1.
Gloucestershire
–
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the fertile valley of the River Severn. The county town is the city of Gloucester, and other towns include Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud. Gloucestershire is a historic county mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the 10th century, though the areas of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire originally included Bristol, then a small town. The local rural community moved to the city, and Bristols population growth accelerated during the industrial revolution. Bristol became a county in its own right, separate from Gloucestershire and it later became part of the administrative County of Avon from 1974 to 1996. Upon the abolition of Avon in 1996, the north of Bristol became a unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire and is now part of the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire. The official former postal county abbreviation was Glos, rather than the frequently used but erroneous Gloucs. or Glouc. In July 2007, Gloucestershire suffered the worst flooding in recorded British history, the RAF conducted the largest peace time domestic operation in its history to rescue over 120 residents from flood affected areas. The damage was estimated at over £2 billion, the county recovered rapidly from the disaster, investing in attracting tourists to visit the many sites and diverse range of shops in the area. This is a chart of trend of gross value added of Gloucestershire at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling. Gloucestershire has mainly comprehensive schools with seven schools, two are in Stroud, one in Cheltenham and four in Gloucester. There are 42 state secondary schools, not including sixth form colleges, all but about two schools in each district have a sixth form, but the Forest of Dean only has two schools with sixth forms. All schools in South Gloucestershire have sixth forms, each has campuses at multiple locations throughout the county. Most of the old market towns have parish churches, at Deerhurst near Tewkesbury, and Bishops Cleeve near Cheltenham, there are churches of special interest on account of the pre-Norman work they retain. These are, however, adjudged to be of English workmanship, other notable buildings include Calcot Barn in Calcot, a relic of Kingswood Abbey. Thornbury Castle is a Tudor country house, the pretensions of which evoked the jealousy of Cardinal Wolsey against its builder, Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, near Cheltenham is the 15th-century mansion of Southam de la Bere, of timber and stone. Memorials of the de la Bere family appear in the church at Cleeve, the mansion contains a tiled floor from Hailes Abbey
Gloucestershire
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A campus of the
University of Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
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Flag
Gloucestershire
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Parish Church of St. Mary, Fairford
Gloucestershire
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Zoo
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
Ordnance Survey National Grid
–
Grid square TF. The map shows
The Wash and the
North Sea, as well as places within the counties of
Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and
Norfolk.
Ordnance Survey National Grid
–
Geodesy
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
Districts of England
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Districts (England)
4.
Stroud (district)
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Stroud is a local government district in Gloucestershire, England. It is named after its largest town, Stroud, and has its headquarters in Ebley Mill. The district is mixed and consists of part of the Cotswolds and the Vale of Berkeley, the town of Stroud is by some way the largest in the area. The southern portion of the district is served mostly by its own market towns, chief among which are Dursley, the area is rich in Iron Age and Roman remnants and is of particular interest to archaeologists for its Neolithic burial grounds, of which there are over 100. Much of its wealth was built on the industry during the Victorian era. Much of the landscape in this area is designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the esteemed Cotswold Way walk leads through the area. There are gliding clubs at Aston Down and Nympsfield, elections to the district council are held in three out of every four years, with one third of the seats on the council being elected at each election. At the 2016 election, the coalition of Labour, Greens, the web site of Stroud District Council Stroud Voices - oral history site
Stroud (district)
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Ebley Mill. Headquarters of Stroud District Council
Stroud (district)
–
Stroud shown within Gloucestershire
5.
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
Regions of England
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Regions of England English regions
6.
South West England
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South West England is one of nine official regions of England. It is the largest in area, covering 9,200 square miles, five million people live in South West England. The region includes the West Country and much of the ancient kingdom of Wessex, other major urban centres include Plymouth, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Exeter, Bath, Torbay, and the South East Dorset conurbation. There are eight cities, Salisbury, Bath, Wells, Bristol, Gloucester, Exeter, Plymouth and it includes two entire national parks, Dartmoor and Exmoor, and four World Heritage Sites, including Stonehenge and the Jurassic Coast. The northern part of Gloucestershire, near Chipping Campden, is as close to the Scottish border as it is to the tip of Cornwall, the region has by far the longest coastline in England and many seaside fishing towns. The region is at the first-level of NUTS for Eurostat purposes, key data and facts about the region are produced by the South West Observatory. Following the abolition of the South West Regional Assembly and Government Office, the region is known for its rich folklore, including the legend of King Arthur and Glastonbury Tor, as well as its traditions and customs. Cornwall has its own language, Cornish, and some regard it as a Celtic nation, the South West of England is known for Cheddar cheese, which originated in the Somerset village of Cheddar, Devon cream teas, crabs, Cornish pasties, and cider. It is also home to the Eden Project, Aardman Animations, the Glastonbury Festival, most of the region is located on the South West Peninsula, between the English Channel and Bristol Channel. It has the longest coastline of all the English regions, totalling over 700 miles, much of the coast is now protected from further substantial development because of its environmental importance, which contributes to the region’s attractiveness to tourists and residents. Geologically the region is divided into the largely igneous and metamorphic west and sedimentary east, Cornwall and West Devons landscape is of rocky coastline and high moorland, notably at Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor. These are due to the granite and slate that underlie the area, the highest point of the region is High Willhays, at 2,038 feet, on Dartmoor. In North Devon the slates of the west and limestones of the east meet at Exmoor National Park, the variety of rocks of similar ages seen here have led to the countys name being lent to that of the Devonian period. The east of the region is characterised by wide, flat clay vales and chalk, the vales, with good irrigation, are home to the regions dairy agriculture. The Blackmore Vale was Thomas Hardys Vale of the Little Dairies, another and these downs are the principal area of arable agriculture in the region. Limestone is also found in the region, at the Cotswolds, Quantock Hills and Mendip Hills, all of the principal rock types can be seen on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset and East Devon, where they document the entire Mesozoic era from west to east. The climate of South West England is classed as oceanic according to the Köppen climate classification, the oceanic climate typically experiences cool winters with warmer summers and precipitation all year round, with more experienced in winter. Annual rainfall is about 1,000 millimetres and up to 2,000 millimetres on higher ground, summer maxima averages range from 18 °C to 22 °C and winter minimum averages range from 1 °C to 4 °C across the south-west
South West England
–
High Willhays on
Dartmoor, Devon, the region's highest point.
South West England
–
South West England region in England
South West England
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Pulteney Bridge in Bath, Somerset: the entire city is a World Heritage Site.
South West England
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M5 looking north towards
Avonmouth
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
Countries of the United Kingdom
8.
England
–
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
England
–
Stonehenge, a
Neolithic monument
England
–
Flag
England
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Boudica led an uprising against the
Roman Empire
England
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Replica of a 7th-century ceremonial
helmet from the
Kingdom of East Anglia, found at
Sutton Hoo
9.
United Kingdom
–
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
United Kingdom
–
Stonehenge, in
Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.
United Kingdom
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Flag
United Kingdom
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The
Bayeux Tapestry depicts the
Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.
United Kingdom
–
The
Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.
10.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
–
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
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
–
Street name signs on Birdbrook Road, Great Barr, Birmingham, showing old "Birmingham 22" (top) and modern "B44" postcodes.
Postcodes in the United Kingdom
11.
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
–
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
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom
–
Location of the United Kingdom (dark green)
12.
Gloucestershire Constabulary
–
Gloucestershire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing the non-metropolitan county of Gloucestershire in England. The force was founded in 1839, six hours after Wiltshire Constabulary, the force in its present form dates from 1 April 1974, when the southern part of Gloucestershire became part of the County of Avon and thus of the newly formed Avon and Somerset Constabulary. In 1965, the force had an establishment of 1,010, as of 1 April 2011, under the new structure, policing in the county is delivered through six Local Policing Areas, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Forest of Dean, Cotswolds, Stroud and Tewkesbury. Each of these areas is commanded by a superintendent, within the six areas there are nine Local Policing Teams covering 55 communities, two each in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud and one in Tewkesbury, the Forest and the Cotswolds. The Police Roll of Honour Trust lists and commemorates all British police officers killed in the line of duty, the Police Memorial Trust since its establishment in 1984 has erected over 38 memorials to some of those officers. Nowak was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and 7 years disqualification from driving, for Death by Dangerous Driving, Conspiring to Pervert the Course of Justice, matt Powell, one of the randomly deselected candidates, took legal action and was awarded £2,500 compensation. Following a traffic collision a photographer was initially asked to stop taking photographs of the accident scene whilst a victim was being removed from a vehicle, the officer said youre lucky I didnt bloody knock you out. The incident was uploaded onto YouTube
Gloucestershire Constabulary
–
Logo of the Gloucestershire Constabulary
13.
Fire services in the United Kingdom
–
The fire services in the United Kingdom operate under separate legislative and administrative arrangements in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, 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
Fire services in the United Kingdom
–
A fire engine of the
London Fire Brigade, the second-largest service in the country after the
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
Fire services in the United Kingdom
–
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service in action
Fire services in the United Kingdom
–
A 1951 Dennis P12 fire appliance belonging to the
Wiltshire Fire Brigade
Fire services in the United Kingdom
–
Fire on
West Pier in
Brighton, England
14.
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
–
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
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
–
A
Mercedes Sprinter ambulance of the
South Western Ambulance Service responds to an emergency call
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
–
The
London Air Ambulance in action
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
–
A paramedic's motorcycle in Birmingham
Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom
–
Device of the
Scottish Ambulance Service
15.
South Western Ambulance Service
–
The South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust is the organisation responsible for providing ambulance services for the National Health Service across South West England. On March 1,2011 SWASFT was the first ambulance service in the country to become a Foundation Trust, the Trust merged with neighbouring Great Western Ambulance Service on 1 February 2013. SWASFT serves a population of more than 5.3 million, the operational area is predominantly rural but also has large urban centres including Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter, Truro, Bath, Swindon, Gloucester, Bournemouth and Poole. The Trust’s core operations include, Emergency ambulance 999 services Urgent Care Services – GP out-of-hours medical care NHS111 call-handling and triage services Tiverton Urgent Care Centre. It is one of ten Ambulance Trusts providing England with emergency services and employs more than 4,000 mainly clinical and operational staff plus GPs. The Trust is one of the largest in England and it covers an area of 51,871 km and 827 miles of coastline. In 2015/16 approximately one in eight 999 calls to South Western Ambulance Service are treated over the telephone, hear and treat is 12. 7% of calls and means the patient receives clinical advice over the telephone. For 36. 4% of incidents the patients experience see and treat, in a further 7. 7% of incidents, the patient is taken to a non-emergency hospital department so that might mean a community hospital or minor injuries unit. The remaining incidents result in a patient being taken to an emergency department. SWASFT is the best performing ambulance service in the country for non-conveyance rates, in addition approximately 62% of patients taken to hospital are admitted – this is again the highest performance for an ambulance trust in the country. SWASFT place a lot of emphasis on patient experience and actively encourage feedback about its services - whether positive or negative, lessons learned from the feedback, and all improvements and changes, are reported to its Board of Directors. The Trust also engages with patients and the public at events and shows, the number of compliments received by the Trust in 2014/15 increased by 41% to 2,055. Complaints also rose by 20% to 1,268, the easiest way to contact the Trust is online at their website. In May 2014 the Trust won a contract to run a minor injuries unit at Tiverton and District Hospital
South Western Ambulance Service
–
Scilly Isles August 2014
South Western Ambulance Service
–
South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust
South Western Ambulance Service
–
SWAST ambulance on an emergency call
16.
List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies
–
There are 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom, each electing a single Member of Parliament to the House of Commons every five years. Voting last took place in all 650 of those constituencies at the United Kingdom general election on 7 May 2015, in addition there is the constituency of the Speaker, which by tradition does not belong to any party. The number of seats rose from 646 at the 2005 general election after proposals made by the commissions for England, Wales. Constituencies in Scotland remained unchanged, as the Boundary Commission for Scotland had completed a review just before the 2005 general election, for the 2013 review this was primarily the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011. The Sainte-Laguë formula method is used to form groups of seats split between the four parts of the United Kingdom and the English Regions, the electorate figures given in the second column of the tables below are those used by the commissions during their reviews. These electorate figures date from the start of the review in each country, England, February 2000, Scotland, June 2001, Wales, December 2002, and Northern Ireland, May 2003. Of the 650 seats listed below,533 are in England,59 in Scotland,40 in Wales and 18 in Northern Ireland, Scotland – No changes from 2005 election. Wales – Number of seats unchanged, three seats were abolished and three were created, Aberconwy, Arfon, and Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Northern Ireland – No extra or fewer seats allocated. England, North Yorkshire, Hampshire, Warwickshire, Derbyshire, Norfolk, Essex, Lancashire, Northamptonshire, isle of Wight maintained its status as one constituency, the largest by electorate. The City of York was divided into two seats, neither overlapping part of North Yorkshire, North London, Birmingham and the metropolitan counties of Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear and South Yorkshire lost a seat each. Herefordshire and Worcestershire, to reflect their full reinstatement as separate counties, were considered in separate reviews, bath, Bristol and Somerset underwent arguably the most significant changes to reflect the abolition of Avon. Updated electorate figures from December 2010 have been added for the English, lists of electoral districts by nation Boundary Commission for N. I. Fifth Periodical Report – Parliamentary Constituencies of Northern Ireland
List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies
–
United Kingdom
17.
Cotswold (UK Parliament constituency)
–
The Cotswolds is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since its 1997 creation by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, a Conservative. 1997-2010, The District of Cotswold, and the District of Stroud ward of Wotton, 2010-present, The District of Cotswold, and the District of Stroud wards of Kingswood, Minchinhampton, and Wotton-under-Edge. The constituency was created in 1997 as Cotswold, mostly from the seat of Cirencester. In 2010 the name was changed to The Cotswolds to reflect the district name. The Cotswolds is a safe Conservative seat in an area of beauty and heritage. The area is welcoming to tourists and tourism has overtaken agriculture as the largest single employer in the area, the largest town in the constituency is Cirencester, a compact traditional town. Other settlements include Andoversford, Bourton-on-the-Water, Chipping Campden, Fairford, Lechlade, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Tetbury, the seat has the highest number of listed buildings of any constituency in Britain. It also contains eight of the 20 most popular attractions in Gloucestershire, including Westonbirt Arboretum, Hidcote Manor, and Chedworth Roman Villa. Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the average of 3. 8%. List of Parliamentary constituencies in Gloucestershire Notes References
Cotswold (UK Parliament constituency)
–
Boundary of The Cotswolds in Gloucestershire for the 2010 general election.
18.
Geographic coordinate system
–
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
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
19.
Cotswolds
–
The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat rare in the UK and that is quarried for the golden coloured Cotswold stone. It contains unique features derived from the use of this mineral, the well-established boundaries of the Cotswolds have expanded considerably since moving out of the cities and into the countryside gained popularity. Now the Cotswolds boundaries are roughly 25 miles across and 90 miles long, stretching south-west from just south of Stratford-upon-Avon to just south of Bath. It lies across the boundaries of several English counties, mainly Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the hills give their name to the Cotswold local-government district in Gloucestershire, which administers a large part of the area. The highest point of the region is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 ft, there is evidence of Neolithic settlement from burial chambers on Cotswold Edge, and there are remains of Bronze and Iron Age forts. Later the Romans built villas, such as at Chedworth, settlements such as Gloucester, the area still preserves numerous large, handsome Cotswold Stone wool churches. The affluent area in the 21st century has attracted wealthy Londoners and others who own homes there or have chosen to retire to the Cotswolds. The name Cotswold is popularly attributed the meaning sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides, incorporating the term, wold, compare also the Weald from the Saxon/German word Wald meaning wood. Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which may be recognised in further names, Cutsdean, Codeswellan, the spine of the Cotswolds runs southwest to northeast through six counties, particularly Gloucestershire, west Oxfordshire and south western Warwickshire. The northern and western edges of the Cotswolds are marked by steep escarpments down to the Severn valley and this feature, known as the Cotswold escarpment, or sometimes the Cotswold Edge, is a result of the uplifting of the limestone layer, exposing its broken edge. This is a cuesta, in geological terms, the dip slope is to the southeast. On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud, to the southeast, the upper reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Lechlade, Tetbury and Fairford are often considered to mark the limit of this region. To the south the Cotswolds, with the uplift of the Cotswold Edge, reach beyond Bath. The area is characterised by small towns and villages built of the underlying Cotswold stone. This limestone is rich in fossils, particularly of fossilised sea urchins, Cotswold towns include Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Dursley, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stroud and Winchcombe. Bath, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester and Stroud are larger urban centres that border on, or are surrounded by. The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the 19th, William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower, a folly, now part of a country park. Chipping Campden also is known for the annual Cotswold Olimpick Games, Cotswold stone is a yellow oolitic Jurassic limestone
Cotswolds
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Castle Combe, a typical Cotswolds village made with Cotswold stone
Cotswolds
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Bibury, a typical Cotswold village
Cotswolds
–
Rolling hills and farm fields that typify the Cotswolds landscape
Cotswolds
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The "Secret Garden" at Sudeley Castle
20.
Cotswold Way
–
The Cotswold Way is a 102-mile long-distance footpath, running along the Cotswold Edge escarpment of the Cotswold Hills in England. It was officially inaugurated as a National Trail on 24 May 2007, an early guide to the Way, in the hand-drawn pictorial style of Alfred Wainwright, was produced by another Cheltenham-area rambler, Mark Richards, in 1973. The foreword from Tony Drake says and it is necessary to trace the history of the project to date. The County Council decided to designate a Cotswold Way route itself, using existing rights of way. A memorial to Trenfield in the form of a bench is on the Way near Dyrham Park, the distinctive shape of May Hill is visible for much of the route, as is the long spine of the Malvern Hills. Gloucester Cathedral can be seen from the path, further north on the path, above Cheltenham, there are old quarries containing rock features such as the Devils Chimney at Leckhampton. After Cleeve Hill the escarpment starts to turn to the east, the classic Cotswold villages of Stanton and Stanway are visited, then Broadway village, before the final steep ascent to Broadway Tower and the scenic descent to Chipping Campden. On a clear day, the Clee Hills near Ludlow can be seen,60 miles to the northwest. It passes numerous places of interest, including the site of the Battle of Lansdowne, the Somerset Monument, the Tyndale Monument, Sudeley Castle, Cleeve Hill, Hailes Abbey, and the Broadway Tower. With the exception of a small stretch around Broadway, the walk is within Gloucestershire. Besides being popular with walkers, the Cotswold Way is run annually as a 10-stage relay from north to south, the winning team typically takes an aggregate time of about 12 hours. It is run under Fell Runners Association rules and organised by City of Bath Athletic Club and it is traditional for the first leg to start from St James Church, Chipping Campden promptly at 7am. The lead runners finish the leg outside the doors of Bath Abbey at about 6pm. The race is organised by Cotswold Running, the official record for running the Costwold Way is held by Nathan Montegue of Swindon Harriers, who on 24 September 2014 ran from Chipping Campden to Bath in 19 hours and 31 minutes. Long-distance footpaths in the United Kingdom
Cotswold Way
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The Cotswold Way passing through the site of the
Battle of Lansdowne
Cotswold Way
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Broadway, Worcestershire
Cotswold Way
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Broadway Tower
21.
M5 motorway
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The M5 is a motorway in England. It runs from Junction 8 of the M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon, heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Bromwich and west of Birmingham through Sandwell Valley. It continues past Bromsgrove, Droitwich Spa, Worcester, Tewkesbury, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Bristol, Weston-super-Mare, Bridgwater and Taunton on its way to Exeter and it is the primary gateway to South West England. Congestion is common during the holidays, on Friday afternoons. The M5 follows the route of the A38 road quite closely, the two deviate slightly around Bristol and the area south of Bristol from Junctions 16 to the Sedgemoor services north of Junction 22. The A38 goes straight through the centre of Bristol and passes by Bristol Airport, the A38 continues south into Devon from the motorways terminus at Junction 31, near Exminster. Between Junction 21, Weston-super-Mare and Junction 22, Burnham-on-Sea, the M5 passes by an isolated landmark hill called Brent Knoll, the Willow Man sculpture is visible from both carriageways, and acts as a landmark just to the south of Junction 23. Junction 15 of the M5 is a four level stack interchange, called the Almondsbury Interchange. There are split-level carriageways where the M5 ascends the hill sides above the Gordano Valley, Junction 1 surrounds a surviving gatehouse from the former Sandwell Hall. The first 26 miles of the M5 motorway to be built were constructed as a dual two-lane motorway and this section, from Junction 4 in the north to a trumpet junction with the M50 in the south, opened in July 1962. The southern end was called a junction because of its shape. There were no other exits from this trumpet junction though room was left for an extension to the south, when the decision became necessary to widen the Worcestershire section of M5, it cost £123 million. The 2 miles dual two-lane section between Junctions 16 and 17 built at Filton, near Bristol, was opened in 1962. Gloucestershire County Council acted as engineer for this section, which was widened to a dual three-lane motorway in 1969, north of Junction 4 the M5 was constructed in sections, from 1967 to 1970, together with the Frankley services. Much of the section beyond Junction 3, from about Quinton to the junction with the M6 motorway, was constructed as an elevated dual 3-lane motorway using concrete pillars. The M5 was also extended southwards, in sections, from 1967 to 1977, through Somerset, to Exeter in Devon as a dual three-lane motorway, together with the Strensham services. The short section between Junctions 27 and 29 was built between 1967 and 1969, by Devon County Council, as the A38 Cullompton Bypass, with the intention that it should become part of the M5. The termini for this section have since removed, although part of the southern terminal roundabout is now used as an emergency access
M5 motorway
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The M5 near Junction 28,
Devon
M5 motorway
M5 motorway
–
The Avonmouth Bridge, Bristol.
M5 motorway
–
The M5 motorway south of the
Avonmouth Bridge, near
Bristol.
22.
Cam and Dursley railway station
–
Cam and Dursley railway station is a railway station serving the towns of Cam and Dursley in Gloucestershire. It is located on the main Bristol-Birmingham line, between Yate and Gloucester, at a close to where Coaley Junction railway station was situated from 1856 to 1965. The new station is unstaffed, and consists of two platforms, linked by a footbridge, a car covered by CCTV and bus stop with shelter. Passenger facilities consists of shelters with seats on both platforms and a machine, with passenger help points installed in late 2010. Passenger services are provided by Great Western Railway on an hourly basis on the Bristol to Gloucester services. Bus Services run regularly to the station, the 210/211 service provides a link between Dursley, Cam and the station, and runs to a timetable that links in with trains to both Gloucester and Bristol. Service 87 runs from Dursley to Wotton-under-Edge and Thornbury every 2 hours during the day, and service 281 provides an infrequent service to Coaley, Ashmead Green, Upper Cam and Dursley. There is a user group for the station, Coaley Junction Action Committee. Coaley Junction station was originally the junction for the short Dursley and Midland Junction Railway branch to Cam and Dursley, built in 1856, the station, also known as Dursley Road, opened to goods on 2 August 1856 and to passengers on 18 September 1856. The station had two platforms on the main line with a very short and sharply curved platform on the branch. Goods facilities were limited, but included a goods shed with a crane. The signal box stood at the end of the platform between the branch and mainline, the branch closed to passenger traffic on 10 September 1962, although the mainline platforms remained open for passengers until 4 January 1965. The station closed to goods on 28 June 1968, although the branch remained as a siding to R A Lister. It is the nearest station to the town of Wotton-under-Edge, which is seven miles away, Great Western Railways local services operate all services at this station. Northwards, services are to Gloucester with alternate services continuing on to Cheltenham, Ashchurch for Tewkesbury, Worcester Shrub Hill, southbound, services are to Bristol and onwards to Bath and Westbury, with some services carrying on to Weymouth and occasionally Southampton Central and Brighton. A two-hourly service runs on Sundays between Bristol and Gloucester only, coJAC website, the rail user group for Cam and Dursley station Details of local bus services
Cam and Dursley railway station
–
Cam and Dursley
Cam and Dursley railway station
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Coaley Junction station, with the Dursley branch train on the right, 1960
23.
Cross Country Route
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The UK cross-country route is a long-distance UK rail route that has in its central part superseded the Midland Railway. It runs from Cornwall via Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield and Leeds and it facilitates some of the longest passenger journeys in the UK such as Penzance to Aberdeen. In the summer services are provided to additional coastal stations such as Newquay, most Derby-Nottingham local passenger trains were taken over by diesel units from 14 April 1958, taking about 34 minutes between the two cities. Use and services have expanded since privatisation when a route was awarded as a single franchise to Virgin Trains. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the network was served by High Speed Trains, and Class 47s, modern, more powerful multiple-units of the 21st century such as the Turbostars and Voyagers have improved train performance without electrification. However, the line has higher operating costs and a higher carbon footprint than if it were electrified. The use of the route for freight has decreased, due to the bulk of haulage switching to road use, in the 1960s the route was considered for electrification. This would have been beneficial for climbing the Lickey Incline between Cheltenham and Birmingham, as many of the early diesels were underpowered. Under the governments that succeeded the 1976–79 Labour government the proposal was not implemented, the Birmingham to Derby section of the route has a line speed of 125 mph, however Birmingham to Bristol is restricted to 100 mph due to a number of half barrier level crossings. The line is not fully electrified, but some sections are overhead electrified at 25kV AC, Barnt Green to Grand Junction, with further sections around Leeds and it has been confirmed that the line between Derby and Sheffield will be electrified as part of the Midland Main Line upgrade. Most long distance services on the route are operated by Class 220/221 Voyager Trains and these trains are capable of achieving 125 mph, compared to the previous Class 47s and Mk 2 coaching stock, which had a top speed of 95 mph. Rail services in Bristol Transport in Wales Virgin CrossCountry CrossCountry Notes References
Cross Country Route
–
A class 221 Super Voyager leaving
Bristol Temple Meads station
24.
Anglo-Saxon
–
The Anglo-Saxons are a people who have inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including government of shires. During this period, Christianity was re-established and there was a flowering of literature, charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, in scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English. The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity and it developed from divergent groups in association with the peoples adoption of Christianity, and was integral to the establishment of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish invasions and occupation of eastern England, this identity was re-established, the visible Anglo-Saxon culture can be seen in the material culture of buildings, dress styles, illuminated texts and grave goods. Behind the symbolic nature of these emblems, there are strong elements of tribal. The elite declared themselves as kings who developed burhs, and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms, above all, as Helena Hamerow has observed, local and extended kin groups remained. the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Use of the term Anglo-Saxon assumes that the words Angles, Saxons or Anglo-Saxon have the meaning in all the sources. Assigning ethnic labels such as Anglo-Saxon is fraught with difficulties and this term began to be used only in the 8th century to distinguish the Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The Old English ethnonym Angul-Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli-Saxones and became the name of the peoples Bede calls Anglorum, Anglo-Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo-Saxons themselves, it is not an autonym. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest. The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, Saxones who attacked the shores of Britain, procopius states that Britain was settled by three races, the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in writing of the 8th century. The name therefore seemed to mean English Saxons, the Christian church seems to have used the word Angli, for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, Non Angli sed angeli. The terms ænglisc and Angelcynn were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people, at other times he uses the term rex Anglorum, which presumably meant both Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex, the term Engla cyningc is used by Æthelred
Anglo-Saxon
–
Page with
Chi Rho monogram from the Gospel of Matthew in the
Lindisfarne Gospels c. 700, possibly created by
Eadfrith of Lindisfarne in memory of
Cuthbert
Anglo-Saxon
–
The migrations according to Bede who wrote some 300 years after the event, however there is evidence that the original settlers came from many of these continental locations
Anglo-Saxon
–
Æthelstan presenting a
gospel book to (the long-dead) St
Cuthbert (934); Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 183, fol. 1v
Anglo-Saxon
–
The
Oseberg ship prow,
Viking Ship Museum, Oslo, Norway.
25.
Edmund I of England
–
Edmund I, called the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, or the Magnificent, was King of the English from 939 until his death. He was a son of Edward the Elder and half-brother of Æthelstan, Æthelstan died on 27 October 939, and Edmund succeeded him as king. Shortly after his proclamation as king, he had to several military threats. King Olaf III Guthfrithson conquered Northumbria and invaded the Midlands, when Olaf died in 942, in 943, Edmund became the god-father of King Olaf of York. In 944, Edmund was successful in reconquering Northumbria, in the same year, his ally Olaf of York lost his throne and left for Dublin in Ireland. Olaf became the king of Dublin as Amlaíb Cuarán and continued to be allied to his god-father, in 945, Edmund conquered Strathclyde but ceded the territory to King Malcolm I of Scotland in exchange for a treaty of mutual military support. Edmund thus established a policy of safe borders and peaceful relationships with Scotland, during his reign, the revival of monasteries in England began. One of Edmunds last political movements of which there is knowledge is his role in the restoration of Louis IV of France to the throne. Louis, son of Charles the Simple and Edmunds half-sister Eadgifu, had resided at the West-Saxon court for time until 936. In the summer of 945, he was captured by the Norsemen of Rouen and subsequently released to Duke Hugh the Great, the chronicler Richerus claims that Eadgifu wrote letters both to Edmund and to Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor in which she requested support for her son. Edmund responded to her plea by sending angry threats to Hugh, Hugh, duke of the Franks, allying himself with Hugh the Black, son of Richard, and the other leading men of the kingdom, restored to the kingdom King Louis. On 26 May 946, Edmund was murdered by Leofa, an exiled thief, john of Worcester and William of Malmesbury add some lively detail by suggesting that Edmund had been feasting with his nobles, when he spotted Leofa in the crowd. He attacked the intruder in person, but in the event, Leofa was killed on the spot by those present. A recent article re-examines Edmunds death and dismisses the later accounts as fiction. It suggests the king was the victim of a political assassination, Edmunds sister Eadgyth, the wife of Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, died earlier the same year, as Flodoards Annales for 946 report. Edmund was succeeded as king by his brother Eadred, king from 946 until 955, Edmunds sons later ruled England as, Eadwig, King of England from 955 until 957, king of only Wessex and Kent from 957 until his death on 1 October 959. Edgar the Peaceful, king of Mercia and Northumbria from 957 until his brothers death in 959, Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury Burial places of British royalty Edmund the Just, fictional king of Narnia Flodoard, Annales, ed. Philippe Lauer, Les Annales de Flodoard. Collection des textes pour servir à létude et à lenseignement de lhistoire 39, Edmund 14 at Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England
Edmund I of England
–
Edmund in the late thirteenth century Genealogical Chronicle of the English Kings
Edmund I of England
–
Coin of King Edmund
26.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
Limestone
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Limestone outcrop in the
Torcal de Antequera nature reserve of
Málaga, Spain
Limestone
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Limestone quarry at
Cedar Creek, Virginia, USA
Limestone
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Cutting the limestone blocks at a quarry in
Gozo,
Malta
Limestone
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Limestone as building material
27.
Escarpment
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An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as an effect of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations. Usually escarpment is used interchangeably with scarp, but some sources differentiate the two terms, where escarpment refers to the margin between two landforms, while scarp is synonymous with a cliff or steep slope. The surface of the slope is called a scarp face. This is a ridge which has a gentle slope on one side. Scarps are generally formed by one of two processes, either by differential erosion of rocks, or by vertical movement of the Earths crust along a geologic fault. Most commonly, an escarpment is a transition from one series of rocks to another series of a different age. Escarpments are also formed by faults. When a fault displaces the ground surface so that one side is higher than the other and this can occur in dip-slip faults, or when a strike-slip fault brings a piece of high ground adjacent to an area of lower ground. More loosely, the term describes the zone between coastal lowlands and continental plateaus which have a marked, abrupt change in elevation caused by coastal erosion at the base of the plateau. Earth is not the planet where escarpments occur. They are believed to occur on other planets when the crust contracts, on other Solar System bodies such as Mercury, Mars, and the Moon, the Latin term rupes is used for an escarpment. When sedimentary beds are tilted and exposed to the surface, erosion, escarpments erode gradually and over geological time. The mélange tendencies of escarpments results in varying contacts between a multitude of rock types and these varying levels of erosion can lead to strange features forming in the exposed rock. Kinver Edge The Lincoln Edge Stanage Edge Wenlock Edge France La Côte dOr is famous for its wines and has given its name to a département, le Pays de Bray, a clay vale enclosed by chalk escarpments
Escarpment
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Shaded and colored image from the
Shuttle Radar Topography Mission —shows an
elevation model of New Zealand's
Alpine Fault running about 500 km (300 mi) long. The escarpment is flanked by a vast chain of hills squeezed between the
fault and the
mountains of
New Zealand 's
Southern Alps. Northeast is towards the top.
Escarpment
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Escarpment face of a
cuesta, broken by a fault,
Cumberland Plateau,
Tennessee
Escarpment
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The Sierra Escarpment in
California.
28.
Cotswold Edge
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The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat rare in the UK and that is quarried for the golden coloured Cotswold stone. It contains unique features derived from the use of this mineral, the well-established boundaries of the Cotswolds have expanded considerably since moving out of the cities and into the countryside gained popularity. Now the Cotswolds boundaries are roughly 25 miles across and 90 miles long, stretching south-west from just south of Stratford-upon-Avon to just south of Bath. It lies across the boundaries of several English counties, mainly Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, the hills give their name to the Cotswold local-government district in Gloucestershire, which administers a large part of the area. The highest point of the region is Cleeve Hill at 1,083 ft, there is evidence of Neolithic settlement from burial chambers on Cotswold Edge, and there are remains of Bronze and Iron Age forts. Later the Romans built villas, such as at Chedworth, settlements such as Gloucester, the area still preserves numerous large, handsome Cotswold Stone wool churches. The affluent area in the 21st century has attracted wealthy Londoners and others who own homes there or have chosen to retire to the Cotswolds. The name Cotswold is popularly attributed the meaning sheep enclosure in rolling hillsides, incorporating the term, wold, compare also the Weald from the Saxon/German word Wald meaning wood. Cod was interpreted as an Old English personal name, which may be recognised in further names, Cutsdean, Codeswellan, the spine of the Cotswolds runs southwest to northeast through six counties, particularly Gloucestershire, west Oxfordshire and south western Warwickshire. The northern and western edges of the Cotswolds are marked by steep escarpments down to the Severn valley and this feature, known as the Cotswold escarpment, or sometimes the Cotswold Edge, is a result of the uplifting of the limestone layer, exposing its broken edge. This is a cuesta, in geological terms, the dip slope is to the southeast. On the eastern boundary lies the city of Oxford and on the west is Stroud, to the southeast, the upper reaches of the Thames Valley and towns such as Lechlade, Tetbury and Fairford are often considered to mark the limit of this region. To the south the Cotswolds, with the uplift of the Cotswold Edge, reach beyond Bath. The area is characterised by small towns and villages built of the underlying Cotswold stone. This limestone is rich in fossils, particularly of fossilised sea urchins, Cotswold towns include Bourton-on-the-Water, Broadway, Burford, Chipping Norton, Dursley, Moreton-in-Marsh, Northleach, Stow-on-the-Wold, Stroud and Winchcombe. Bath, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester and Stroud are larger urban centres that border on, or are surrounded by. The town of Chipping Campden is notable for being the home of the Arts and Crafts movement, founded by William Morris at the end of the 19th, William Morris lived occasionally in Broadway Tower, a folly, now part of a country park. Chipping Campden also is known for the annual Cotswold Olimpick Games, Cotswold stone is a yellow oolitic Jurassic limestone
Cotswold Edge
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Castle Combe, a typical Cotswolds village made with Cotswold stone
Cotswold Edge
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Bibury, a typical Cotswold village
Cotswold Edge
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Rolling hills and farm fields that typify the Cotswolds landscape
Cotswold Edge
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The "Secret Garden" at Sudeley Castle
