the church. His successor, Harold II, was crowned in the abbey, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror the same year; the only extant depiction of Edward's abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the Bayeux Tapestry. Some of the lower parts of the monastic dormitory, an extension of the South Transept, survive in the Norman Undercroft of the Great School, including a door said to come from the previous Saxon abbey. Increased endowments supported a community increased from a dozen monks in Dunstan's original foundation, up to a maximum about eighty monks; the abbot and monks, in proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, the seat of government from the 13th century, became a powerful force in the centuries after the Norman Conquest. The Abbot of Westminster was employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. Released from the burdens of spiritual leadership, which passed to the reformed Cluniac movement after the mid-10th century, occupied with the administration of great landed properties, some of which lay far from Westminster, "the Benedictines achieved a remarkable degree of identification with the secular life of their times, with upper-class life", Barbara Harvey concludes, to the extent that her depiction of daily life provides a wider view of the concerns of the English gentry in the High and Late Middle Ages.
The proximity of the Palace of Westminster did not extend to providing monks or abbots with high royal connections. The abbot remained Lord of the Manor of Westminster as a town of two to three thousand persons grew around it: as a consumer and employer on a grand scale the monastery helped fuel the town economy, relations with the town remained unusually cordial, but no enfranchising charter was issued during the Middle Ages; the abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings. None were buried there until Henry III, intensely devoted to the cult of the Confessor, rebuilt the abbey in Anglo-French Gothic style as a shrine to venerate King Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for Henry's own tomb, under the highest Gothic nave in England; the Confessor's shrine subsequently played a great part in his canonization. Construction of the present church began in 1245 by Henry III; the first building stage included the entire eastern end, the transepts, the easternmost bay of the nave.
The Lady Chapel built from around 1220 at the extreme eastern end was incorporated into the chevet of the new building, but was replaced. This work must have been completed by 1258-60, when the second stage was begun; this carried the nave on an additional five bays. Here construction stopped in about 1269, a consecration ceremony being held on 13 October of that year, because of Henry's death did not resume; the old Romanesque nave remained attached to the new building for over a century, until it was pulled down in the late 14th century and rebuilt from 1376 following the original design. Construction was finished by the architect Henry Yevele in the reign of Richard II. Henry III commissioned the unique Cosmati pavement in front of the High Altar (the pavement has undergone a major cleani
Bardsey, West Yorkshire
Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England is a small village in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough, 8 miles north east of Leeds city centre. The village is in the LS17 Leeds postcode district, it is part of the civil parish of Bardsey cum Rigton. The village itself lies just off the A58 road between Wetherby, it is a predominantly middle class area with a high proportion of retired residents. Housing is mixed. Facilities include a public house and sports club. Bardsey has a Primary school and an Anglican church. Nearby earthworks named Pompocali are of uncertain origin, but a result of granite quarrying. A minor Roman road lies alongside it. Bardsey was mentioned 1086 in the Domesday Book as "Berdesei" and "Bereleseie" in the hundred of Skyrack. A motte-and-bailey castle dates back to the time following the Norman conquest. Bardsey claims the oldest Anglo-Saxon tower church in England, with the tower of All Hallows church dating back to c. 850–950. The Bingley Arms are a public house that claims to be England's oldest public house, to be recorded in the Domesday Book, although these claims are disputed.
Bardsey railway station on the Cross Gates–Wetherby line opened in 1876 and closed in 1964. Bardsey is the birthplace of playwright and poet William Congreve. Media related to Bardsey, West Yorkshire at Wikimedia Commons The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland: All Hallows, West Yorkshire Bardsey Village web-site Bardsey Cricket Club website "The Ancient Parish of Bardsey". Genuki. Archived from the original on 13 October 2007. Retrieved 1 November 2016
Poet
A poet is a person who creates poetry. Poets may be described as such by others. A poet may be a writer of poetry, or may perform their art to an audience; the work of a poet is one of communication, either expressing ideas in a literal sense, such as writing about a specific event or place, or metaphorically. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, have produced works that vary in different cultures and periods. Throughout each civilization and language, poets have used various styles that have changed through the course of literary history, resulting in a history of poets as diverse as the literature they have produced. In Ancient Rome, professional poets were sponsored by patrons, wealthy supporters including nobility and military officials. For instance, Gaius Cilnius Maecenas, friend to Caesar Augustus, was an important patron for the Augustan poets, including both Horace and Virgil. Poets held an important position in pre-Islamic Arabic society with the poet or sha'ir filling the role of historian and propagandist.
Words in praise of the tribe and lampoons denigrating other tribes seem to have been some of the most popular forms of early poetry. The sha'ir represented an individual tribe's prestige and importance in the Arabian peninsula, mock battles in poetry or zajal would stand in lieu of real wars.'Ukaz, a market town not far from Mecca, would play host to a regular poetry festival where the craft of the sha'irs would be exhibited. In the High Middle Ages, troubadors were an important class of poets and came from a variety of backgrounds, they lived and travelled in many different places and were looked upon as actors or musicians as much as poets. They were under patronage, but many travelled extensively; the Renaissance period saw a continuation of patronage of poets by royalty. Many poets, had other sources of income, including Italians like Dante Aligheri, Giovanni Boccaccio and Petrarch's works in a pharmacist's guild and William Shakespeare's work in the theater. In the Romantic period and onwards, many poets were independent writers who made their living through their work supplemented by income from other occupations or from family.
This included poets such as Robert Burns. Poets such as Virgil in the Aeneid and John Milton in Paradise Lost invoked the aid of a Muse. Poets of earlier times were well read and educated people while others were to a large extent self-educated. A few poets such as John Gower and John Milton were able to write poetry in more than one language; some Portuguese poets, as Francisco de Sá de Miranda, wrote not only in Portuguese but in Spanish. Jan Kochanowski wrote in Polish and in Latin, France Prešeren and Karel Hynek Mácha wrote some poems in German, although they were poets of Slovenian and Czech respectively. Adam Mickiewicz, the greatest poet of Polish language, wrote a Latin ode for emperor Napoleon III. Another example is a Polish poet; when he moved to Great Britain, he ceased to write poetry in Polish, but started writing novel in English. He translated poetry from English and into English. Many universities offer degrees in creative writing though these only came into existence in the 20th century.
While these courses are not necessary for a career as a poet, they can be helpful as training, for giving the student several years of time focused on their writing. List of poets Bard Lyricist Reginald Gibbons, The Poet's Work: 29 poets on the origins and practice of their art. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226290546 at Google Books Poets' Graves
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay, FRS FRSE PC was a British historian and Whig politician. He wrote extensively as an essayist, on contemporary and historical sociopolitical subjects, as a reviewer, his The History of England was a seminal and paradigmatic example of Whig historiography, its literary style has remained an object of praise since its publication, including subsequent to the widespread condemnation of its historical contentions which became popular in the 20th century. Macaulay served as the Secretary at War between 1839 and 1841, as the Paymaster-General between 1846 and 1848, he played a major role in the introduction of English and western concepts to education in India, published his argument on the subject in the "Macaulay Minute" in 1835. He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of instruction in all schools, the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers. On the flip side, this led to Macaulayism in India, the systematic wiping out of traditional and ancient Indian education and vocational systems and sciences.
Macaulay divided the world into civilised nations and barbarism, with Britain representing the high point of civilisation. In his Minute on Indian Education of February 1835, he asserted, "It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say that all the historical information, collected from all the books written in the Sanskrit language is less valuable than what may be found in the most paltry abridgement used at preparatory schools in England", he was wedded to the Idea of Progress in terms of the liberal freedoms. He opposed radicalism while idealising historic British culture and traditions. Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple in Leicestershire on 25 October 1800, the son of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, who became a colonial governor and abolitionist, Selina Mills of Bristol, a former pupil of Hannah More, they named their first child after his uncle Thomas Babington, a Leicestershire landowner and politician, who had married Zachary's sister Jean. The young Macaulay was noted as a child prodigy.
He was educated at a private school in Hertfordshire, subsequently, at Trinity College, Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge, Macaulay wrote much poetry and won several prizes, including the Chancellor's Gold Medal in June 1821. In 1825, Macaulay published a prominent essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review, he studied law, in 1826 he was called to the bar, but he soon took more interest in a political career. In 1827, Macaulay published an anti-slavery essay, in the Edinburgh Review, in which he contested the analysis of African labourers composed by Colonel Thomas Moody, the Parliamentary Commissioner for West Indian slavery. Macaulay's father, Zachary Macaulay, had condemned the philosophy of Moody, in a series of letters to the Anti-Slavery Reporter. Macaulay, who never married and had no children, was rumoured to have fallen in love with Maria Kinnaird, the wealthy ward of Richard "Conversation" Sharp. Macaulay's strongest emotional ties were to his youngest Sisters: Margaret, who died while he was in India, Hannah.
As Hannah grew older, he formed a close attachment to Hannah's daughter Margaret, whom he called "Baba". Macaulay retained a passionate interest in western classical literature throughout his life, prided himself on his knowledge of Ancient Greek literature, he had an eidetic memory. While in India, he read every ancient Greek and Roman work, available to him. In his letters, he describes reading the Aeneid whilst on vacation in Malvern in 1851, being moved to tears by the beauty of Virgil's poetry, he taught himself German and Spanish, remained fluent in French. In 1830 the Marquess of Lansdowne invited Macaulay to become Member of Parliament for the pocket borough of Calne, his maiden speech was in favour of abolishing the civil disabilities of the Jews in the UK. Macaulay made his name with a series of speeches in favour of parliamentary reform. After the Great Reform Act of 1832 was passed, he became MP for Leeds. In the Reform, Calne's representation was reduced from two to one. Though proud to have helped pass the Reform Bill, Macaulay never ceased to be grateful to his former patron, who remained a great friend and political ally.
Macaulay was Secretary to the Board of Control under Lord Grey from 1832 until 1833. The financial embarrassment of his father meant that Macaulay became the sole means of support for his family and needed a more remunerative post than he could hold as an MP. After the passing of the Government of India Act 1833, he resigned as MP for Leeds and was appointed as the first Law Member of the Governor-General's Council, he went to India in 1834, served on the Supreme Council of India between 1834 and 1838. In his well-known Minute on Indian Education of February 1835, Macaulay urged Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General to reform secondary education on utilitarian lines to deliver "useful learning" – a phrase that to Macaulay was synonymous with Western culture. There was no tradition of secondary education in vernacular languages. Hence, he argued, "We have to educate a people who cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some foreign language." Macaulay argued that Sanskrit and Persian were no more accessible than English to the speakers of the Indian vernacular languages and existi
Playwright
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; the word "wright" is an archaic English term for a builder. The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words and other elements into a dramatic form—a play; the first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in a pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, thought to refer to John Marston: Epigram LXVIII — On Playwright PLAYWRIGHT me reads, still my verses damns, He says I want the tongue of epigrams. Playwright, I loath to have thy manners known In my chaste book. Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets; this view was held as late as the early 19th century.
The term "playwright" again lost this negative connotation. The earliest playwright in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks; these early plays were for annual Athenian competitions among play writers held around the 5th century BC. Such notables as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. For the ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis, "the act of making"; this is the source of the English word poet. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics, in which he analyzed the principle of action or praxis as the basis for tragedy, he considered elements of drama: plot, thought, diction and spectacle. Since the myths, on which Greek tragedy were based, were known, plot had to do with the arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was determined by action. Tragedy is mimesis—"the imitation of an action, serious", he developed his notion of hamartia, or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist, which provides the basis for the "conflict-driven" play.
The Italian Renaissance brought about a stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities, of action and time; this meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that its "virtual" time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would be restricted to a single setting, that there would be no subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decorum, circumscribed the subject matter significantly. For example, verisimilitude limits of the unities. Decorum fitted proper protocols for language on stage. In France, contained too many events and actions, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had as much traction in England, Shakespeare's plays are directly opposed to these models, while in Italy and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more popular forms. In England, after the Interregnum, restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move toward neoclassical dramaturgy.
One structural unit, still useful to playwrights today, is the "French scene", a scene in a play where the beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup of the group of characters onstage, rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed. Popularized in the nineteenth century by the French playwrights Eugène Scribe and Victorien Sardou, the most schematic of all formats, the "well-made play" relies on a series of coincidences that determined the action; this plot driven format is reliant on a prop device, such as a glass of water, or letter that reveals some secret information. In most cases, the character receiving the secret information misinterprets its contents, thus setting off a chain of events. Well-made plays are thus motivated by various plot devices which lead to "discoveries" and "reversals of action," rather than being character motivated. Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House is an example of a well-made structure that began to integrate a more realistic approach to character.
The character Nora's leaving is as much motivated by "the letter" and disclosure of a "past secret" as it is by her own determination to strike out on her own. The well-made play infiltrated other forms of writing and is still seen in popular formats such as the mystery, or "whodunit." Full-length play: Generally, two or three acts with an act break that marks some kind of scene change or time shift. These acts are divided into scenes, which are defined by shifts in time and place; this type of structure is called episodic. Episodic plays contain scene changes and require careful attention to transitions, so as to maintain entails a more causal relationship between units and is defined by the unity of time, and/or action. Short play: A more popular format the short play does not have an intermission and runs over an hour, but less than an hour-and-a-half. One-act play: A useful form for experimental work with less reliance on character development and arc; these remain under an hour in length.
In the US the 10-minute play
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in England. It is an inland and in relative terms upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in moors of the Pennines and has a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. West Yorkshire consists of five metropolitan boroughs and is bordered by the counties of Derbyshire to the south, Greater Manchester to the south-west, Lancashire to the north-west, North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire to the south and south-east. Remnants of strong coal and iron ore industries remain in the county, having attracted people over the centuries, this can be seen in the buildings and architecture. Leeds may become a terminus for a north-east limb of High Speed 2. Major railways and two major motorways traverse the county, which contains Leeds Bradford International Airport. West Yorkshire County Council was abolished in 1986 so its five districts became unitary authorities.
However, the metropolitan county, which covers an area of 2,029 square kilometres, continues to exist in law, as a geographic frame of reference. Since 1 April 2014 West Yorkshire has been a combined authority area, with the local authorities pooling together some functions over transport and regeneration as the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. West Yorkshire includes the West Yorkshire Urban Area, the biggest and most built-up urban area within the historic county boundaries of Yorkshire. West Yorkshire was formed as a metropolitan county in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, corresponds to the core of the historic West Riding of Yorkshire and the county boroughs of Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield and Wakefield. West Yorkshire Metropolitan County Council inherited the use of West Riding County Hall at Wakefield, opened in 1898, from the West Riding County Council in 1974. Since 1987 it has been the headquarters of Wakefield City Council; the county had a two-tier structure of local government with a strategic-level county council and five districts providing most services.
In 1986, throughout England the metropolitan county councils were abolished. The functions of the county council were devolved to the boroughs. Organisations such as the West Yorkshire Metro continue to operate on this basis. Although the county council was abolished, West Yorkshire continues to form a metropolitan and ceremonial county with a Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire and a High Sheriff. Wakefield's Parish Church was raised to cathedral status in 1888 and after the elevation of Wakefield to diocese, Wakefield Council sought city status and this was granted in July 1888; however the industrial revolution, which changed West and South Yorkshire led to the growth of Leeds and Bradford, which became the area's two largest cities. Leeds was granted city status in 1893 and Bradford in 1897; the name of Leeds Town Hall reflects the fact that at its opening in 1858 Leeds was not yet a city, while Bradford renamed its Town Hall as City Hall in 1965. The county borders, going anticlockwise from the west: Lancashire, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and North Yorkshire.
It lies entirely on rocks of carboniferous age which form the southern Pennine fringes in the west and the Yorkshire coalfield further eastwards. In the extreme east of the metropolitan county there are younger deposits of magnesian limestone; the Bradford and Calderdale areas are dominated by the scenery of the eastern slopes of the Pennines, dropping from upland in the west down to the east, dissected by many steep-sided valleys. Large-scale industry, housing and commercial buildings of differing heights, transport routes and open countryside conjoin; the dense network of roads and railways and urban development, confined by valleys creates dramatic interplay of views between settlements and the surrounding hillsides, as shaped the first urban-rural juxtapositions of David Hockney. Where most rural the land crops up in the such rhymes and folklore as On Ilkley Moor Bah'Tat, date unknown, the early 19th century novels and poems of the Brontë family in and around Haworth and long-running light comedy-drama Last of the Summer Wine in the 20th century.
The carboniferous rocks of the Yorkshire coalfield further east have produced a rolling landscape with hills and broad valleys. In this landscape there is widespread evidence of former industrial activity. There are numerous derelict or converted mine buildings and landscaped former spoil heaps; the scenery is a mixture of built up areas, industrial land with some dereliction, farmed open country. Ribbon developments along transport routes including canal and rail are prominent features of the area although some remnants of the pre industrial landscape and semi-natural vegetation still survive. However, many areas are affected by urban fringe pressures creating fragmented and downgraded landscapes and present are urban influences from major cities, smaller industrial towns and former mining villages. In the magnesian limestone belt to the east of the Leeds and Wakefield areas is an elevated ridge with smoothly rolling scenery, dissected by dry valleys. Here, there is a large number of country houses and estates with parkland, estate woodlands and game coverts.
The rivers Aire and Calder drain the area, flowing from west to east. The table below outlines many of the co
