Towns & Places in Hall/Barlow Family Tree

Abingdon is eight miles south of Oxford, in the flat valley of the Thames and is situated on the west (right) bank of that river, where the small river Ock flows in from the Vale of White Horse.

The site has been occupied from the early to middle Iron Age and the remains of a late Iron Age defensive enclosure (or oppidum) underly the town centre. The oppidum was in use throughout the Roman occupation.

Abingdon Abbey was founded in Saxon times, possibly the 7th century but its early history is confused by numerous legends, invented to raise its status and explain the place-name, since -don means a hill and Abingdon stands in a valley. In 1084, William the Conqueror celebrated Easter at the Abbey and then left his son, afterwards Henry I, to be educated there.

In the 13th and 14th centuries, Abingdon was a flourishing agricultural centre with an extensive trade in wool and a famous weaving and clothing manufacture. The abbot seems to have held a market from very early times and charters for the holding of markets and fairs were granted by various sovereigns, from Edward I to George II. In 1337, there was a famous riot in protest at the Abbot's control of this market and several of the monks were killed.

After the abbey's dissolution in 1538, the town sank into decay and, in 1555, upon receiving a representation of its pitiable condition, Mary I granted a charter establishing a mayor, two bailiffs, twelve chief burgesses and sixteen secondary burgesses, the mayor to be clerk of the market, coroner and a Justice of the Peace. The present Christ's Hospital originally belonged to the Guild of the Holy Cross, on the dissolution of which Edward VI founded the almshouses instead, under its present name.

The council was empowered to elect one burgess to parliament and this right continued until the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885. A town clerk and other officers were also appointed and the town boundaries described in great detail. Later charters, from Elizabeth I, James I, James II, George II and George III, made no considerable change. James II changed the style of the corporation to that of a mayor, twelve aldermen and twelve burgesses.

In 1810, the Wilts and Berks Canal opened, linking Abingdon with Semington on the Kennet and Avon Canal. Abingdon became a key link between major industrial centres, such as Bristol, London, Birmingham and the Black Country. In 1856, the Abingdon Railway opened, linking the town with the Great Western Railway at Radley. The Wilts and Berks Canal was abandoned in 1906 but a voluntary trust is now working to restore and re-open it. Abingdon railway station was closed to passengers in September of 1963. The line remained open for freight until 1984, including MG cars until the factory closed in 1980. The nearest railway station is now Radley, two miles away. The branchline is now mainly replaced by a cyclepath, whilst the land on which the station stood has been extensively redeveloped, and is now the site of a large Waitrose store and surrounded by hundreds of new flats and houses.

Abingdon was the county town of Berkshire and the magnificent county hall and court house, now the museum, was supposedly designed by Christopher Wren. However, Abingdon's failure to engage fully with the railway revolution, accepting only a branch line, sidelined the town in favour of Reading. The corporation was reformed, under the Municipal Reform Act 1835 and was abolished under the Local Government Act 1972. In 1974, under local government reorganisation, Abingdon became part of the non-metropolitan shire county of Oxfordshire and the seat of the new Vale of White Horse District Council, with Abingdon becoming a civil parish with a town council.

Attercliffe is an industrial suburb of northeast Sheffield. Lying on the south bank of the River Don, it originally grew as a small hamlet centred on Attercliffe Chapel, and was part of the parish of Sheffield.

Attercliffe was always an industrial area, but by the early 20th century, there was a large residential population and high-class shops. The area declined as slum housing was cleared and not replaced, while industries closed or moved to larger sites further out of Sheffield.

The area became a centre for Sheffield’s LGBT population, and is known locally for its sex industry, garnering a reputation as Sheffield's equivalent to Soho.

Its location on the Sheffield Supertram, the completion of the Five Weirs Walk and construction of the Don Valley Stadium and Sheffield Arena in the 1990s brought some life back to the area. In 2002, the first new housing was built in Attercliffe.

Sheffield Attercliffe is also the name of one of Sheffield's six Parliamentary constituencies.

Attleborough is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It is situated between Norwich and Thetford.

The civil parish has an area of 21.90 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 9702 in 4185 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of Breckland.

Attleborough's MP is Christopher Fraser (Conservative), the MP for South-West Norfolk.

The original foundation appears to have been lost in the mists of time, but the most popular theory of the towns origin leads us to believe that it was founded by Atlinge, King of the province, and certainly burgh (or burh) indicates that it was fortified at an early date.

After the Danes swept across Norfolk and seized Thetford, it is believed that the Saxons rallied their forces at Attleborough and probably threw up some form of protection. Although the Saxons put up a vigorous resistance, they eventually capitulated to the Danes and during the time of Edward the Confessor, powerful Danish families like Toradre and Turkill rules local manors. If local records are correct, nothing but disaster was brought to Attleborough by the Danes, and it took the coming of William the Conqueror to restore some sense of well-being to the area.

Turkill relinquished his hold on the area to the Mortimer family towards the end of William's reign, and they governed Attleborough for more than three centuries. In the 14th Century the Mortimer family founded the Chapel of the Holy Cross (being the South Transept of Attleborough Church), about a century later, a Sir Robert de Mortimer founded the College of the Holy Cross, and later was added the Nave and Aisles, to accommodate the congregation.

Following Henry the VIII's dissolution of the monasteries the building was virtually destroyed by Robert Radcliffe, Lord Fitz Walter, Earl of Sussex, and material from the building was used for making up the road between Attleborough and Buckenham. However, this left Attleborough Church with a tower at the East End.

Many towns can claim the distinction of having had a fire, and Attleborough is no exception, a great part of the town being destroyed by fire in 1559. It was during that period that the Griffin Hotel was built, and it was in the cellars of the Griffin that prisoners on their way to the March Assizes in Thetford were confined overnight, tethered by chains to rings in the wall.

The arrival of the prisoners aroused a great deal of public interest, and eventually traders set up a fair whenever they came. This became known as Attleborough Rogues Fair and was held on the Market Place on the last Thursday in March. Also on the market place festivities took place on Midsummer Day, when the annual guild was held. It appears that there has been the right to hold a weekly Thursday Market in the town since 1285. A weekly market is still held and has recently (in 2004) returned to Queen's Square where it is presumed the market was originally held.

The first turnpike road in England is reputed to have been created here at the end of the 17th Century, Acts of Parliament were passed in 1696 and 1709, "For the repairing of the highway between Wymondham and Attleborough, in the County of Norfolk, and for including therein the road from Wymondham to Hethersett".

Another theory is that Atlinge was in fact Athla who, according to Galfridus de Fontibus, was the founder of the Ancient and royal town of Attleborough in Norfolk. In the Doomsday survey launched in 1085 it is referred to as Attleburc.

The first national census of 1801 listed the population of Attleborough as 1,333. By 1845 Attleborough certainly dominated the surrounding parishes with a population of nearly 2,000, and in that year the railway (Norwich to Brandon) arrived.

The town supported six hostelries: The Griffin - the oldest, The Angel, The Bear, The Cock, The Crown and The White Horse. The Griffin, The Bear and The Cock still operate but The Crown is now a Youth Centre and The Angel is a building society branch office. Nothing is known of the fate of The White Horse after 1904, although White Horse Lane where the pub was situated still exists. There are currently two more public houses: The London Tavern and The Mulberry Tree, which is also an award winning restaurant. At the centre of the town is Queens Square, at one time referred to as market hill.

In 1863 a corn exchange was built in the High Street owned by a company of local farmers and in 1896 the Gaymers cider-making plant was built on the south side of the railway and soon became established as the largest employer in the town. The factory has now closed for cider-making, but has recently re-opened as a chicken processing plant and the corn exchange is now a warehouse for a firm of electrical retailers.

The first world war affected Attleborough probably for no better or worse than many similar small towns. Five hundred and fifty men joined the armed forces and 96 did not return.

The 1920s saw continuing growth as a market centre, held on a Thursday the stalls spread along the pavements of Church Street and in an open area by the Angel Hotel opposite the Griffin Inn. It was the turkey sales which made the town a thriving market centre in the 1930s, and thousands were sold each year on Michaelmas day. Local employment still largely revolved round Gaymers cider works.

In the early thirties the Corn Hall was sold and became a cinema, reaching its heyday in the early 40s.

Well into the 1930s lighting was by oil lamps, then came the building of the Gas Works in Queens Road (since demolished, although the Gas Keepers house is still there). Gradually gas was piped into homes, but it was a slow process.

During 1939 the Old Post Office was sold and it became the Doric Restaurant in Queens Square. It is now the Town Hall. The new Post Office was built in Exchange Street.

There were two local airfields during World War II, one at Deopham Green (Station 142) and one at Old Buckenham (Station 144).

Structurally the town changed little during the 1950s and there were no great leaps in population growth, other than the arrival of the notorious London gangsters, the Kray twins, who took over a local hostelry. The sixties were different, the overspill programme and new town development brought new families into south Norfolk. Attleborough had to make decisions for the future and new development zones were designated.

Barford is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk, situated some 4 miles (6 km) north of Wymondham and 8 miles (13 km) west of Norwich.

The civil parish has an area of 4.38 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 508 in 201 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of South Norfolk.

Barnham Broom is a village and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is situated on the River Yare, 13 miles (21 km) west of Norwich.

The civil parish has an area of 7.24 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 552 in 220 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of South Norfolk.

Bath is a city in South West England most famous for its baths fed by three hot springs. It is situated 99 miles (159 km) west of Central London and 13 miles (21 km) south east of Bristol.

The city is founded around the only naturally occurring hot springs in the United Kingdom. It was first documented as a Roman spa, although tradition suggests that it was founded earlier. The waters from its spring were believed to be a cure for many afflictions. From Elizabethan to Georgian times it was a resort city for the wealthy. As a result of its popularity during the latter period, the city contains many fine examples of Georgian architecture, most notably the Royal Crescent. The city has a population of over 80,000 and is a World Heritage Site.

Battersea is an area of London lying on the south bank of the River Thames. Vaguely triangular in shape, its northern boundary is the Thames, as it runs first north-east, and then east, before turning north again to pass Westminster. Its north eastern corner is one mile (1.6 km) due south of the Palace of Westminster; the north western corner is demarcated by Wandsworth Bridge and Battersea tapers south to a point roughly three miles (5 km) from the north eastern corner and two miles (3 km) from the north west.

The area takes its name from the old village of Battersea, an island settlement on the Thames marked now, especially, by St. Mary's Church. William Blake was married, and Benedict Arnold and his wife and daughter are buried in the crypt of the church. Battersea is mentioned in Anglo-Saxon time as Badrices ieg = "Badric's Island" and later "Patrisey". As with many former Thames island settlements, Battersea was reclaimed by draining marshland and building culverts for streams.

Battersea Power Station an impressive, now disused, edifice designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, built between 1929 and 1939 (featured, with flying pig, on the sleeve art of Pink Floyd's album 'Animals'). Currently being renovated into a mass entertainments and commercial complex, with dedicated transport links. It is planned that the renovations will be completed in 2008. There is however scepticism locally that the plans will ever materialise, and there is opposition to them.

Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, formerly Battersea Dogs Home and prior to that the Temporary Home for Lost and Starving Dogs, established in Holloway in 1860 and moved to Battersea in 1871. (Many would say this is located in Nine Elms)

New Covent Garden Market, a major fruit and vegetable wholesale market, resited from Covent Garden in 1974. (Also considered by many to be in Nine Elms)

Battersea Park, an 83 hectare green space laid out by Sir James Pennethorne between 1846 and 1864 and opened in 1858, and home to a zoo and the London Peace Pagoda.

Sir Walter St John's School, now Thomas's day school, was founded in 1700. Parts of the present building date back to 1859.

Price's Candles on York Road, was the largest manufacturers of candles in the UK; now it has been converted into residential flats.

The London Heliport, London's busiest heliport, sited on the Thames a half mile due north of Clapham Junction station.

Clapham Junction, claimed to be the busiest railway station in the United Kingdom or Europe and the worlds busiest junction.

Royal Academy of Dance, containing several studios and associated with the University of Surrey.

St Mary's Church, Battersea. Benedict Arnold is buried here. There are four spectacular stained glass windows, celebrating Arnold, William Blake, William Curtis and J. M. W. Turner.

Beckenham is a town in the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is located 8.4 miles (13.5 km) south east of Charing Cross.

It is referred to as Bacheham in the Domesday Book of 1086. The name appears to derive from Beohha's homestead (Beohhan + ham in Old English). The River Beck was named after the town. The word Beck also means a stream in Middle English. Many attribute John Cator as being responsible for turning the village of Beckenham into a significant town in the late 1700s - a process that accelerated after his death in 1806 with the arrival of the railway from the 1830s.

St George's church at the centre of Beckenham has a 13th century lychgate that is said to be the oldest in England.

Bedwellty was a parish and urban district in Monmouthshire, South Wales, until 1974.

The original ancient parish was very large, including most of the upper Ebbw and Sirhowy valleys. A number of mining communities grew up in the parish, and in the nineteenth century these became separate local government units.

On June 19, 1874, Ebbw Vale, Rhymney and Tredegar local boards of health and local government districts were formed, each including parts of the civil parish. The remainder of Bedwellty itself became a local government district on June 29, 1891. In 1894 the local boards were replaced by urban districts. The areas included in Bedwellty, Ebbw Vale, Rhymney and Tredegar urban districts became separate civil parishes.

Bedwellty urban district included the hamlets and villages of Argoed, Bargoed, Blackwood, New Tredegar, Pengam and Rock.

In 1926 Bedwellty and Mynyddislwyn urban districts formed the West Monmouthshire Omnibus Board to ensure local control of bus services. In 1935 a County Review Order altered the boundaries between Bedwellty and Mynyddislwyn.

The urban district was abolished by the Local Government Act 1972 in 1974. Its area was split: the wards of Aberbargoed, Cwmsyfiog, New Tredegar and Phillipstown passed to the Rhymney Valley district of Mid Glamorgan, and the remainder was included in the Islwyn borough of Gwent.

Further local government reorganisation in 1996 has lead to the area of the former urban district being included in the county borough of Caerphilly. It now corresponds to the communities of Argoed, Bargoed, Blackwood, Cefn Forest, New Tredegar, and part of the community of Darran Valley.

The parliamentary constituency of Bedwellty was created in 1918 covering a much larger area. It continued to exist until 1983, when it was replaced by the constituency of Islwyn. The member of parliament for the Bedwellty and Islwyn constituencies from 1970 to 1995 was Neil Kinnock, who took the title Baron Kinnock, of Bedwellty in the County of Gwent in 2005.

Beech Hill is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It is situated in the south-east of the West Berkshire district, close to the Hampshire and Wokingham district borders. The Foudry Brook, a tributary of the Kennet, and the First Great Western railway line, between Reading and Basingstoke, run through the north of the parish.

Beech Hill was originally part of the parish of Stratfield Saye, a cross-county-border parish, most of which was in Hampshire. The Berkshire part became a civil parish in its own right in 1866. In the 16th century, it was part of the hundred of Theale, but was later transferred to the hundred of Reading which effectively ceased to function after 1886. By 1875, Beech Hill had become part of the Bradfield rural sanitary district which, in 1894, became the Bradfield Rural District. Since 1974, it has been part of the district of Newbury, now called West Berkshire.

The Camlet Way - the Roman Road which runs south-west from Verulamium (St. Albans) - joins the Devil's Highway at Fair Cross on Beech Hill's southern border and continues on westward to Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). Beech Hill is a Norman name derived from the family of De La Beche, usually resident at Aldworth, but who also had a home at Beaumys Castle, just over the parish boundary in Swallowfield. On the Beech Hill side is 'The Priory', a 17th century house on the site of Stratfield Saye Priory founded on the site of an old hermitage in 1170. It only lasted 200 years. Beech Hill House, of 1720, stands on the eastern side of the village and Trunkwell House on the west. Originally the Tudor home of the Noyes family, the current country house at Trunkwell was built in 1878 for a successful local business family and is now a well-known restaurant and conference venue. It is associated with the local pub, The Elm Tree Inn. The parish church (CofE) was built in 1867.

Belgravia is a district of central London in the City of Westminster, situated to the south-west of Buckingham Palace. Belgravia is approximately bounded by Knightsbridge to the north (the street of that name, not the district), Grosvenor Place and Buckingham Palace Road to the east, Pimlico Road to the south, and Sloane Street to the west. The westernmost streets within this area are in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and can alternatively be considered to be in Knightsbridge and Chelsea.

Most of the area was owned by Richard Grosvenor, 2nd Marquess of Westminster, who had it developed from the 1820s. Thomas Cubitt was the main contractor. Belgravia is characterised by grand terraces of white stucco houses, and is focused on the Belgrave Square and Eaton Square. It was one of London's most fashionable residential districts from the beginning, and remains so to this day. It is a relatively quiet district in the heart of London, contrasting with neighbouring districts which have far more busy shops, large modern office buildings, hotels, and entertainment venues. Many embassies are located in the area, especially in Belgrave Square.

Notable residents have included prime minister Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947), prime minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), American philanthropist George Peabody (1795-1869), Polish composer Frederic Chopin (1810-1849), Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), actress Dame Edith Evans (1888-1976), actress Vivien Leigh (1913-1967), novelist Ian Lancaster Fleming (1908-1964), Frankenstein author Mary Shelley (1797-1851), Lieutenant Colonel Philip Edward Hardwick (1875-1919) who was the son of the architect Philip Charles Hardwick, and the poet Lord Tennyson (1809-1892). Currently, the area's most famous resident is UK's second richest man Roman Abramovich; the actress and writer Joan Collins, singer-songwriter and actress Sarah Brightman, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson; and Lady Helen Taylor, daughter of the Duke of Kent, as well as former prime minister, Baroness Margaret Thatcher.

After World War II some of the largest houses ceased to be used as residences, but the new uses were restricted to certain categories, including embassies, charity headquarters and professional institutes. In the early 21st century some of these houses are being reconverted to residential use, as offices in old houses are no longer as desirable as they were in the post-war decades, while the number of super-rich in London is at a level not seen since at least 1939. Large houses in Belgravia are among the most expensive anywhere in the world, often costing more than £10 million (about US$19 million in 2006).

Bermondsey is a place in the London Borough of Southwark. It is a built-up district located 2.1 miles (3.4 km) east south-east of Charing Cross.

From 1899 to 1965 Bermondsey formed part of the Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey.

The area was originally named "Beormund's Ey" (Beormund being a Saxon personal name, "ey" being the Old Norse word for "island"). At this time it would have been little more than a marshy riverside island. A community of Cluniac monks established Bermondsey Abbey on the site in 1082 and began the development of the area, cultivating the land and embanking the riverside. They turned an adjacent tidal inlet at the mouth of the River Neckinger into a dock, naming it St Saviour's Dock after their abbey's patron.

The Knights Templar also owned land here and gave their names to one of the most distinctive streets in London, Shad Thames (a corruption of "St John at Thames"). Other ecclesiastical properties stood nearby at Tooley (a corruption of "St Olave's") Street, where wealthy citizens and clerics had their houses, including the Priors of Lewes, the Abbots of Battle and the Priors of St Augustine, Canterbury.

As it developed over the centuries, Bermondsey underwent some striking changes. After the Great Fire of London, it was settled by the well-to-do and took on the character of a garden suburb. A renowned pleasure garden was founded there in the 17th century, commemorated now by the name of the Cherry Garden Pier. Samuel Pepys, the diarist, visited Cherry Gardens in 1664 and recorded that he had left it "singing finely".

In the 18th century, the discovery of a spring in the area led to Bermondsey becoming a spa. It was from the Bermondsey riverside that the painter J.M.W. Turner executed his famous painting of The Fighting "Temeraire" Tugged to her Last Berth to be Broken Up (1839), depicting the veteran warship being towed to Rotherhithe to be scrapped.

By the mid-19th century parts of Bermondsey had become a notorious slum - with the arrival of industrial plants, docks and immigrant housing. The area around St Saviour's Dock, known as Jacob's Island, was one of the worst in London. It was immortalised by Charles Dickens's novel Oliver Twist, in which the principal villain Bill Sikes meets a nasty end in the mud of 'Folly Ditch' - the scene of an attack by Spring Heeled Jack in 1845 - surrounding Jacob's Island. Dickens provides a vivid description of what it was like: "... crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem to be too tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it - as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage: all these ornament the banks of Jacob's Island."

The area was extensively redeveloped during the 19th century and early 20th century with the expansion of the river trade and the arrival of the railways. London's first passenger railway terminus was built by the London to Greenwich Railway in 1836 at London Bridge, connecting Bermondsey with Greenwich. The line ran for four miles on 878 brick arches, with the linked Croydon Railway opening in 1839.

Immediately to the east of Tower Bridge, Bermondsey's 3½ miles of riverside were lined with warehouses and wharves, of which the best known is Butler's Wharf. They suffered severe damage in World War II bombing and became redundant in the 1960s following the collapse of the river trade. After standing derelict for some years, many of the wharves were redeveloped under the aegis of the London Docklands Development Corporation during the 1980s. They have now been converted into a mixture of residential and commercial accommodations and have become some of the most upmarket and expensive properties in London. In 1997, US President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair visited the area to dine at the Pont de la Tour restaurant at Butler's Wharf.

Despite the presence of London Bridge station, Bermondsey's transport links with the rest of London have historically been poor. This was remedied in 1999 with the opening of Bermondsey tube station on the London Underground's Jubilee Line.

Bethnal Green is situated about 1½ miles north of Whitechapel and ¾ mile northeast of Shoreditch and was originally part of the Manor of Stepney. It was the poorest district of Victorian London but two hundred years earlier was a pleasant country area with wealthy residents. By the end of the 17th century the silk-weavers of Spitalfields began spreading into the area and by the mid 18th century it was said to have eighteen hundred houses with fifteen thousand inhabitants - three or four families in a house. By 1840 there were six times as many looms used in Bethnal Green than in Spitalfields and Mile End New Town.

Although the weaving industry was in decline, other industries based at home or in small workshops took its place. The "Jago" district around Old Nichol Street was notorious for crime and poverty.

Bethnal Green is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, in the heart of London's East End. Bethnal Green is 3.3 miles (5.3 km) north east of Charing Cross.

A tudor ballad about the 'Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green' tells of an ostensibly poor man who gave a surprisingly generous dowry for his daughter's wedding. The tale furnishes the parish of Bethnal Green's coat of arms. According to one version of the legend, the beggar was the son of Simon de Montfort, who then lived nearby.

In the nineteenth century, Bethnal Green was characterised by its market gardens and by the silk-weaving trade. Having been an area of large houses and gardens as late as the eighteenth century, by about 1860, Bethnal Green was characterised by tumbledown old buildings, with many families living in each house.

By the end of the nineteenth century, Bethnal Green was one of the poorest slums in London. Jack the Ripper operated at the western end of Bethnal Green and in neighbouring Whitechapel.

In 1943, the unopened Bethnal Green tube station was the site of a wartime disaster. Families had crowded into the underground station to escape German bombing, but the sounds of explosions started a panic. 173 people died in the resulting crush. The news was not released at the time for fear of damaging wartime morale, but there is now a plaque at the entrance to the tube station.

During the 1960s, famous gangsters the Kray twins lived in Bethnal Green, but by the beginning of the twenty-first century, Bethnal Green, in common with much of the old East End, began to undergo a process of gentrification.

Birkenhead is a town on The Wirral Peninsula, Merseyside, on the left bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool. The town was famous as a sea port and as a centre for ship building as it was close to the maritime activity of Liverpool.

The first Mersey ferry began operating from Birkenhead in 1150 when Benedictine monks under the leadership of Hamon de Mascy built a priory there. Distanced from the ravages of the Industrial Revolution in Liverpool and the North-West by the physical barrier of the River Mersey, Birkenhead retained its agricultural status until the advent of the steam ferry service in 1820. Ready access from Liverpool now opened up the Wirral for development and prompted the rapid growth of Birkenhead as an industrial centre. This access was further improved by the building of the Mersey Railway tunnel in 1886 and later by the building of the Queensway Tunnel in 1934.

Birkenhead Park is acknowledged to be the first publicly funded park in Britain. It was the forerunner of the Parks Movement and its influence was far reaching both in this country and abroad - most notably on Olmstead's design for Central Park, New York. Designed by Joseph Paxton (later Sir Joseph Paxton) in 1843 and officially opened in 1847 it was an immediate economic and social success. Its history is inseparable from that of Birkenhead town itself.

Ship-building started in 1829. The business eventually became Cammell Laird. John Laird, a Scot, was influential in the design of the town and so parts were laid out in a grid-iron pattern like the New Town in Edinburgh with similar architecture.

No longer a county borough in its own right, Birkenhead is part of Wirral Metropolitan Borough.

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. Birmingham is the largest of England's core cities, and is generally considered to be the United Kingdom's second city. The city's reputation was forged as a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, a fact which led to Birmingham being known as "the workshop of the world" or the "city of a thousand trades".

The City of Birmingham has a population of 1,001,200 (2005 estimate). It forms part of the larger West Midlands conurbation, which has a population of 2,284,093 (2001 census) and includes several neighbouring towns and cities, such as Solihull, Wolverhampton and the towns of the Black Country.

People from Birmingham are known as 'Brummies', a term derived from the city's nickname of Brum. This comes in turn from the city's dialect name, Brummagem, which is derived from an earlier name of the city, 'Bromwicham'. There is a distinctive Brummie dialect and accent.

Bishopsgate is a road and ward in the east of the City of London, running north from Gracechurch to Norton Folgate. It is named after a gate in the London Wall that the Romans built around Londinium to defend it.

It is the site of Liverpool Street station, the notable public house Dirty Dick's, the Bishopsgate Institute, St Ethelburga's church, and many offices.

In 1993 it was the site of a Provisional IRA bomb, which killed 2 people and caused £350,000,000 worth of damage, including the destruction of St Ethelburga's church.

The street is home to the main London offices of several major banks including the Royal Bank of Scotland, ABN AMRO and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

In June 2005, plans were unveiled for the Bishopsgate Tower, a huge skyscraper to be built at the southern end of the road.

Bovey Tracey is a small town in Devon on the edge of Dartmoor, its proximity to which gives rise to the "slogan" used on the town's boundary signs, "The Gateway to the Moor". The locals just call the town "Bovey" (pronounced "Buvvy").

It is near the market town of Moretonhampstead. Roughly between the two lies the small village of North Bovey.

Bovey Tracey was an established Saxon community and was known as Boffa by 500 AD. The town gained its second name from the de Tracey family who were "lords of the manor" after the Norman Conquest. One member of the family, William de Tracey, was implicated in the murder of Archbishop Thomas Beckett in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. It is thought that de Tracey built the parish church of St Peter, St Paul and St Thomas of Canterbury as penance for the murder. The church still stands today and has an unbroken list of vicars from 1258.

During the English Civil War in 1646, Royalist troops were attacked in a local inn by members of Oliver Cromwell's Roundhead army. If local legend is to be believed, the Royalists escaped by throwing coins from the windows in order to distract the poorly paid Roundhead troops. The next day a battle was fought on nearby Bovey Heath ending in victory for Cromwell's army.

The name of Cromwell lives on in the town today in both the popular pub "The Cromwell Arms" and the remains of a nearby stone arch, known locally (and incorrectly) as "Cromwell's Arch". The arch is actually what is left of a priory that stood previously on the site.

Bovey railway station was opened on 26 June 1866 with the new Moretonhampstead and South Devon Railway on a site to the west of the town. It closed to passengers on 28 February 1959, but goods trains continued to operate until 6 July 1970.

Bow is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It has a postal code of E3 and is 4.6 miles (7.4 km) east north-east of Charing Cross.

Victoria Park, the so-called "lungs of the East End", is located in here. Bow is often mistaken as the home of the Bow Bells, which actually reside at St Mary-le-Bow Church, Cheapside, in the City of London. It was also the site of the headquarters and maintenance depot of the North London Railway. During World War 2 the first German V1 rocket to fall on London fell here close to the railway bridge over Grove Road. The Match Girl's strike at the Bryant and May match factory in the 1880s, which was part of the overall suffragette movement, occurred here. Today, the former match factory has been turned into apartments and is known as Bow Quarter.

Bradfield is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire. The parish also includes the now rather larger village of Bradfield Southend.

Bradfield village is the home of the public school Bradfield College, whilst Bradfield Southend is well-known locally for the display of Christmas lights put on by many residents.

Bradfield is located on low lying land adjacent to the River Pang about seven miles west of Reading, where the Theale to Compton road crosses the river. Bradfield Southend, by contrast, is situated about a mile to the south west on the ridge-line separating the valleys of the River Pang and the River Kennet.

It was fort in Roman times known as Othona. The Anglo-Saxons originally called it Ithancester. Saint Cedd founded a monastery within the old walls in 653. From there, he evangelised Essex. In the 20th century, the village became more well known as the site for the nuclear powered Bradwell Power Station.

Brandon Parva is a small village near East Dereham in Norfolk, England. It consists of an 'Upper' Brandon Parva and 'Lower' Brandon Parva. On the 7th of November 2006, Brandon Parva featuresd on the "Weebl and Bob" front page as they explored interesting Guy Fawkes Night traditions. These traditions are yet to be verified.

Brentford is a place in the London Borough of Hounslow on the River Thames in South West London.

Brentford, as the name suggests, was built on a fording point on the River Brent.

The town is named as Bregentforda at the time of the Council of Brentford 781 and as 'Bregentforda' and 'Brentforda' in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle of 1016. The root 'Bregent-', naming the river is thought to originate from the name of the Celtic goddess 'Brigantia', tutelary goddess of the Brigantes tribe (who didn't live in Brentford).

The settlement pre-dates the Roman occupation of Britain, and thus pre-dates the founding of London itself. Many pre-Roman artefacts have been excavated in and around the area in Brentford known as 'Old England'. Bronze Age pottery and burnt flints have been found in separate sites in Brentford. The quality and quantity of the artefacts suggests that Brentford was a meeting point for pre-Romanic tribes where part of tribal rituals included the ceremonial casting of weapons into the river. One well known Iron Age piece from about 100 BC - 50 AD is the Brentford horn-cap a ceremonial chariot fitting that formed part of local antiquarian Thomas Layton's collection, now held by the Museum of London. The celtic knot pattern (the 'Brentford Knot') on this item has been copied for use on modern jewellery.

It has been suggested that Brentford was also a main fording point on the River Thames, and was the point where Julius Cæsar crossed the Thames during his invasion of Britain. It has been asserted, without strong evidence, that a documented battle fought at this time between Cæsar's forces and Cassivellaunus took place at Brentford. There are, however, two other historically accredited battles of Brentford in 1016 and 1642

Brighton on the southern Sussex coast is one of the largest and most famous seaside resorts in England. Brighton and Hove form a single conurbation. Brighton's lively atmosphere is a direct contrast to its near neighbour, Hove which has quieter and more refined character. The two boroughs were joined together to form the unitary authority of Brighton & Hove in 1997, which in 2000 was granted city status by the Queen as part of the millennial celebrations, following competition from other large towns which coveted city status.

Brighton remained a small fishing village up until the 18th century. Brighthelmstone began to change in 1753 when Dr Richard Russell of Lewes published his thesis on sea bathing, which proclaimed the benefit to health of the salt water of Brighton. He set up house there and before long, the rich and the sick had started to make their way to the seaside. Currently approaching the conclusion of its ambitious restoration, Marlborough House on the Steine was built by Robert Adam in 1765 and purchased shortly afterwards by the eponymous Duke. By 1780, development of the Regency terraces had started and the town quickly became the fashionable resort of Brighton. The growth of the town was further encouraged when, in 1786, the young Prince Regent later King George IV, rented a farmhouse in order to escape from public life. Eventually he spent much of his leisure time in the town and constructed the exotic-looking Royal Pavilion, which is the town's best-known landmark. The Kemp Town estate (at the heart of the Kemptown district) was constructed between 1823 and 1855, and is a good example of Regency architecture. Visitors were further encouraged by the arrival of the London and Brighton Railway in 1840, which also established one of the first railway-owned locomotive works.

Brightwell-cum-Sotwell is a village in the Thames Valley, southern England, UK between Didcot to the west and the historic market town of Wallingford to the east.

Brisley is a village (population 276[1]) in the English county of Norfolk located about halfway between Fakenham and East Dereham.

Whilst the legendary 19th century English cricket batsman Fuller Pilch was probably raised in Brisley, it is the village of Horningtoft, about 2 km north west of Brisley which claims the honour of being his birthplace

Brockdish is a village and civil parish in the South Norfolk district of Norfolk, England. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 605. The village is situated on the River Waveney (south of which is Suffolk), and is about three miles south-west of Harleston.

Bromley, also known as Bromley-by-Bow or Bromley St. Leonard, is situated about 2 miles east of Whitechapel, to the south of Bow and was originally in the County of Middlesex. In the early part of the 12th century a Benedictine convent dedicated to St. Leonard was built to the south of Bow bridge. After the "Dissolution of the Monasteries" the chapel became the parish church. Until the 19th century the area was largely used for farming and market gardening with some industries along the River Lea such as calico bleaching, milling grain and distilling. In 1900 Bromley became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar.

The church of St. Mary was severely damaged, during the war and with the construction of the northern approach road to the Blackwall Tunnel, all that remains is part of the churchyard off Bromley High Street.

Burghfield is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It is situated in the district of West Berkshire, although it lies in the east of the district, close to Reading. The Parish of Burghfield consists of three seperate areas: Burghfield Common, Burghfield Village and Burghfield Bridge. It has been inhabited since Roman times, and has a rural and farming history.

An Atomic Weapons Establishment is located in the parish, known as AWE Burghfield, responsible for the final assembly of nuclear warheads, their in-service maintenance and their eventual decommissioning.

Burwell is a large village in Cambridgeshire with a population of 5,833 (2001 Census). Burwell Lode runs along the western edge of the Village, with all land north and west of that being part of the area known as The Fens. The village name means "Spring by the Fort", referring to Burwell Castle, located close to a spring in the south of the village. The term for a resident of the village is "Burwellian".

The village is located 4 miles NW of Newmarket, 10 miles ENE of Cambridge and 9 miles SSE of Ely. Burwell measures 1/2 mile east to west and 1.5 miles north-south. The Devil's Dyke Ancient Monument passes approximately 1 mile south west of the village. Burwell was recorded as Burewelle in the Domesday Book, when it was held by The Abbot of Ramsey. The history of the village and surrounding area is displayed at the Burwell Museum of Fen Edge Village Life.

The village is the site of an unfinished castle, situated in Spring Close, grid reference TL587661. The final wall collapsed in the 1930s, but the moat is still clearly visible.

The castle was built during "The Anarchy", the internal British conflicts of the mid 12th century in the reign of King Stephen. Although a settlement had been reached such that the throne would pass to Henry II on Stephen's death, the Barons of the time took the opportunity to fight their own battles.

Among these Geoffrey de Mandeville was particularly troublesome and, after turning against Stephen, had set up an impregnable base around Ely. From his base he would attack local towns, such as Cambridge, and so the king ordered castles be built to surround Geoffrey. The few sites at which it is known such castles were to be constructed include Rampton (Giant's Hill), Ramsey (Booth's Hill) and Burwell.

At Burwell, a moat had been constructed and the stone keep partially built when Geoffrey attacked and was mortally wounded. His revolt thus collapsed and the castle was left unfinished.

The narrow lane running along the side of the church next to Spring Close, where the Castle is located, is named "Mandeville".

On the 8th of September 1727, a puppet show visited Burwell and put on a show. The show was held in a barn on what is now Cuckolds Row, near the centre of the village. After the barn had filled with an audience from Burwell and surrounding villages, the doors were nailed shut to prevent further people getting in, a simple act which was key to the tragedy which resulted.

One person who could not get into the barn sat with a candle lantern and peered in to watch the show. However, the person accidentally knocked the lantern into the barn, setting fire to the hay within. With no way to escape, 78 people (51 of them, children) perished in the ensuing blaze.

The deceased are buried in the churchyard of St. Marys Church, at the opposite end of the High Street, with a gravestone engraved with a blazing heart with angels' wings. On 8th September 2005, a plaque was unveiled at the site of the barn in memorial of the fire

Camberwell is a district of London 2.7 miles (4.3 km) south east of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Southwark.

The area is a mixture of relatively housing and cheaper housing, including a number of tower blocks. Camberwell Grove and Grove Lane have some of London's most elegant and well preserved Georgian houses. The Salvation Army's William Booth Memorial Training College, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, was completed in 1932: it towers over South London from Denmark Hill. It has a similar monumental impressiveness to Gilbert Scott's other local buildings, Battersea Power Station and the Tate Modern, although its simplicity is partly the result of repeated budget cuts during its construction: much more detail, including carved Gothic stonework surrounding the windows, was originally planned.

The name Camberwell probably derives from the old English Cumberwell or Comberwell. i.e. British well, and springs and wells are known to have existed on the southern slope up Denmark Hill, especially around Grove Park. It was already a substantial settlement with a church when mentioned in the Domesday Book. Up to the mid-nineteenth century, Camberwell was visited by Londoners for its rural tranqullity and the reputed healing properties of its mineral springs. The Camberwell Beauty butterfly was identified on Coldharbour Lane in 1748 but is now rare in Britain. Like much of inner South London, Camberwell was transformed by the arrival of the railways in the 1860s. Until 1965 Camberwell was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell.

The crossroads at the centre of Camberwell is the site of Camberwell Green, a very small area of common land which was once a traditional village green on which was held an annual fair of ancient origin which rivaled that of Greenwich. The green was once a peacful place, but now it is unfortunately impossible to ignore the noise of the passing traffic. However, a very extensive range of bus routes have stops at Camberwell Green (see the link to the bus spider map below for details).

The local ethnic mix includes a large proportion of people of Caribbean and African descent, a Greek Cypriot community, and number of immigrants of Middle Eastern origin. The area is popular with students, as it is home to the Camberwell College of Arts (part of the University of the Arts London - formerly the London Institute) on Peckham Road. Kings College (part of the University of London) also has a hall of residence (King's College Hall) on nearby Denmark Hill.

Camberwell has one of London's large teaching hospitals, Kings College Hospital. The associated medical school is the (recently merged) Guy’s King’s and St Thomas’ (GKT) School of Medicine. The Maudsley Hospital, a renowned psychiatric hospital which is an international leader in developing specialist training in psychiatry, and its academic partner, the equally distinguished Institute of Psychiatry, are also close to Denmark Hill station.

Past and current residents include Joseph Chamberlain, Robert Browning, John Ruskin, Michael Caine, Emma Thompson, Kenneth Branagh and Nicholas Serota. Felix Mendelssohn stayed with relatives in 1842 and wrote a piano piece called 'Camberwell Green', whose popularity increased after it was renamed the 'Spring Song'.

Nearest places: Denmark Hill, Walworth, Peckham, Vauxhall, Brixton, Kennington, Camberwell Green

The city of Cambridge is an old English university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire. It lies approximately 50 miles (80 km) north-northeast of London and is surrounded by a number of smaller towns and villages. It is also at the heart of Silicon Fen, which has a reputation as the leading high-technology centre of Britain, mostly because both Acorn Computers and Sinclair were founded there, and is one of the major constituent parts of the Oxford-Cambridge Arc.

Cambridge is best known for the University of Cambridge, which includes the renowned Cavendish Laboratory, the King's College chapel, and the Cambridge University Library. The Cambridge skyline is dominated by the last two, along with the chimney of Addenbrooke's Hospital in the far south of the city. The city's name is pronounced "Came-bridge", as opposed to another Cambridge in Gloucestershire, England, which is pronounced "Cam-bridge": as it is spelt.

Settlements have existed around the area since before the Roman Empire. The earliest clear evidence of occupation, a collection of hunting weapons, is from the Late Bronze Age, starting around 1000 BC. There is further archaeological evidence through the Iron Age, a Belgic tribe having settled on Castle Hill in the 1st century BC.

The first major development of the area began with the Roman invasion of Britain in about AD 40. Castle Hill made Cambridge a useful place for a military outpost from which to defend the River Cam. It was also the crossing point for the Via Devana which linked Colchester in Essex with the garrisons at Lincoln and the north. This Roman settlement may have been called Durolipons.

The settlement remained a regional centre during the 350 years after the Roman occupation, until about AD 400. Roman roads and walled enclosures can still be seen in the area.

After the Romans had left, Saxons took over the land on and around Castle Hill. Their grave goods have been found in the area. During Anglo-Saxon times Cambridge benefited from good trade links across the otherwise hard-to-travel fenlands. By the 7th century, however, visitors from nearby Ely reported that Cambridge had declined severely. Cambridge is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as Grantebrycge. This is the earliest known reference to a bridge at Cambridge.

The arrival of the Vikings in Cambridge was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 875. Viking rule, the Danelaw, had been imposed by 878. The Vikings' vigorous trading habits caused Cambridge to grow rapidly. During this period the centre of the town shifted from Castle Hill on the left bank of the river to the area now known as the Quayside on the right bank. After the end of the Viking period the Saxons enjoyed a brief return to power, building St. Benet's church in 1025. It still stands in Bene't Street.

Two years after his conquest of England, William of Normandy built a castle on Castle Hill. Like the rest of the new kingdom, Cambridge fell under the control of the King and his deputies. The distinctive Round Church dates from this period. By Norman times the name of the town had mutated to Grentabrige or Cantebrigge, while the river that flowed through it was called the Granta. Over time the name of the town changed to Cambridge, while the river Cam was still known as the Granta - indeed the river is still often known as the Granta to this day. It was only later that the river became known as the Cam, by analogy with the name Cambridge. The University uses a pseudo-Latin adjective cantabrigiensi is (often contracted to "Cantab") to mean "of Cambridge", but this is obviously a back-formation from the English name.

One of the first educational establishments in Cambridge was the School of Pythagoras, founded in 1200, whose building still stands in the grounds of St. John's College, Cambridge.

In 1209, students escaping from violence in Oxford fled to Cambridge and formed a University there. The oldest college which still exists, Peterhouse, was founded in 1284. One of the most impressive buildings in Cambridge, King's College Chapel, was begun in 1446 by King Henry VI. The project was completed in 1515 during the reign of King Henry VIII.

Cambridge University Press originated with a printing licence issued in 1534. Hobson's Conduit, the first project to bring clean drinking water to the town centre, was built in 1610. Parts of it survive today. Addenbrooke's Hospital was founded in 1719. The railway and station were built in 1845. According to legend, the University dictated their location: well away from the centre of town, so that the possibility of quick access to London would not distract students from their work.

Despite having a University, Cambridge was not granted its city charter until 1951. Cambridge does not have a cathedral, which was traditionally a pre-requisite for city status.

Cann Hall is a ward in Leytonstone district in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is north of Stratford and Forest Gate, and east of Leyton.

The land was a country estate belonging to the Colegrave family in the early 19th century. Its tenants were among those whose livestock was permitted to graze on the adjacent Wanstead Flats, which at the time belonged to The Crown. With others they fought against the buying up of the Flats by private landowners, but in 1851-2 they lost part of the Flats in a protracted legal battle (though later much of the land was saved for the public, and is now administered by the Corporation of London). Cann Hall Manor with its land was sold by the Colegraves in 1856.

The area has since become a built-up part of north-east London, consisting largely of late Victorian and early 20th century terraced housing. Some of the street names retain a link with the past: Colegrave Road, Selby Road, Manbey Street (all associated with the Colegrave family) - and half way along Cann Hall Road is the Colegrave Arms pub.

Caversham is a village in the unitary authority of Reading, England, although, historically, Caversham was part of Oxfordshire. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, within the county of Berkshire, on the opposite bank from Reading proper. Caversham Bridge, Reading Bridge and Caversham Lock (pedestrian only) provide crossing points, with Sonning Bridge just a few miles east of Caversham.

Caversham was an urban district of the adminstrative county of Oxfordshire until 1911, when it became part of the county borough of Reading, and the ceremonial county of Berkshire.

Caversham spreads across from the River Thames floodplain (to the east) and up the hill (to the north). There are distinct areas known as Caversham Heights (residential) on the hill, Caversham (the shopping area and immediate residential surrounds), Lower Caversham (residential and light industrial) to the east and Caversham Park (resdidential) to the north east. Caversham Park (sometimes referred to as Caversham Park Village) is an area that was developed in the 1960s on what was parkland.

Caversham Park was (and is) home to BBC Monitoring. However, in the Middle ages it was one of the demesnes of William Marshal (1146 or 47 - 1219) and the place of his death.

Charlton is a place in south-east London, in the London Borough of Greenwich, sandwiched between east Greenwich and the Woolwich Dockyard area of west Woolwich.

The core of the area is Charlton Village, which is situated on a hillside overlooking the River Thames, but suburban sprawl means the name is now applied to a large area reaching down to the south bank of the river - where the Thames Barrier is located.

At one time, Charlton enjoyed a somewhat sordid reputation. In the 1720s, it was described by Daniel Defoe:

Charleton, a village famous, or rather infamous for the yearly collected rabble of mad-people, at Horn-Fair; the rudeness of which I cannot but think, is such as ought to be suppressed, and indeed in a civiliz'd well govern'd nation, it may well be said to be unsufferable. The mob indeed at that time take all kinds of liberties, and the women are especially impudent for that day; as if it was a day that justify'd the giving themselves a loose to all manner of indecency and immodesty, without any reproach, or without suffering the censure which such behaviour would deserve at another time.

Apart from the Barrier, the area's other most notable feature is Charlton House, a Jacobean mansion (architect: John Thorpe), built for Sir Adam Newton between 1607 and 1612. Sir Adam was tutor to Prince Henry, son of King James I of England, and was also responsible for building nearby St Luke's Church (burial place of Spencer Perceval (1762-1812), the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated). On the northern edge of the garden of Charlton House is a mulberry tree planted in 1608 by order of King James in an effort to cultivate silkworms.

Later, Charlton House became the home of the Maryon-Wilson family, after whom a nearby park, location for the film Blow-Up, is named. Since 1925, the house has been owned by the London Borough of Greenwich and has functioned as a library and community centre.

Charlton is perhaps best known as the home of Charlton Athletic F.C.. The club plays at The Valley (a former chalk pit) situated to the north of the village, close to the main road and railway line between Greenwich and Woolwich. Further south, close to Blackheath Standard, is the Rectory Field, home of the venerable Blackheath Rugby Club.

Civil Engineer William Henry Barlow (1812-1902) lived at Highcombe, 145 Charlton Road, SE7.

Poet Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) was born in 83 Maryon Road (demolished in 1960s).

Italian-born novelist Italo Svevo (1861-1928) lived at 67 Charlton Church Lane, SE7.

Chelmsford is a town in the county of Essex, in the United Kingdom.It lies 31 miles (50 km) northeast of London, approximately halfway between there and Colchester. It is almost exactly in the centre of the county and it has been the county town of Essex since the early 13th century. It is also the seat of the borough of Chelmsford, which covers a wider area than the town, including the new settlement of South Woodham Ferrers on the banks of the River Crouch. The Borough Council celebrated its centenary in 1988, and the town its 800th anniversary in 1999.

Chelmsford is home to the Diocese of Chelmsford, and has the smallest cathedral in England, built in the 15th and early centuries when it was the parish church of the prosperous medieval town. The Diocese (established in 1914) covers all of Essex and much of East London. John Dee, responsible for the English translation of Euclid, was educated at the Cathedral school in the sixteenth century. Chelmsford is also home to part of the Anglia Ruskin University and to the grammar schools of Chelmsford County High School and King Edward VI Grammar School founded in 1551 by charter of King Edward VI on the site on an earlier educational foundation.

Chester is the county town of Cheshire, England. It is situated on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, and is one of the best-preserved walled cities in the country. It is the main settlement in the City of Chester local government district.

Chester is an ancient city dating back nearly two millennia to AD 79. The Romans built successive forts there in wood and stone and called the place 'Deva' or 'Deva Victrix'. It was the home of the Second Legion and then the Twentieth Legion. Civilian settlements also developed outside the fortress walls. A recent Timewatch investigation by the BBC speculated that, from the size and scale of the fort, had the Roman Empire not begun to collapse, Deva would have become the Roman capital of Britain and a launch post for invasions on Ireland. Romano-British occupation continued in some form even after the Roman departure from Britain and remains of the amphitheatre, parts of the walls, the quay and the columns and reconstructed hypocaust in the Roman Gardens may still be seen today in Chester.

The Roman Empire fell three hundred years later, and the Romano-British established a number of petty kingdoms in its place. Chester is thought to have been part of Powys at this time. King Arthur is said to have fought his ninth battle at the city of the legions and later St Augustine came to the city to try and unite the church and hold his synod with the Welsh Bishops. Chester was probably part of Powys. In 616, Æthelfrith of Northumbria defeated a Welsh army at the Battle of Chester and probably established the Anglo-Saxon position in the area from then on.

In the late 7th century, Saint Werburgh founded a religious institution on the present site of St John's Church which later became the first cathedral. Her body was removed from Hanbury in Staffordshire in the 9th century and, in order to save its desecration by Danish marauders, she was reburied in the Abbey of SS Peter & Paul in Chester (the present cathedral). Her name is still remembered in St Werburgh's Street which passes alongside the cathedral, and near to the city walls.

The Saxons extended and strengthened the walls of Chester to protect the city against the Danes, who occupied it for a short time until Alfred seized all the cattle and laid waste the surrounding land to drive them out. In fact it was Alfred's daughter Ethelfleda Lady of the Mercians that built the new Saxon 'burh'. The Anglo-Saxons called Chester Ceaster or Legeceaster.

In 973 two years after his coronation at Bath, King Edgar, came to Chester where he held his court in a palace in a place now known as Edgar’s field near the old Dee bridge in Handbridge. Taking the helm of a barge, he was rowed the short distance up the River Dee from Edgar’s field to St John’s Church by six (the monk Henry Bradshaw records he was rowed by eight kings) tributary kings called ‘reguli’.

The kings names are given as Kynath, King of Scots, James, King of Galloway; Maccon, King of Man, Malcolm and Inkil, Kings of Cumberland; Sifreth and Hywal, Kings of North Wales; and Dufnal, King of South Wales.

The kings then swore fealty and allegiance to him at a service at the church, and then rowed him back to the palace. The event was recorded by Ranulph Higden, a monk of St. Werburgh's Abbey in Chester and it is also mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

'In this year Prince Edgar was consecrated king on Whit Sunday at Bath, in the thirteenth year after his accession when he was twenty nine years old. Soon after this, the king led all his fleet to Chester, and there six kings came to him, to make their submission, and pledged themselves to be his fellow workers, by sea and land'.

After the 1066 Norman Conquest and the harrying of the north, the Normans took Chester, destroying 200 houses in the city. Hugo d'Avranches, the first Norman earl (it was first given to a Fleming, Gherbod, who never took up residence but returned to Flanders where he was captured, and later killed) was William's nephew. He built a motte and bailey near the river, as another defence from the Celts. It is now known as Chester Castle and was rebuilt in stone by Henry II in 1245, after the last of six Norman earls died without issue.

Chester's earls were a law unto themselves. They kept huge hunting forests - Hugo was said to have 'preferred falconers and huntsmen to the cultivators of the soil', and Ranulph I converted the Wirral farmlands into another hunting forest. Before Ranulph, Hugo's son had inherited at the age of seven but died in the White Ship, along with the king's heir, William, on his way to England from France, where he was educated under the guardianship of Henry I. Earl Ranulph II, Ranulph's son, even helped to capture King Stephen in 1140, and ended up controlling a third of England after supporting Henry II's claim to the throne.

Other earls were Hugh II, Ranulph III and John the Scot. The traditional independence that Chester had under the earls was confirmed by a charter of Richard II in 1398 stating that 'the said county of Chester shall be the principality of Chester'. The earls are remembered with their shields on the suspension bridge over the river Dee, and again on the Grosvenor Park lodge.

The first earl had endowed a great Benedictine monastery dedicated to Saint Werburgh in 1092 (on the site of a church of c 660 dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, which was moved to the city centre by the Cross where it still stands). The monastery was dissolved under Henry VIII in 1540 and was rededicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary to become Chester Cathedral. Previously, the first Chester Minster or Cathedral had become plain St John's Church after the see was transferred to Coventry in the early 12th century.

There is a popular belief that it was the silting of the River Dee that created the land which is now Chester's racecourse (known as the Roodee), on which a stone cross still stands which is said to have been erected in memory of Lady Trawst who died as a result of an image of the Virgin Mary called Holy Rood falling upon her in Hawarden church a few miles down the river). But the Roodee was in existence as early as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, so it cannot have been created by later silting. The silting which led to the creation of the Roodee, in its current form, is well established on a sequence of post-medieval maps dating from the later 16th century. It has also been established by archaeological evaluations and excavations in the area of the Old Port, known as the Roodee tail. Physical evidence for the silting of this area of the city is shown by the building of the 14th century port watch tower, now known as the Water Tower, which projects from the north-west corner of the city walls. This tower was originally built out into the river. Sixteenth century maps, its archaeological form and related documentary evidence all demonstrate this.

Despite stories to the contrary, the weir above the Old Dee Bridge was not built by the Romans but by Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester between 1077 and 1101 to hold water for his river mills. The purpose of the weir on the river was to keep water levels high for these mills, one of which gave rise to the traditional song "Miller of Dee". It also prevents the salty tidal waters from entering the Dee fresh water basin.

Chester's port flourished under Norman rule. In 1195 a monk, Lucian, wrote 'ships from Aquitaine, Spain, Ireland and Germany unload their cargoes of wine and other merchandise'. In fact wine was only imported through four other English ports. During the 13th century Chester was famous for its fur trade and even by the mid-16th century the port was importing large amounts of fur and skins. In 1543 one ship alone brought in '1600 shhep fells, 68 dere, 69 fawne skins and 6300 broke (badger skins)' .

However the estuary was silting up so that trading ships to the port of Chester had to harbour at Neston, Heswall, Croyton and regularly at Redcliffe 16 miles downstream.

Originally the port was located to the north of the Watergate just below the city wall. To the south of the Watergate the Roodee existed in smaller form than today. The map sequence shows the river moving its course from against the wall north of the Watergate out to its current location between 1580 and approximately the 1830s. By the first edition OS map the river had reached its current position, however it is apparent that some rivulets and inlets have been lost since, however, some have been identified in archaeological work on the site of the former House of Industry and gasworks.

In September 1642 tension between King Charles I and Parliament was growing and Civil war looked a possibility. Charles visited Chester and ensured a pro-royalist mayor was elected William Ince. In March 1643, leading Chester royalist Sir Francis Gamull was commissioned to raise a regiment of foot to defend the city. And an experienced soldier by the name of Colonel Robert Ellis was asked to construct outer defences to the city. A series of earthworks were constructed around the city from Boughton through Hoole and Newton to the Water Tower. The earthworks consisted of a ditch and mud wall with a series of 'mounts' or gun platforms were added along with turnpike gates on incoming roads.

Parliamentary forces began to lay siege to the city of Chester. In the early morning of the 20th of September 1645, parliamentary forces overrun the eastern earthworks at the Boughton turnpike and captured the east suburbs of the city upto the walls. They began to construct cannon batteries in range of the city.

A Cannon battery placed in St John's churchyard breached the city walls on the 22nd of Sepetember near the Roman Gardens. A hole some 25 feet wide was made with thirty-two cannon shots. An attempt had been made to storm the city. But this attack was repelled. According to an account at the time by Lord Byron the breach was stopped up with woolpacks and featherbeds from all parts of the town.

On the evening of the 23rd of September 1645 King Charles I entered the City of Chester with 600 men via the Old Dee Bridge. He stayed the night at Sir Francis Gamull's house on Bridge Street. Also during the evening Sydenham Poyntz a Parliamentarian in pursuit of the Kings forces entered Whitchurch 15 miles to the south with 3000 horse. A battle looked likely.

Later on in the evening the King because aware of Poyntz's movements as a messenger was intercepted at Holt. A decision was made to send out Lord Gerrard's horse troups and five hundred foot soldiers in the morning.

On the morning of the 24 September 1645 the Battle of Rowton Moor occurred in moor land called Miller's Heath near the village of Rowton. Two miles to the south east of the City on the modern A41 road. Parliamentary Forces crushed the Royalist loyal Cavaliers. The city was under siege at the time by the Parliamentary army. Royalist forces were coming to lift the siege and join up with Scotish Allies. They were intercepted by Parliamentary Forces outside Chester.

The engagement lasted all day starting at 9am and continuing throughout the day in three stages as Royalists were pushed back towards the City and its Walls. The battle of mainly conducted on horse back with musketeers is support on the flanks. As the battle went on into the afternoon, more troops were ordered to march out of the Norhgate in support of the Royalists on Rowton Moor, but this decision was too late, the battle was already lost.

As the fighting reached the suburbs it was watched by King Charles I and Sir Francis Gamull from Chester's Phoenix Tower (now also called King Charles' Tower) on the City Walls. The King quickly withdrew to the Cathedral tower, but even this was not safe, as the captain standing next to him was shot in the head by musket fire from the victorious Parliamentarians who took residence in the St John's Church tower.

The battle cost the lives of 600 Royalists and an unknown number of Parliamentarians. Among the Royalist dead was Lord Bernard Stuart (1622 - 1645) Earl of Lichfield, the kings cousin. His portrait is displayed in the National Gallery.

Also slain at the same time was William Lawes (1602–1645) a noted English composer and musician. He was buried in Chester Cathedral without a memorial. He was remembered by the king as the 'Father of Musick' and his portrait as a cavalier hangs in the Faculty of Music at Oxford.

Today there is a small memorial to the Battle in the village of Rowton. It consists of a brief history and a battle plan of field at the time.

The next day the king slipped out of Chester and crossed the Old Dee Bridge on route to Denbigh. He left instructions for the city to hold out for 10 days more.

By 1646, after having refused to surrender nine times and with Lord Byron at the head of the city's defences, having only spring water and boiled wheat for lunch — the citizens (17,000) had already eaten their dogs — a treaty was signed. The mills and the waterworks lay in ruins and not one house from the Eastgate to the middle of Watergate Street[citation needed] had escaped bombardment. The exultant Puritan forces let loose on the city, despite the treaty, destroyed religious icons including the high cross, which was not erected again for over 3 centuries. In 1646 King Charles I was proclaimed a traitor beside its base.

Worse was to come; the starved citizens then bore the full brunt of the plague, with 2099 people dead from the summer of 1647 to the following spring.

In 1643 Sir Richard Grosvenor petitioned the Assembly to enclose the Row which ran through the front of his town house on Lower Bridge Street. His request was granted, at the time he was employed in the Royalist army as a Commander. Perhaps the room was being used to organise the Royalist Resistance in Chester. In the years after the war people further down the street also asked for the row to be enclosed. Eventually Lower Bridge Street lost its rows. The only trace can now be found at number 11.

Most of Chester was rebuilt after the Civil War. There are many fine half-timbered houses dating from this time still standing today.

Chester port declined with most of the ships going from the colonies now going to Liverpool, although it was still the major port of passenger embarkation for Ireland until the early 1800s. A new port was established on the Wirral called Parkgate, but this also fell out of use. The road to the port of Chester was called the 'Great Irish Road' and ran from Bristol to Chester.

It is also the name of two electoral wards (West Chesterton and East Chesterton) in the city. These are roughly the same as the area normally called Chesterton: specifically the land North of the River Cam, east of Castle Hill and south of the Arbury and Kings Hedges estates.

Cholsey is a large village in Oxfordshire (previously Berkshire), England, two miles from Wallingford. It has a population of over 4,000. The village green is known as The Forty.

The village was originally founded on an island (Ceol's Isle) in marshy ground close to the Thames. There is evidence that the Wessex Royal family owned land in Cholsey in the 6th and 7th century.

A royal nunnery, Cholsey Abbey, was founded in the village in 986 by Queen Aelfrith, on land donated by her son, King Ethelred the Unready. The nunnery is thought to have been destroyed by invading Danes in 1006 when they camped in Cholsey after setting nearby Wallingford ablaze. However, Anglo-Saxon masonry still survives in the present village church of St. Mary. Most of this flint and stone building was erected in the 12th century. The novelist Agatha Christie's grave can be found in the churchyard.

In the 13th century, a tythe barn was built in the village. It was, at the time, the largest aisled building in the World, being 51 feet high, 54 feet wide and over 300 feet long. The barn was demolished in 1815.

Clapham dates back to Anglo-Saxon times; the name is said to derive from the Anglo-Saxon word for "Clappa's farm". In the late seventeenth century, large country houses began to be built here, and through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries it was favoured by the upper classes, with many large and gracious houses and villas built around Clapham Common and in the Old Town. Samuel Pepys spent the last two years of his life in Clapham living with his friend and former servant William Hewer and he died there in 1703. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Clapham Sect were a group of upper class evangelic Anglicans who lived around the Common. They included William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton and Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian Thomas Macaulay. They were very prominent in campaigns for the abolition of slavery, against child labour and for prison reform. They also promoted missionary activity in Britain's colonies.

Colchester is a town and is the main settlement of the Essex borough of Colchester in the East of England.

It has a population of 104,390 and, as the oldest recorded Roman town, makes claim to be the oldest town in Britain.

Colchester is located 56 miles (90 km) north east of London and is connected to the capital by the A12 road and the Great Eastern Main Line.

Colchester has been an important military garrison since the Roman era. The Colchester Garrison is currently home to 16 Air Assault Brigade

Cookham is a village and civil parish in the north-easternmost corner of Berkshire in England, on the River Thames. It lies 4 km north of Maidenhead close to the border with Buckinghamshire.

Cookham Village - the centre of the original village, with an attractive High Street which has changed little in appearance over the centuries.

Cookham Rise - the bit in the middle that has grown up around the village's railway station.

The village's neighbours are Maidenhead to the south, Bourne End to the north, Marlow & Bisham to the west and Taplow to the east.

The River Thames flows past Cookham on its way from Marlow to Taplow, and forms the boundary with Buckinghamshire. Several islands in the Thames belong to Cookham, such as Odney Island. The Lulle Brook and the White Brook are tributaries which flow through the parish.

A good amount of common land remains in the parish, such as Widbrook Common, Cookhamdean Common and Cock Marsh. Winter Hill affords excellent views over the Thames Valley.

There are several prehistoric burial mounds in the parish and the Roman Road called the Camlet Way is supposed to have crossed the Thames here somewhere, on its way from St. Albans to Silchester. King Alfred later made Sashes Island one of his burhs to help defend against Viking invaders. There was an Anglo-Saxon nunnery at the church and, later, a female hermit. In the Middle Ages, most of Cookham was owned by Cirencester Abbey and the timber-framed 'Churchgate House' was apparently the Abbot's residence when in town. The Tarry Stone - still to be seen - marked the extent of their lands.

Cork (Irish: Corcaigh) is the second city of the Republic of Ireland and Ireland's third most populous city after Dublin and Belfast respectively. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city of the province of Munster.

The city proper has a population of 119,143 (2006 census), however this increases to 186,239 (2002 figures) if the immediate suburbs of the city in the Cork County Council area are included. In the "Cork Joint Housing Strategy", it states that the 2006 population of Metropolitan Cork stands at approximately 274,000, while the Greater Cork area stands at 380,000 in 2006.

The city's name is derived from an Irish word corcach meaning "marshy place", referring to its situation on the River Lee. Cork has a reputation for independence dating from 1491, when some townsmen tried to overthrow the king of England, but more recently referring to its participation in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War. This has given Cork the nickname of "the Rebel County". It is not unusual for Corkonians to refer to Cork as the "true capital of Ireland" or to feel they have a distinct identity from the rest of Ireland.

The River Lee flows through the city, an island in the river forming the main part of the city centre just before the Lee flows into Lough Mahon and thence to Cork Harbour, one of the world's largest natural harbours. The city is a major Irish seaport — with quays and docks sited along the broad waterway of the Lee on the city's East side.

Cork's city charter was granted by King John in 1185. However, Cork has its beginnings in a much earlier monastic settlement, founded by St Finbar in the sixth century. Over the centuries, much of the city was rebuilt, time and again, after numerous fires and attacks by Vikings or Norsemen. The city was at one time fully walled, and several sections and gates remain. The title of Mayor of Cork was established by royal charter in 1318, and the title was changed to Lord Mayor in 1900. The centre of Cork was gutted by fires started by the Black and Tans in the War of Independence, part of the policy of reprisals at the time; it was also the site of some fierce fighting between Irish guerrilla leaders and British forces. During the Irish Civil War, Cork was for a time held by anti-Treaty forces, until it was retaken by the pro-Treaty National Army in an attack from the sea.

Croydon is a major suburban town and commercial centre situated 9.5 miles (15.3 km) south of Charing Cross and the principal town in the London Borough of Croydon.

The name of Croydon derives originally from the Anglo-Saxon croeas deanas, meaning "the valley of the crocuses", indicating that, like Saffron Walden in Essex, it was a centre for the collection of saffron.

Another opinion [1] holds that the name derives from the Old French croie dune, meaning chalk hill. This was because Croydon stands at the northern edge of the chalk hills called the North Downs.

A third suggestion is also from the Anglo-Saxon crogdaen meaning "crooked valley".

There is evidence of Roman settlement in the area and a 5th to 6th century pagan Saxon cemetery.

Darnall ward—which includes the districts of Attercliffe, Darnall, Tinsley, and parts of Handsworth—is one of the 28 electoral wards in City of Sheffield, England. It is located in the eastern part of the city and covers an area of 17.4 km2. The population of this ward in 2001 was 21,000 people in 8,400 households. In the 2004 local elections Mohammad Altaf, Robert Harry Harpham, and Mary Lea, all Labour Party candidates were returned as councilors for the ward.

Attercliffe (grid reference SK378887) is an industrial suburb of northeast Sheffield. Lying on the south bank of the River Don, it originally grew as a small hamlet centred on Attercliffe Chapel, and was part of the parish of Sheffield.

The area became a centre for Sheffield’s LGBT population, and is known locally for its sex industry, garnering a reputation as Sheffield's equivalent to Soho.

Sheffield Attercliffe is also the name of one of Sheffield's six Parliamentary constituencies.

Darnall (grid reference SK388880) is an suburb eastern Sheffield, it was initially a small hamlet usually included with Attercliffe. It developed during the 19th century as an area housing steelworkers working in the large foundries of the Lower Don Valley. Darnall railway station was built to service the suburb, lying on the Sheffield to Lincoln line. Unemployment grew as the foundries shut or laid off many employees from the 1970s on, and the area is now one of the poorest in the city.

High Hazels Park located in Darnall was once regarded as one of the largest and finest parks in Sheffield. Officially a district park, High Hazels is the major open space in this area of the city and has always been of great importance to the local community.

Darnall has a large immigrant community, including many Muslims. The suburb has several mosques.

One plan for extending the Sheffield Supertram would extend the routes through Darnall, towards Handsworth and south Rotherham.

Tinsley (grid reference SK395907) is a district in the northeastern part of Sheffield. Its name derives from the Old English Tingas-Leah, which means 'Field of Council'. It is mentioned as 'Tirneslawe' or 'Tineslawe' in the Domesday Book of 1086 when it was in the possession of Roger de Busli. The chapel of St Laurence, Tinsley was built in 1877 on the site of an ancient (possibly of Anglo-Saxon origin) chapel[1]. Through the 18th and 19th centuries this area changed from a rural area to a major industrial centre known for its collieries, iron, steel, and wire works. Today much of the industry has gone and Tinsley now hosts the Meadowhall shopping centre—one of the largest in the UK. The name Tinsley is also associated with the nearby former railway marshalling yard and the Tinsley Viaduct, which carries the M1 motorway across the Don valley.

Denbighshire (Welsh: Sir Ddinbych) is a principal area and county in North Wales.

The present principal area was formed on April 1, 1996, under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, from various parts of the county of Clwyd. It included the district of Rhuddlan (which was formed in 1974 entirely from Flintshire), the communities of Trefnant and Cefnmeiriadog from the district of Colwyn (which was entirely Denbighshire) and most of the Glyndwr district. The part of the Glyndwr district included the entirety of the former Edeyrnion Rural District, which was part of the administrative county of Merionethshire prior to 1974 - which covered the the parishes of Betys Gwerfil Goch, Corwen, Gwyddelwern, Llangar, Llanillo in Edeirnion and Llansanffraid.

Other principal areas containing part of historic Denbighshire are Conwy, which picked up the remainder of the 1974-1996 Colwyn, and also the Denbigshire parts of the 1974-1996 Aberconwy, and Wrexham, which corresponds to the pre-1974 borough of Wrexham along with most of the Wrexham Rural District and also several parishes from Glyndwr.

The post-1996 Powys includes the historic Denbighshire parishes of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant, Llansilin and Llangedwyn, which had formed part of Glyndwr district.

The area is mostly hilly moorland, with the Clwydian range in the east, the Hiraethog Moors in the west and the Berwyn range adjacent to the southern boundary. The broad, fertile Vale of Clwyd runs south to north in the centre, and there is a narrow coastal plain in the north.

Deptford is an area in the London Borough of Lewisham and London Borough of Greenwich, on the south bank of the River Thames in south-east London.

The name Deptford — "deep ford" (Latin vadum profundum) — is derived from the place where the road to London from Dover and the channel ports crosses the River Ravensbourne; the tidal reach of which is also known as Deptford Creek.

Deptford, originally part of historic Kent, became the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford, but was later absorbed into Lewisham. The Deptford town hall and many other council buildings still remain, but are used for other purposes.

The pilgrimage route to Canterbury from London, followed by the pilgrims in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", crosses the Ravensbourne at Deptford. The town is mentioned in the Prologue to the Reeve's Tale.

The north-eastern corner of Deptford lies in the London Borough of Greenwich. The boundary runs along Watergate Street, Creek Road, Deptford Church Street, Bronze Street, Creekside and Copperas Street to Deptford Creek.

The Battle of Deptford Bridge took place on 17 June 1497 on a site adjacent to the River Ravensbourne. Rebels from Cornwall, led by Michael An Gof, had marched on London aiming to free Cornwall of its Norman rulers. Unable to muster support from people in Kent (the focus of Jack Cade's rebellion of 1450), they were soundly beaten by the King's forces.

In 1513, King Henry VIII decided to site a naval dockyard at Deptford, and this remained in operation until March 1869. It was here that Russian Tsar Peter the Great studied shipbuilding for three months in 1698. He and some of his fellow Russians stayed at Sayes Court, the manor house of Deptford, where the absent owner was the diarist John Evelyn. Evelyn inherited the house when he married the daughter of Sir Richard Browne in 1652. On his return to England at the Restoration, Evelyn had laid out meticulously planned gardens in the French style or hedges and parterres. He was seriously upset that Peter's friends got drunk and using a wheelbarrow with Peter in it succeeded in ramming their way through a fine holly hedge. Both house and garden have disappeared, but the site, still called "Sayes Court" and entered from Evelyn Street near Deptford High Street, is a run-down public park.

St Nicholas' Church, the parish church, dates back to the 14th century but the current building is 17th century. The entrance to the churchyard features a set of skull-and-bones on top of the posts. A plaque on the north wall commemorates playwright Christopher Marlowe, murdered in a nearby tavern on — according to the church's own records — 1 June 1593.

In the early 18th century St. Paul's, Deptford was built, one of the finest Baroque churches in the country.

Diarist John Evelyn lived in Deptford at Sayes Court from 1652 (Peter the Great was a tenant there after Evelyn had moved to Surrey in 1694; in its grounds was a cottage at one time rented by master wood carver Grinling Gibbons). Part of the estates around the house were purchased in 1742 for the building of the Admiralty Victualling Yard, later (1858) renamed the Royal Victoria Yard. This massive facility included warehouses, a bakery, a cattleyard/abattoir and sugar stores. It closed in 1960.

Its railway station is one of the oldest suburban stations in the world, being built (c.1836-38) as part of the first suburban service (the London and Greenwich Railway), between London Bridge and Greenwich. Close to Deptford Creek is a Victorian pumping station built in 1864, part of the massive London sewerage system designed by civil engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette.

Deptford was the location of the foreign cattle markets - the notorious "gutting sheds" in which girls and women worked in squalor gutting animals until the early part of the 20th century. These were the subject of the play "The Gut Girls" by Sarah Daniels.

Doncaster is a town in the English county of South Yorkshire, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster in South Yorkshire. The town is located approximately 20 miles from Sheffield and is popularly referred to by some of its residents as Donny.

Downham Market, also known simply as Downham, is a town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. It lies on the River Great Ouse, some 20 km south of the town of King's Lynn, 60 km west of the city of Norwich and the same distance north of the city of Cambridge.

The civil parish has an area of 5.2 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 6,730 in 3,258 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of King's Lynn and West Norfolk.

Notable buildings in the town include its mediaeval parish church and Victorian clock tower, constructed in 1878. The town is also known as the place where Charles I of England hid after the Battle of Naseby. During the Middle Ages, it was famed for its butter market. The town has recently undergone a regeneration project on the market place, switching it to the town hall car park.

Downham Market railway station, which serves the town, is located on the Fen Line from London to King's Lynn.

Downton is a large willage in Wiltshire, England situated around 7 miles south of Salisbury, but once it was one of Englands smallest towns. In the 2001 census the population of Downton was 2,869.

Downton can be traced its ancient origin back to the Iron Age, Roman and Saxon time. Remains can be found in the form of a Norman motte and bailey castle. Which now plays host to The Moot Garden a 18th Century ornamental gardens overlooking the river. It contain an ancient monument known as the Moot, which commemorates the meeting place of Wiltshire Saxons, and one of the oldest of English moots or local parliaments a legacy left over for the Bishop of Winchesters time of owning lands Downton.

The River Avon flows through Downton, and is the source of occasional flooding in the village (which has now had major flood defence work down in 2002). The Water meadows, fields through which has irrigation channels which are made using weirs and channelling, use the water from this river can be managed.

Downton has a number of local pubs; “The Wooden Spoon”, “The King's Arms”, “The White Horse” and “The Bull”. Home of one of Englands award wining breweries Hop Back Brewery, brewers of Summer Lightning, Crop Circle, GFB and other beers.

The White Horse Inn recently received interest in the national and local press when its licence to serve alcohol ran out due to an oversight. Until the inn was able to renew its licence, during the intervening time, from early January 2007 until February 2nd 2007, locals were invited to purchase any alcohol they wished to consume at the Co-op supermarket next door. They were allowed to bring their beer, wine and spirits into the White Horse for consumption with or without food. The inn continued to offer soft drinks for sale, including some specially created non-alcoholic cocktails, whose names depicted the situation!

Downton is the site for the annual Cuckoo Fair, which has been held on the Saturday of the May Day Bank Holiday weekend since the sixteenth century. The fair, also known as the Cuckoo Moot a country fair including crafts, traditional dancing (including Maypole dancing), street entertainment and music.

Development around the village has seen the expansion of the industrial estate with a business centre and the old tannery, which closed in 1998, has since been converted into luxury apartments (a mixture of Retirement homes & flats).

Ealing is a place in the London Borough of Ealing. It is a suburban development situated 7.7 miles (12.4 km) west of Charing Cross.

Archaeological evidence shows that some parts of Ealing have been occupied for at least 7,000 years - iron age pots have been discovered on Horsenden Hill. The name Ealing comes from the Saxon place-name Gillingas, and a settlement is recorded here in the twelfth century, amid a great forest that carpeted the area to the west of London.

The earliest surviving English census is that for Ealing in 1599. The list was a census of all 85 households in Ealing village giving the names of the inhabitants, together with their ages, relationships and occupations. It survives in manuscript form in the Public Record Office (PRO E 163/24/35), and it has been transcribed and printed by K. J. Allison.

As London developed, the area became predominantly market gardens. In the 1850s with improved travel (the Great Western Railway (God's Wonderful Railway) and two branches of the Grand Union Canal) villages started to grow into towns, and then merged into unbroken residential areas. It also became known as the "Queen of the suburbs".

Earley is a town in Berkshire, England with a population of around 30,000 people. It lies to the east of the large town of Reading, and runs directly into it. It is part of the Wokingham district. In some usages, the name is spelt Erleigh and even Erlegh. Earley itself consists of a number of subordinate areas, including Maiden Erlegh and Lower Earley.

Up to 1888, Earley extended westwards from the Three Tuns crossroads down the Wokingham Road and into Reading. To enable this section to be linked into the drainage system, Reading extended its boundaries to the Three Tuns crossroads and this part of Earley became part of Reading. At this time, the centre of Earley was the crossroads and Saint Peters church.

Earley grew rapidly both before and after World War II, and became a town in 1974. From 1977, the Lower Earley private estate was constructed, almost doubling the town's population to the current level. Two new primary schools were built together a large supermarket complex and sports centre. An additional secondary school has not yet been built and Lower Earley is running out of land.

Nowadays, Lower Earley is often spoken of as a town in its own right even though it is just a new development at the southern end of the town.

Earley possesses its own Town Council based at Radstock House. Amongst other functions, the Council runs Sol Joel Park leased from Wokingham District Council, 2 community centres and Maiden Erlegh Lake.

Earley falls within the following parliamentary constituencies: Wokingham and Reading East .

Earley and Lower Earley are generally considered to be bordered by the following roads (although the exact location of its borders is not well defined): the A3290 dual carriageway to the north, the B3270 Lower Earley Way to the east and south, and the B3350 Wilderness Road and A327 Shinfield Road to the west. North of the these is Woodley, west is Whitley Wood, east is Winnersh and south is Sindlesham.

Earley railway station is on the railway line from Reading to London Waterloo stations. However, Winnersh Triangle railway station is also near to the suburb.

East Dereham, also known simply as Dereham, is a town and civil parish in the English county of Norfolk.It is situated on the A47 road, some 15 miles (25 km) west of the city of Norwich and 25 miles (40 km) east of King's Lynn. The town should not be confused with the Norfolk village of West Dereham, which lies about 25 miles (40 km) away.[1]

The civil parish has an area of 21.51 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 15,659 in 6,941 households. For the purposes of local government, East Dereham falls within, and is the centre of administration for, the district of Breckland.[2]

The town lies on the site of a monastery founded by Saint Withburga in the seventh century. A holy well in the town supposedly began to flow when her body was moved from the town to Ely. In the 18th Century an attempt was made to turn Dereham into a new Buxton or Bath by building a bath house over Withburga's Well. It was described at the time as a hideous building of brick and plaster and was never popular. In 1880 the local vicar, Reverend Benjamin Armstrong obtained permission to pull the building down. The spring was then protected by iron railings, but fell out of use and became choked with weeds. Since 1950, however, it has been kept clear of weeds - although the railings still prevent access to the waters.

Notable buildings in the town include the pargetted Bishop Bonners Cottage, built in 1502, the Norman parish church, a windmill and a large mushroom-shaped water tower. The Gressenhall Museum of Rural Life is nearby. The town also hosts the headquarters of the Mid-Norfolk Railway, which runs trains over an 11.5 mile railway to Wymondham, as well as owning the line 6 miles north to North Elmham and County School Station.

Famous people from the town include George Borrow, Brian Aldiss, Beth Orton and William Hyde Wollaston. It is also known as the place where William Cowper died.

The principal offices of Newham Council are located on the corner of Barking Road and the High Street in the former East Ham Town Hall, a grand victorian structure with a clock tower. From 1915 to 1965 East Ham was an independent county borough which was administered from here. Prior to that date it was part of Essex.

To the north of East Ham is Manor Park and Little Ilford, to the east over the North Circular Road is Barking, to the west is Upton Park and to the south over the A13 is Beckton and London City Airport.

Housing in East Ham consists principally of Victorian terraced town houses, often in tree lined streets, which radiate from the High Street. Mass transport is provided by East Ham tube station and bus services which form a hub near the Town Hall.

East Ham lends its name to the House of Commons constituency of East Ham, which covers East Ham and neighbouring areas.

Nearest places: Barking, Beckton, Forest Gate, Little Ilford, Manor Park, Newham, Plaistow, Plashet, Upton Park

Edmonton is 8.6 miles (13.8 km) north-north-east of Charing Cross and stretches from just south of the North Circular Road in the south to the M25 in the north and from Hadley Wood in the west to the River Lea in the east.

Edmonton comprises Upper Edmonton to the south and Lower Edmonton to the north. The Member of Parliament for Edmonton is Andy Love (Labour), who polled 18,456 votes (53.2%) at the General Election held on 5 May 2005. The main shopping centre in Edmonton is at Edmonton Green.

Pymmes Park with its historic walled garden is Upper Edmonton's park. Pymmes Park originated as a private estate. In the late 16th century it was owned by the powerful Cecil family. In 1589 Robert Cecil, later 1st Earl of Salisbury, spent his honeymoon at Pymmes. The estate was eventually acquired by Edmonton Council and opened as a public park in 1906. Pymmes House was destroyed by fire during World War II and the remains were demolished. Robert Cecil was a protege of Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's chief spymaster and he succeeded him as Secretary of State in 1590.

The historic All Saints' Church is situated in Church Street as is Lamb's Cottage, which was home to writers Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb.

The railway arrived in 1840 with the opening of the first section of the Lea Valley Line from Stratford to Broxbourne. A station was provided in Water Lane (Angel Road). As the station was badly sited and the trains were slow and expensive, few people used the railway in the early days, preferring the horse buses. In 1845 there were buses every 15 minutes along Fore Street, travelling alternately to Bishopsgate and Holborn.

The single-track line from a junction just north of Angel Road to Enfield Town opened on 1 March 1849, with an intermediate single-platform station at Lower Edmonton, located at the edge of the village green. The service was infrequent and often required a change of train at the junction. This, coupled with the train taking the long way round through Stratford to get to the terminus at Bishopsgate, meant that the railway offered little competition to the existing horse coaches and buses.

The direct line from London to Enfield Town was opened in four stages, from Bethnal Green to Stoke Newington on 27 May 1872; from Stoke Newington through to Lower Edmonton High Level on 22 July 1872, with stations in Edmonton at Silver Street and a new High Level station at Lower Edmonton, which was renamed Edmonton Green in 1992; the short section from Lower Edmonton High Level to Edmonton Junction (where the new line met the original Eastern Counties Railway route from Angel Road to Enfield Town via Lower Edmonton Low Level) on 1 August 1872; and the suburban platforms on the west side of Liverpool Street station on 2 February 1874.

The stations were well sited and offered exceptionally cheap workmen's fares of just 2d on trains arriving at Liverpool Street prior to 07:00, 3d on those arriving between 07:00 and 07:30, and half-price returns on those arriving between 07:30 and 08:00. A horse tramway along Fore Street opened in 1881. The tramway was re-constructed and electrified during 1905, lasting until 1938 when trolleybuses took over.

The old highway Ermine Street passed through what is today Edmonton. Ermine Street was the main Roman Road from London through Lincoln and on to York. Edmonton appears in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it is recorded as Adelmentone.

The River Lea adjoins the east of Edmonton and runs from the Chiltern Hills through Hertfordshire and the Lea Valley down to the Thames.

Nearest places: Tottenham to the south, Palmers Green to the west, Walthamstow to the east, Ponders End to the north, Winchmore Hill to the north

Egham is a small town in the Runnymede borough of Surrey in South East England and part of the London commuter belt.

It is located 30 km (19 miles) southwest of central London on both the River Thames and on the M25 motorway (Junction 13). Royal Holloway, University of London is situated on Egham Hill, 1 km to the west of the town.

Egham predates 666 which was when Chertsey Abbey was founded with lands which included that of Ecga's Ham, from which the name Egham derives. In 1086, the Domesday Book recorded that Egham consisted of 15 hides of land and was worth £30 10s 0d.

The village of Egham was previously an ancient parish covering land totalling 7,435 acres in the counties of Berkshire and Surrey; incorporating Egham, Egham Hill, Coopers Hill, Englefield Green, Virginia Water, Shrubs Hill, Runnymede, and a considerable portion of Windsor Great Park.

The manor of Egham, which includes Runnymede belonged formerly, and in 1215, to Chertsey Abbey, and after the dissolution (around 1540) became the property of the Crown, though granted to various tenants (holders) at different times.

The Magna Carta was sealed at nearby Runnymede in 1215, and is commemorated by a memorial, built in 1957 by the American Bar Association, at the foot of Cooper's Hill (a small rise adjacent to the Thames floodplain, immortalised in verse by such luminaries as John Denham ('Cooper's Hill') and Alexander Pope ('Windsor Forest')).

There is also another, more sizeable memorial at the top of the hill (technically located in the nearby village of Englefield Green) that commemorates Allied airmen, whose bodies were never recovered, killed whilst serving with Commonwealth forces in World War II. This structure is of particular architectural interest as the first new-built British building to be listed in the post-war era. The memorial (administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) is freely open to the public year-round and offers excellent views towards London, Windsor and the Surrey Hills, as well as being a place of quiet contemplation and reflection.

Egham at one time held horse races which took place at the Runnymede meadow, which interfered with the Inclosure Act of 1814 (54 G. III, c. 153), and the consequent award made in 1817, which divided up the meadow, as the Act stipulated that any enclosures which should interfere with the holding of Egham races at the end of August upon on its usual course must be removed every year. In 1836 the races was presided over by William IV, who gave a plate to be run for at the meeting, which coincided with festivities at Windsor for his daughter's marriage. The races ceased in 1884.

The river Enborne shares its name, although is does not run through the village. It does however run through the nearby village of Enborne Row.

Enborne historically adhered to an unusual legal practice. The rights to copyhold land inheritance from a husband were forfeited if his widow remarried. However, the steward of the manor was obliged to reinstate the rights if she rode into the manor court, backwards on a black ram, whilst at the same time reciting a particular set of bizarre lines ending in a request for their restoration.

Enfield Town is a town in the London Borough of Enfield. It is 10.1 miles (16.2 km) north north-east of Charing Cross.

Historically Enfield was a collection of small communities spread around the royal hunting grounds of Enfield Chase. At the time of the Domesday Book the area was spelt 'Enefelde', and had a priest who almost certainly resided in St. Andrews Church. By 1572 most of the basic street layout had been completed. The village green later became the historic marketplace where the fountain now stands.

In 1840 the first section of the Northern and Eastern Railway was opened from Stratford to Broxbourne with stations at Water Lane (Angel Road) and Ponders End. Further stations were added in 1855 at Enfield Lock (Royal Small Arms Factory) and 1884 at Brimsdown. A branch line from Water Lane to Enfield Town was opened in 1849 serving Edmonton Low Level and Enfield Town. A further station was added in 1880 at Bush Hill Park. The direct line from London to Enfield Town was opened in 1872 with stations at Silver Street and Lower Edmonton (now called Edmonton Green). In 1891 a loop from Edmonton serving Southbury (Churchbury) and Turkey Street (Forty Hill) to Cheshunt on the main line was added.

In 1871 the great Northern Railway opened its station on Windmill Hill. This was later replaced in 1910 when the line was extended to Cuffley. This section of railway is now part of the line commonly known as the Hertford Loop.

Enfield Town is famous for having the world's first ever cash machine or ATM, which was installed at the branch of Barclays Bank on June 27, 1967. The world's first solid state circuitry colour televisions were manufactured by Ferguson at their plant (now closed) in Enfield.

Enfield has a proud history in sport - Enfield F.C. were from the 1960s to the 1980s one of the best known and most successful non-League clubs, and the various Cricket clubs in the Borough have had great success over the years. Much of the local sporting success has been attributed to the local schools sports program.

Enfield has longstanding links with the Gunpowder Plot, as Guy Fawkes and his team are known to have used a safe house in Whitewebbs Lane, Enfield. He is also thought to have drunk at the King and Tinker pub, known then as The White Hart.

Eton is a town in Berkshire, England, lying on the opposite bank of the River Thames to Windsor and connected to it by Windsor Bridge.

The town is best known as the location of Eton College, an exclusive public school.

The city of Exeter is the county town of Devon, in the southwest of England, also known as the Westcountry. It is situated on the River Exe.

The Latin name for Exeter, Isca Dumnoniorum ("Isca of the Dumnones"), suggests that the city was originally a Celtic oppidum, or town, on the banks on the River Exe prior to the foundation of the Roman city in about AD 50. Such early towns, or proto-cities, had been a feature of pre-Roman Gaul as described by Julius Caesar in his Commentarii de Bello Gallico ("Commentaries on the Gallic Wars") and it is not improbable that they existed in neighbouring Great Britain as well. Isca is clearly a Celtic generic noun and the Romans felt the need to label the city Isca Dumnoniorum, or the Isca of the Dumnonii, in order to distinguish it from such settlements as Isca Silurum (modern Caerleon-on-Usk in Monmouthshire).

Isca Dumnoniorum was the most south-westerly Roman fortified settlement in England. Significant parts of the Roman wall remain, though the present visible structure was largely built on the orders of Alfred the Great to protect the far west of his kingdom following the Viking occupation of 876. Most of its route can be traced on foot. There is a substantial Roman baths complex that was excavated in the 1970s.[1], but because of its proximity to the cathedral, it has not been practicable to retain the excavation for public view. Exeter was also the southern starting point for the Fosse Way Roman road.

In 876 Exeter (Exanceaster) was attacked and captured by the Danes. King Alfred drove them out the next year. In 894 the city stood off another siege by Danes.

In 1067 the city rebelled against William the Conqueror who promptly marched West and laid siege. The city submitted only after 18 days. Part of the capitulation agreement was that all the nobles in the city would be confirmed in their positions as long as a castle was built.

Exeter was held against King Stephen by Baldwin de Redvers in 1140 and submitted only after a three month siege when the supplies of fresh water ran out.

In 1537, the city was made a county corporate. In 1549 the city successfully withstood a month-long siege by the Prayer Book rebels. The Livery Dole Almshouses and Chapel at Heavitree were founded in March 1591 and finished in 1594. They can still be seen today in the street which bears the name Livery Dole.

The city's motto, Semper fidelis, is traditionally held to have been suggested by Elizabeth I, in acknowledgement of the city's contribution of ships for the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Exeter was at first a Parliamentary town in the English Civil War in the largely Royalist South West, but it was captured by the Royalists on 4 September 1643 and it remained in their control until near the end of the war, being one of the final Royalist cities to fall into Parliamentary hands.

Early in the English industrial revolution, Exeter's industry developed on the basis of locally available agricultural products and, since the city's location on a fast-flowing river gave it ready access to water power, an early industrial site developed on drained marshland to the west of the city, at Exe Island. However when steam power replaced water in the nineteenth century, Exeter was too far from sources of coal (or iron) to develop further. As a result the city declined in relative importance, and was spared the rapid nineteenth century development that changed many historic European cities.

The first railway to arrive in Exeter was the Bristol and Exeter Railway that opened a station at St Davids, on the western edge, in 1844. The South Devon Railway Company extended the line westwards to Plymouth, opening their own smaller station at St Thomas, near the lower end of Fore Street. A more central station, that at Queen Street, was opened by the London and South Western Railway in 1860 when it opened its alternative route to London.

Exeter was bombed by the German Luftwaffe in the Second World War, when a total of 18 raids between 1940 and 1942 flattened much of the city centre. In 1942, as part of the Baedeker Blitz and specifically in response to the RAF bombing of Lubeck, forty acres (160,000 m²) of the city, particularly adjacent to its central High Street and Sidwell Street, were levelled by incendiary bombing. Many historic buildings were destroyed, and others, including the grand Cathedral of St Peter in the heart of the city, were damaged.

Large areas of the city were rebuilt in the 1950s, when little attempt was made to preserve Exeter's ancient heritage. Damaged buildings were generally demolished rather than restored, and even the street plan was altered in an attempt to improve traffic circulation. The post-war buildings are generally perceived as being of little architectural merit, unlike many of those that they replaced, such as Bedford Circus and a section of the ancient city wall.

Despite some local opposition, the city centre is currently undergoing another significant change with the redevelopment of the Princesshay shopping centre in a more modern style. The development, due to be completed in 2007, aims to ensure that Exeter can compete with other regional cities, such as Plymouth and Bristol.

Previously regarded as second only to Bath as an architectural site in southern England, since the 1942 bombing and subsequent reconstruction Exeter has been a city with some beautiful buildings rather than a beautiful city. As a result, although there is a significant tourist trade, Exeter is not dominated by tourism.

It lies just off the A14 trunk road, roughly 12 miles east-northeast of Cambridge, and 10 miles south-south-east of Ely. The nearest large town is Newmarket.

The most conspicuous building in Exning is the church of St Martin, which is visible from the A14.

Exning is reputed to have been the birthplace of Saint Ethelreda, to whom the cathedral at Ely is dedicated, though this is disputed.

During the Second World War, Exning housed the headquarters of No 3 Group of RAF Bomber Command. Little evidence remains of this chapter in Exning's history, apart from a large hangar, which once housed some of the Bomber Group's Short Stirling aircraft, which is still visible next to the A14.

The village of Exning is thought to have Anglo-Saxon settlers by the 6th century. The name Exning from its earliers spelling Ixning, is a later form of Gyxeningas, meaning Gixa's people who would have been the first Anglo-Saxon's to settle in Exning.

It is popularly thought that both Queen Boadicea and King Anna of the East Angles had courts in Exning although that is not proven. St Ethelreda is documented to have been born in Exning, she later founded Ely cathedral.

William the Conqueror retained most of Exning, called Esselinga in the Domesday Book, for himself with a population of about 400 people in 88 families.

In the period 1808-1821 more the 20 thatched dwellings burnt down. Exning's population had been predominantly an agricultural community. The 1841 Census shows that 70% where involved in agriculture while the remaining occupations include shoemakers, carpenters, tailors, maltsters, wheelwrights and blacksmiths. The same pubs, the Wheatsheaf, The Swan and The White Horse, as of today plus five shops, two grocers, a butcher and a post office.

A few schools opened and closed, some with little or no record. Exning Primary School was built in 1876 to accommodate the village children, saving them to walk to Newmarket or Burwell.

Farlington is a district of Portsmouth. It is located in the north east of the city and is not actually on Portsea Island. Farlington was incorporated into the city in 1932 and now forms a continuous development with Cosham and Drayton.

Farlington was a small rural community for the majority of its existence. In 1891 a racecourse, called 'Portsmouth Park', was built in Farlington, between the Havant road and the shoreline. This new course was built with all of the modern facilities available at the time, including its own railway station, with the intention of tirning it into premier tracks. However race meetings were suspended during World War One and the War Office turned the course into one of the country's biggest ammunition dumps. After hostilities ceased, the War Office held control of the site and it was not released 1929 when it was bought by Portsmouth City Council. The council then sold on the land for private housing development, eventually leading to the end of Farlington as a distinct community.

It is of historic interest, with many old buildings, including a number of Georgian houses. Farnham Castle overlooks the town. Although now a conference centre, the medieval keep is in the care of English Heritage and is open to the public.

Farnham was the birthplace of William Cobbett and the home of Mike Hawthorn at the time of his death.

It was the Saxons who gave the town its name - Farnham is listed as Fearnhamme in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Fearn refers to the fern and bracken of the land and Hamme to the water meadows. In 688 the West Saxon King Caedwalla donated the district around Farnham to the Church, and to the diocese of Winchester. A Saxon community grew up in the valley by the river. At the time of the Danish invasion in the 9th century there was a battle on the edge of the settlement when Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, routed the invaders.

The Domesday Book records Farnham as a possession of the Bishop of Winchester. The town is midway between Winchester and London and in 1138 Henry de Blois (grandson of William the Conqueror, and brother of King Stephen) started building the Castle to provide accommodation for the Bishop in his frequent journeying between his cathedral and the capital. The castle's garrison provided a market for farms and small industries in the town, accelerating its growth.

Farnham was eventually granted its charter as a town in 1249 by William de Ralegh, then Bishop of Winchester.

The Blind Bishop's Steps, a series of steps leading along Castle Street up to the Castle, were originally constructed for Bishop Richard Fox (godfather of Henry VIII).

During the English Civil War the castle was, except for two short periods, in the hands of Parliamentary forces. In 1648 the keep was partially dismantled by the victorious parliamentarians, at the orders of Oliver Cromwell, to make further occupation by garrison impossible. In 1660 the Bishops of Winchester were restored to the adjoining Bishops Palace, which remained their residence until 1927. From 1927 until 1955 it was a residence of the Bishops of the newly created diocese of Guildford. The castle is currently owned by English Heritage.

The Black Death hit Farnham in 1348, killing about 1,300 people, at that time about a third of the population. In 1625 Farnham was again subject to an outbreak of the plague.

King Charles I stayed at Vernon House in Farnham on his way to his trial and execution in London in 1649. Vernon House is now the site of the town library.

Farnham became a successful market town; the author Daniel Defoe wrote that Farnham had the greatest corn-market after London, and describes 1,100 fully laden wagons delivering wheat to the town on market day. During the 17th century other new industries evolved: greenware pottery (a pottery, dating from 1873, still exists on the outskirts of the town), wool and cloth, the processing of wheat into flour, and eventually hops, a key ingredient of beer.

The essayist William Cobbett was born in Farnham in 1763, in a pub called the Jolly Farmer. The pub still stands, and has been renamed the William Cobbett.

The railway arrived in 1848 and, in 1854, neighbouring Aldershot became the “Home of the British Army”. Both events had a significant effect on Farnham. The fast link with London meant city businessmen could think of having a house in the country and still be in close contact with the office; Farnham thereby became an early example of a 'commuter town'. Also, the railway did not reach Aldershot until 1870; during the intervening period soldiers would be carried by train to Farnham station and then march to Aldershot. Many officers and their families chose to billet in Farnham itself. The railway was electrified by the Southern Railway company in 1937 as far as Alton, and a carriage shed for the new electric stock was built in Weydon Lane. This building, which carried fading camouflage paint for many years after World War II, was replaced in 2006.

In 1895 Farnham Urban District Council was formed. In 1930 the council purchased Farnham Park, a large park which occupies much of the former castle grounds.

In 1901, the population of Farnham was about 14,000. Since the end of the Second World War, Farnham has expanded from a population of about 20,000 to the present 38,000. Of that figure, approximately 15,000 live in the town centre, whilst the remaining 23,000 live in the surrounding suburbs and villages within the town's administrative boundaries.

Farnham Maltings, Bridge Square. Once a tannery, the site expanded to become part of the Farnham United Breweries, which included its own maltings. Taken over by a major brewer (Courage) brewing ceased but malting continued into the 1960s, when Courage's planned to sell off the site for redevelopment. Money raised by the people of Farnham saved the buildings from demolition for conversion to a community centre for the town. Current management place the emphasis on the arts over other community activities, many of which have ceased or moved elsewhere, but the famous Farnham Beer Exhibition (or "Beerex") continues, after more than 30 years, to be as popular as ever.

Fulham is an area of London in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, located 3.7 miles (5.9 km) south west of Charing Cross

Fulham was formerly the seat of the diocese of "Fulham and Gibraltar", and Fulham Palace the former official home of the Bishop of London, (now a museum), the grounds of which are now divided between public allotments and an elegant botanical garden.

Fulham during the 18th century had a reputation of debauchery, becoming a sort of 'Las Vegas retreat' for the wealthy of London, where there was much gambling and prostitution .

Fulham, or in its earliest form Fullanham, is uncertainly stated to signify "the place" either "of fowls" or "of dirt", or alternatively, "land in the crook of a river bend belonging to a man named Fulla". The manor is said to have been given to Bishop Erkenwald about the year 691 for himself and his successors in the see of London, and Holinshed relates that the Bishop of London was lodging in his manor place in 1141 when Geoffrey de Mandeville, riding out from the Tower of London, took him prisoner. At the Commonwealth the manor was temporarily out of the bishops' hands, being sold to Colonel Edmund Harvey. There is no record of the first erection of a parish church, but the first known rector was appointed in 1242, and a church probably existed a century before this. The earliest part of the church demolished in 1881, however, did not date farther back than the 15th century. In 879 Danish invaders, sailing up the Thames, wintered at Fulham and Hammersmith. Near the former wooden Putney Bridge, built in 1729 and replaced in 1886, the earl of Essex threw a bridge of boats across the river in 1642 in order to march his army in pursuit of Charles I, who thereupon fell back on Oxford. Margravine Road recalls the existence of Bradenburg House, a riverside mansion built by Sir Nicholas Crispe in the time of Charles I, used as the headquarters of General Fairfax in 1647 during the civil wars, and occupied in 1792 by the margrave of Bradenburg-Anspach and Bayreuth and his wife, and in 1820 by Caroline, consort of George IV.

Glasgow (Glaschu in Gaelic; or Glesca/Glesga in Scots) is the largest city in Scotland.

The City of Glasgow is the most populous unitary authority area. It is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands.

People from Glasgow are known as Glaswegians. Glaswegian is also the name of the local dialect of Scots, which is popularly referred to as the "Glasgow Patter".

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Glasgow grew to a population of over one million, and was the third city in Europe to exceed this number of inhabitants, after London and Paris. In the 1960s large-scale relocation to new towns in the outskirts of the city, followed by successive boundary changes, have reduced the current population of the City of Glasgow to 599,950 although 1,749,154 live in the urban areas surrounding the city, based on the 2001 census. Around 2,300,000 people live in the Greater Glasgow conurbation, defined as the City of Glasgow and the surrounding region.

Glasgow established itself as a major transatlantic trading port during the Industrial Revolution. The Clyde grew to become one of the world's pre-eminent shipbuilding centres, building many revolutionary and famous vessels.

Today Glasgow is Scotland's largest and most economically important commerce and retail centre.[6] It is one of Europe's top 16 financial centres and home to many of the country's leading businesses. Glasgow is now the most popular foreign tourist destination in the United Kingdom after Edinburgh and London.

Grazeley is a small rural village in the English county of Berkshire, located approximatley four miles south of Reading at grid reference SU698668. It is divided by the two administrative unitary authorities of Wokingham District and West Berkshire.

The name of Grazeley appears to date from c. 1598 and is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Griesley meaning grazing land (meadow). It has also been known by the names of Greyshall, Greasull, Greyshull, Gresley and Graseley. Around the late 19th Century it was also referred to as Lambwood Hill.

Grazeley was under the direct influence of the Diocese of Oxford. During the 12th Century the Abbot of Reading Abbey was Lord of the Manor of Grazeley. On the dissolution of Reading Abbey in 1541, Henry VIII granted the parish of Sulhamstead Abbots, and Grazeley with it, for purchase by Sir John Williams (later Lord Williams of Thame).

After his death in 1559, Lord Williams' possessions were passed to his daughters. Through various sales and transfers other major landowners declaring ownership of the area in their title deeds include the Norrey's, the Earls of Abingdon, the Head's and the Benyon's of Englefield.

Great Barford is a village in Bedfordshire, England, a few miles north-east of Bedford. It lies on the River Great Ouse at grid reference TL129523. The population was in excess of 5000 in 2001. It is twinned with Wollstein, Germany. The village is passed through by the busy A421 road on the way between Bedford and St Neots in Cambridgeshire, but a bypass is being built that is due to open in 2006.

The village is known for its All Saints Church, with a 15th century tower, and its similarly ancient bridge. The scenic surroundings and historic buildings make it a favoured destination for angling and picnics.

Greenwich (pronounced 'grenn-itch' or by some 'grinn-itch') is a town, now part of the south eastern urban sprawl of London, on the south bank of the River Thames in the London Borough of Greenwich. It is best known for its maritime history and as the location of Greenwich Mean Time.

The Royal Greenwich Observatory is located in Greenwich and the Prime Meridian passes through the building. Greenwich Mean Time was at one time based on the time observations made at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, before being superseded by Coordinated Universal Time. While Greenwich no longer hosts a working astronomical observatory, a ball still drops daily to mark the exact moment of 1 pm (13:00), and there is a museum of astronomical and navigational tools, particularly John Harrison's chronometers.

The observatory is situated in Greenwich Park, which used to be the grounds of the Royal Palace of Placentia. At the bottom of the park is the National Maritime Museum which also includes the Queen's House, designed by Inigo Jones. It is free to visit all these buildings.

Greenwich also features the world's only museum dedicated to fans, the Fan Museum, in a Georgian townhouse at 10-12 Croom's Hill (fee payable). Also on Croom's Hill, on the corner of the junction with Nevada Street is Greenwich Theatre, formerly Crowder's Music Hall - one of two Greenwich theatres, the other being Greenwich Playhouse.

The Cutty Sark (a clipper ship) is in a dry dock by the river. Nearby for many years was also displayed Gipsy Moth IV, the 54ft yacht sailed by Sir Francis Chichester in his single-handed, 226-day circumnavigation of the globe during 1966-67. In 2004, Gypsy Moth IV was removed from Greenwich for extensive restoration work to be followed by a return to the sea and a second sailing career.

By the Cutty Sark, there is a pedestrian tunnel, the Greenwich foot tunnel, to the Isle of Dogs. This exits at Island Gardens, from where the famous view of Greenwich Hospital painted by Canaletto can be seen. On the riverside in front of the north-west corner of the Hospital is an obelisk erected in memory of Arctic explorer Joseph René Bellot.

The Millennium Dome was built on a disused British Gas site here. It is next to North Greenwich tube station, about three miles from Greenwich town centre, north of Charlton. The Greenwich Millennium Village is a new development nearby.

The University of Greenwich and the Trinity College of Music are now based in the Greenwich Hospital (formerly the Royal Naval College) buildings between Greenwich Park and the river. These buildings were designed by Sir Christopher Wren and include the Painted Hall, painted by James Thornhill, and St Paul's Chapel. These are also open to the public without charge.

The church dominating the western side of the town centre is St Alfege's Church, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1714, and marks the place where Archbishop of Canterbury Alfege (also spelt 'Alphege') was murdered in 1012.

The town centre features Greenwich Market, a covered market popular with tourists at the weekends.

In recognition of the suburb's astronomical links, Asteroid 2830 has been named 'Greenwich'.

Wayland consists of the area around the villages and towns of Saham Toney, Watton, Griston, Thompson and Stow Bedon.

Farnham is a small town (pop. 38,000) in Surrey, England. The town railway station is on the Alton Line, which provides commuter links to London. The A31 Farnham bypass links the town by road to Winchester, Alton and Guildford, and the A325 links the town to the A3 (London-Portsmouth) at Greatham.

It is believed that Guildford was founded by Saxon settlers shortly after Roman authority had been removed from Britain (which was c.410AD). The site was likely chosen because the Harrow Way (an ancient trackway that continues along Hog's Back) crosses the River Wey at this point, via a ford. This probably gives rise to the second half of Guildford's name. The root of the first part is gold rather than society or meeting place. It has been suggested that the gold may refer to golden flowers by the ford, or the golden sand, but this is not certain.

It has long been speculated that Guildford may have been the Astolat of Arthurian renown[4], however the legendary city is more likely to have been Calleva (modern day Silchester), the capital of the Atrebates, which resisted the Anglo-Saxons for many years.

Alfred Atheling, son of King Ethelred II, had been living in Normandy in France during the Danish invasion of Saxon England. After Canute died, around 1040, Alfred returned to England, where he was met and entertained in Guildford by the Earl Godwine. Godwine handed him to Harold Harefoot's men, who blinded and mutilated him to the extent that he died not long after.

There is a 12th century Norman castle, which was built as an overnight resting place as the southernmost point of the Windsor hunting park. It was visited on several occasions by King John and King Henry III[4]. Today only the keep, restored in Victorian times and then in 2004, remains; the rest of the grounds are a pleasant public garden.

In 1619 George Abbot founded the Hospital of the Holy Trinity[4], now commonly known as Abbot's Hospital[5], one of the finest sets of almshouses in the country. It is sited at the top end of the High Street, opposite St Nicholas' church. The brick-built, three-storey entrance tower faces the church; a grand stone archway leads into the courtyard. On each corner of the tower there is an octagonal turret rising an extra floor, with lead ogee domes[5].

In 1995 a Chamber was discovered in Guildford High Street. It is widely believed to be the remains of a 12th century synagogue. This remains a matter of contention though it is likely to be the oldest remaining synagogue in Western Europe.

Guildford elected two members to the Unreformed House of Commons. From the 14th century to the 18th century, it prospered with the wool trade.

Guildford was made a diocese in 1927, and Guildford Cathedral was consecrated in 1961. Previously, it had been part of the diocese of Winchester.

The second Edgar was a 60-gun fourth-rate* launched in 1758 and sunk as a breakwater in 1774.

*(In the British Royal Navy, a fourth-rate was, during the 18th century, a ship of the line mounting 50-60 guns . Though used largely during the Seven Years' War, by the time of the American Revolution and especially the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the fourth rate was considered too weak to stand in the line of battle. The few that remained were relegated to convoy escort, or as flagships on far-flung stations; a number were also converted to troopships, armed only "en flûte" (i.e., with most of the guns removed or stored below decks, to make more room for passengers or cargo).)

The London Borough of Hackney is a London borough in North East London and part of Inner London.

The borough is known for being one of the poorest and crime-affected London boroughs. Despite this perception it is a place of considerable contrasts. The south western tip of the borough is adjacent to the City and close to the Broadgate development. In this area some office development has taken place within the borough boundary.

Also in the south west is Hoxton and Shoreditch which are central to the London arts scene and home to numerous clubs, bars, shops and restaurants, much of which is centered on Hoxton Square.

The development of Shoreditch and Hoxton caused land value to increase in the area such that developers looked to other parts of the borough for development. Much of Hackney is inner-city in character and in places like Dalston large housing estates now sit side-by-side with gated communities.

The main commercial and retail centre of Hackney is known as Hackney Central to distinguish it from the rest of the borough. South Hackney abuts Victoria Park (which is in neighbouring Tower Hamlets) and terraced Victorian and Edwardian housing stock has survived in the area.

To the north of the borough is Clapton, Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington which are more suburban in character. To the east is the large open space of the Hackney Marshes and the districts of Hackney Wick and Homerton. There is some declining light industry around the River Lea (the eastern boundary).

The borough was formed in 1965 from the former metropolitan boroughs of Hackney, Shoreditch and Stoke Newington.

Halifax is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England, with a population of about 82,000. It is well known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward.

The name Halifax is said to be a corruption of the old English words for Holy and Face, part of the local legend that the head of John the Baptist was buried here after his execution. The legend is almost certainly medieval rather than ancient, though the town's coat of arms still carries an image of the saint. (The oldest written mentions of the town have the spelling Haliflax, apparently meaning "holy flax (field)", the second l having been subsequently lost by dissimilation.[2]) Halifax Parish Church, parts of which go back to the 12th century, has always been dedicated to St John the Baptist. The church's first organist, in 1765, was William Herschel, who later discovered the planet Uranus.

Halifax was incorporated as a county borough in 1848 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.

Since 1974, Halifax has been the centre of the metropolitan district of Calderdale, part of the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire. Halifax has given its name to a bank, Halifax plc which started as a building society in the town. Halifax is a twin town with Aachen in Germany. The A58 has a stretch called Aachen Way, with a plaque on the town-bound side of the road.

Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in London, approximately 5 miles (8km) west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames. One of West London's key transport hubs and commercial and employment centres, home to several multinational company offices, it is focused on the two London Underground stations, bus station and road network node at Hammersmith Broadway.

It is bordered by Shepherd's Bush to the north, Kensington to the east, Fulham to the south and Chiswick to the west, and is linked by Hammersmith Bridge to Barnes in the southwest.

There is evidence of occupation of some riverside areas around Hammersmith as far back as Roman and Saxon times, and the area was referred to in the Domesday Book. The name may possibly be a shortening of "Hamoder's Hythe", i.e. the landing-place of a man named Hamoder.

However it was not until the arrival of the railways that the present day district of Hammersmith began to develop. The extension of the Metropolitan Railway to Hammersmith from Paddington in 1864, followed by the District Line in 1874, began a period of considerable expansion and the second half of the 19th century saw a huge increase in population from 10,000 in 1801 to 250,000 in 1901.

Consequently, house construction and industrial development flourished. Major industrial sites included the Osram lamp factory at Brook Green, the J. Lyons factory (which at one time employed 30,000 people) and the largest municipal power station in Britain, built near the gasworks in Sands End.

All these have subsequently been closed and redeveloped as the area has moved from an industrial base to a greater focus on commerce and services.

Hamworthy is a parish and inner suburb of Poole in Dorset, England. Hamworthy is situated beside Poole Harbour between two bays, Holes Bay to the east and Lychett Bay to the west, on a peninsula of approximately three square kilometres. Poole town bridge, the southern terminus of the A350 road, connects the suburb with the town centre. Hamworthy is the location of the Poole passenger teminal, the dock of cross-channel ferries.

Hamworthy was the location of a Roman settlement named Moriconium, which made use of the natural harbour, and was connected by road to Badbury Rings.

More recently Hamworthy has changed considerably in character. The closure of the power station in the early 1990's and of other industrial sites close to the town bridge has provided an area for regeneration. This includes plans for a second bridge crossing, and major house building.

Hamworthy has its own railway station, with a basically hourly South West trains service on the London Waterloo to Weymouth line and another hourly service that runs from Warhem to Brockenhurst calling at all the stations between them.

Mitford and Launditch Hundred was an old grouping of parishes for administrative purposes in the County of Norfolk, England. It is located around East Dereham and is bordered by Walsingham Hundred, Aylsham Hundred, Horsham St. Faith Hundred, Forehoe Hundred, Wayland Hundred, Swaffham Hundred and Freebridge Lynn Hundred.

Hartley Wintney is a village and civil parish in the English county of Hampshire.

Hartley Wintney is located at grid reference SU764567 in the Hart district of North-East Hampshire. The parish includes the joined village of Phoenix Green to the south and surrounding hamlets of Dipley, West Green, Elvetham and Hartfordbridge, as well as large wooded areas such as Yateley Heath Wood and part of Hazeley Heath. The River Hart flows to the north-east of the village. The River Whitewater forms the western parish boundary and the M3 motorway forms the southern boundary.

The village has a typical wide Hampshire main street, lined with local businesses, shops, public houses and a Baptist church. It is particularly well-known for a proliferation of good antique shops. At the southern end is the village green and duckpond (with thatched duck house). The red-brick parish church of St John and rows of elegant oak trees stand beyond. The cricket green, home of the oldest cricket club in Hampshire, is behind the shops adjoining a second picturesque duckpond and dutch-gabled farmhouse.

In 1831, the village (excluding Elvetham and Hartfordbridge) had a population of 1139. In 2004, the ward had a population of 4954 and is expected to only increase to 5022 by 2008. The village is twinned with Saint-Savin near Poitiers, France and with Malle, famous for its Trappist beer, near Antwerp in Belgium. [1]

It is recorded in the 13th century as Hertleye Wynteneye which means "the clearing in the forest where the deer graze by Winta’s island". Winta was probably a Saxon who owned the island in the marshes where a priory of Cistercian nuns was founded in the middle of the 12th century.

In prehistoric times, the area was probably fairly heavily wooded with a lake and a marshy area. Although Roman settlement here cannot be proved, there were Roman settlements not far away at Odiham and Silchester. A small settlement around a wooden church in the vicinity of St Mary's Church would possibly have existed in Saxon times. The village would have been included in the Hundred of Odiham in the Domesday Book of 1086. It was part of King Harold's royal estate at Odiham and after 1066 it became King William's land. About 100 years after the Conquest the lands comprising Hartley Wintney became a separate manor owned by the FitzPeters family. This family subsequently gave land to the Cistercians to found a Priory of Nuns. A deer park, which stretched from Odiham to the outskirts of the settlement and to the north, was used for 600 years by Royalty and others for hunting and the wood was used for fuel.

Havant is a town and district in Hampshire on the South coast of England, between Portsmouth and Chichester. It has good railway connections to London, Portsmouth and Brighton, being served by Havant railway station. The A27 road runs past its Southern side, beyond which lies Langstone, and then Hayling Island. To the north lies Leigh Park, a large council estate suburb which lies within Havant's boundaries, and beyond that Staunton Country Park. To the east is Emsworth, another small town, whilst to the west lies Bedhampton and Portsdown Hill. The A3(M) motorway passes to the west. The old centre of the town dates from Roman times, but the town has grown a lot since World War II, currently forming a conurbation with Langstone, Bedhampton, Leigh Park, Denvilles and Warblington.

The old centre of the town is similar to Chichester, in that it has a cross-shaped layout, with the four streets being named North Street, East Street, South Street and West Street.

There are several natural springs in the area, including one a short distance South-west of the church on West Street.

Much of Havant was destroyed by fire in 1760, leaving only the church and the adjacent late 16th or early 17th century cottages. The cottages are now known collectively as "The Old House at Home", and are now used as a pub. It is claimed that the two main beams in the lounge bar were recovered from the Spanish Armada, and that the "Bear Post" within once had the last dancing bear in England tethered to it. The oldest undisturbed part of St Faiths church date from the early 13th century; some of the foundations however are believed to date from Roman times.

Havant also has one of the more favoured colleges within the Portsmouth district, Havant College, located just to the north of the town centre. This success is partly due to the transport connections Havant has, including bus, train and roads. The main shopping centre is called Meridian Shopping (formerly known as The Meridian Centre), as well as a pedestrianised street in West Street. The old town hall now houses Havant Arts Centre. Havant is home to the local community radio station, Angel Radio which specialises in music and memories of the pre-60s era.

The Old House At Home. The raised grass to the right is part of St Faiths church grounds, in the middle of town.

The London Borough of Havering is a London borough in East London, England and forms part of Outer London. The principal town in Havering is Romford and the other main settlements are Hornchurch and Upminster.

The London Borough of Havering was created in 1965 by the combined former area of the Municipal Borough of Romford and Hornchurch Urban District which had been transferred to Greater London from Essex by the London Government Act 1963. The name originates from the Royal Liberty of Havering which covered broadly, but not exactly, the same area and had been abolished in 1892.

In 2004 a wind turbine was constructed on the Ford Motors plant grounds, which encroach on the south west of the borough, with another turbine in adjacent Barking and Dagenham.

Modern settlement originated in Anglo-Saxon times when it consisted of Havering Palace and the surrounding lands that belonged to the king. The palace itself is known to have existed since at least the reign of Edward the Confessor when it was one of his primary residences. The area formed a liberty from 1465 which included the parishes of Havering atte Bower, Hornchurch and Romford.

The name Havering appears in documents from around the 12th century. The origins of this name have been debated by historians since the Middle Ages when it was linked to the legend of Edward the Confessor and a mystical ring given to him by Saint John the Apostle

Hawley is a village located on the northeast border of the county of Hampshire in the UK. It lies in the parish of Blackwater and Hawley and is administered by Blackwater & Hawley Parish Council. It adjoins the small town of Blackwater and is considered as one of its suburbs. It is situated 5 km (3 miles) north of Farnborough, Hampshire, 53 km (33 miles) west-southwest of London and less than 1 km south of Blackwater, on the westernmost edge of the Blackwater Valley conurbation.

Hawley has a village hall (Hawley Memorial Hall), village green (Hawley Green), church (Holy Trinity & All Saints), equestrian centre (Hawley Equitation), private leisure centre (the Blackwater & Hawley Leisure Centre), a cricket ground and a playground area for children. It is regarded as one of the most affluent communities within the entire Blackwater Valley area.

There are also two schools in Hawley, Hawley Primary, and Hawley Place School, an independent day school comprising a mixed nursery and junior school, and a girls-only secondary school. Hawley Place School

Some 3 km (2 miles) to the southwest of the village lies Hawley Lake (via a forest walk of approximately 20 minutes from Hawley Green), which is used by the British Army for basic sailing training and also houses a private boating club. The lake is used by people with various craft such as dinghies, small sailboats, jet-skis and speedboats (water-skiing is also popular). There is also a beach on its southern shore which is popular with local residents. Each Bonfire Night a spectacular pyrotechnics display is staged by the Army on the lake's small islets, attracting thousands of visitors from many miles around.

Potter Heigham is a village and civil parish on the River Thurne in the English county of Norfolk. It is situated some 20 km north-east of the city of Norwich on the A149 road, and within The Broads National Park.[1]

The civil parish has an area of 10.38 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 961 in 425 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of North Norfolk.[2]

Potter Heigham is famed for its medieval bridge, believed to date from 1385. The bridge is famous for being the most difficult to navigate in the Broads. The bridge opening is so narrow that only small cruisers can pass through it, and then only at low water, usually with the help of a pilot which is free for holiday craft in the summer. A modern roadbridge is close by.

The village is part of the Ludham - Potter Heigham NNR, a National Nature Reserve. The Weavers Way, a long distance footpath, passes through the village on its way from Cromer to Great Yarmouth.

Hendon is a place in the London Borough of Barnet. It is a suburban development situated 7 miles (11.3 km) north west of Charing Cross.

Hendon was historically a civil parish in the county of Middlesex. The manor is described in Domesday (1087), but the name is earlier, and there is even evidence of Roman settlement discovered by the Hendon and District Archaeological Society and others. The Midland Railway and the Great Northern Railways came in the 1860s, and the underground, at Golders Green at least, in 1907. Much of the area developed into a suburb of London and now the area is mostly town with some countryside in the Mill Hill, and Edgware area. Hendon industry was mostly centred on manufacturing, and included motor and aviation works, and developed from the 1880s. In 1931 the civil parish of Edgware was abolished and its area was added to the civil parish of Hendon.

Hendon became an urban district in 1894. In 1932 the urban district became the Municipal Borough of Hendon. The municipal borough was abolished in 1965 and the area became part of the London Borough of Barnet.

Hendon’s claim to fame is in flying and Hendon Aerodrome is now the RAF Museum. The area is closely associated with the aviator Claude Grahame-White. Another part of the Aerodrome site is the Hendon Police College, the training centre for the Metropolitan Police.

It is a former borough and ancient parish. The name means the high place or down, and Hendon's motto is Endeavour. The Burroughs is a civic centre for the London Borough of Barnet, and also the site of Middlesex University Business School.

Henley-on-Thames is a town on the north side of the River Thames in South Oxfordshire, England, about 10 miles downstream and north-east from Reading, 10 miles upstream and west from Maidenhead. It is located on the corner between Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

Henley-on-Thames was established in the 12th century. It owes much to its location and port that supplied London with timber and grain.

Henley Bridge is a five arched bridge across the river which was built in 1786. The church of St. Mary is located nearby and features a tower built in the 16th century. About a mile upstream of the bridge is Marsh Lock.

Greenlands which took its present form when owned by W. H. Smith and is now home to Henley Management College

Henley is a world renowned centre for rowing, each summer holding the Henley Royal Regatta, one of the highlights of the social calendar of the English upper classes. The regatta is held on a stretch of the river that is naturally straight. The event became Royal in 1851. In that year Prince Albert became the patron of the regatta.

Henstead is a village in Norfolk and was originally a 'District' but has now become a part of the South Norfolk District.

Hertfordshire is located to the north of Greater London, and much of the county is part of the London commuter belt. The county has a wide range of transport links, with the M1, M10, A1(M), the M25 and other motorways passing through it. To the east of Hertfordshire is Essex, to the west is Buckinghamshire and to the north are Bedfordshire, Luton and Cambridgeshire.

The highest point in the county is 803 feet (245 m) above sea level, a quarter mile (400 m) from the village of Hastoe near Tring. The county motto, is "Trust and fear not". As part of a 2002 marketing campaign, the plant conservation charity Plantlife chose the Pasqueflower as Hertfordshire's county flower.

Hertfordshire was originally the area assigned to a fortress constructed at Hertford under the rule of Edward the Elder in 913. The name Hertfordshire appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1011.

Most English counties have nicknames for people from that county, such as a Tyke from Yorkshire and a Yellowbelly from Lincolnshire; the traditional nickname for people from Hertfordshire is 'Hertfordshire Hedgehog' or 'Hertfordshire Hayabout'; although hedgehogs are abundant in the county, the nickname is probably a corruption of 'haycock', a haystack, referring to the county's cornfields, which formed the county's principal Medieval export to the food markets of London.

The Domesday Book recorded the county as having nine hundreds. Tring and Danais became one, Dacorum. The other seven were Braughing, Broadwater, Cashio, Edwinstree, Hertford, Hitchin and Odsey.

Hertfordshire is the starting point of the New River: a man made waterway, opened in 1613 to supply London with fresh drinking water.

Hertfordshire's only city, St Albans, is built by the site of Verulamium, the third largest city in Roman Britain. The modern town was named after Saint Alban, the first Christian martyr.

Hatfield House, in Hatfield, was a former home to Queen Elizabeth I during her youth. It is said that here, while sat under a large oak tree (which although not alive today, can be viewed at the visitor centre within Hatfield Park), she was told she was to become Queen.

In 1965, under the London Government Act 1963, Barnet Urban District and East Barnet Urban District were abolished and their area transferred from Hertfordshire to Greater London to form part of the London Borough of Barnet. At the same time the Potters Bar Urban District was directly transferred from Middlesex to Hertfordshire.

From the 1920s until the late 1980s, the town of Borehamwood was home to one of the major British film studio complexes, including the MGM-British Studios. Many well known films were made here, including 2001: A Space Odyssey and the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies. Television productions are still made at the nearby Elstree Studios, which were taken over by the BBC. The Order Of The Phoenix, the 5th Harry Potter movie, was filmed in Hertfordshire.

On the morning of 11 December 2005, a large explosion and fire occurred at a petroleum fuel depot near Hemel Hempstead, in Buncefield. Forty three people were injured, luckily nobody was killed, but considerable damage was caused. The two day fire was the largest in peacetime Europe, and a pall of smoke darkened London and much of South East England.

In 2012, the Hertfordshire town of Broxbourne will host the canoe and kayak slalom events of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

At the end of 2006, a 14-year-old boy from Hertfordshire sailed into the record books for setting the youngest age a person has sailed single handedly across the Atlantic Ocean. The journey took 3 weeks.

Hillingdon was an ancient parish, and had within it the chapelry of Uxbridge, which became a separate civil parish in 1866. In 1894, under the Local Government Act 1894, Hillingdon parish was divided into two: with Hillingdon West becoming, with Uxbridge, part of the Uxbridge Urban District, and Hillingdon East becoming part of the Uxbridge Rural District. Uxbridge Rural District was abolished in 1928, with the East parish being added to Uxbridge Urban District. Both East and West parishes were abolished in 1938, and added to Uxbridge parish.

The name was revived in 1965, under the London Government Act 1963 as the name of the western-most borough of Greater London.

Hindringham is a village (population 468) in the North Norfolk district of the county of Norfolk in England. The village is situated 6 miles North East of Fakenham and 5 miles East of Holt. The name Hindringham means "The land of the people living behind the hills".

The village has a windmill although it is actually situated in the closeby hamlet of Lower Green.

Hingham is a market town and civil parish in the Forehoe district in the heart of rural Norfolk. Grand Georgian architecture surrounds the market place and village green. It was in the 18th century when the socialites of high society built and took residence in Hingham that it became fashionably known as "little London".

Hingham is located 17 miles from Norwich, East Anglia’s capital city. While many Hingham people now work in Norwich, commuting by car or bus, the town has maintained a strong employment base, providing work in a wide range of commercial enterprises in its industrial estate located on Ironside Way. A major employer in the parish is E. F. Shingfield & Sons, producers of Norfolk ducklings. There are several other firms providing a variety of services to agriculture and industry.

The many and varied local shops have the special character of a small market town but are up-to-date in what they provide. Despite the influence and attractions of neighbouring Norwich, an active and independent town life continues to thrive and grow in Hingham.

The civil parish has an area of 14.98 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 2078 in 944 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of South Norfolk.

In the early 17th century, a number of residents of Hingham emigrated to the then colony of Massachusetts, where they founded the town of Hingham, Massachusetts. Amongst their number was Samuel Lincoln, an ancestor of President Abraham Lincoln.

Homerton is a place in the London Borough of Hackney. Original location of Homerton College, a teacher training institution now part of the University of Cambridge.

Seventies Glam rock singer Marc Bolan was born in Hackney Hospital, on Homerton High Street. The hospital, originally built in 1841 as a workhouse, finally closed in 1995, its poor reputation contrasting with that of the new Homerton University Hospital which opened in 1987 on a site nearby.

Homerton's links with popular music continued with the arrival of Toerag, an eight track recording studio which uses reclaimed 1960s analogue equipment, where notably the White Stripes' acclaimed 2003 album Elephant was produced.

Although this has been, in recent years, a rather depressed area of Hackney, itself a poor borough, Homerton's prospects are brightening. The arrival of the Channel Link at nearby Stratford, coupled with the London Summer Olympics, which will take place nearby in 2012, may well spell a revival in its fortunes.

Nearest places: Hackney Central, Hackney Marshes, Hackney Wick, Leyton, Stratford, Dalston, Haggerston, Bethnal Green

Hornchurch is a town in the London Borough of Havering in East London. It is a suburban development located 15.2 miles (24.5 km) east north-east of Charing Cross.

The River Ingrebourne forms the boundary with Upminster to the east. Hornchurch borders Romford to the north west and Rainham to the south.

Hornchurch probably gets its name from an architectural feature of Saint Andrews church, near the town centre. The earliest recorded use of the name is a Latinized form Monasterium Cornutum in 1222 meaning 'church with horn-like gables'. It was recorded as Hornechurch in 1233. The horned bull's head mounted on the eastern end of the church dates from much later; around the 18th Century. [1]

Hornchurch originates from around the 12th century when Richard I gave the lands to a monastery in Savoy as a gift for their help in aiding him and his army across the Alps. A new monastery was built in Hornchurch as well as Saint Andrews church. The monks were forced out during the 14th century when a new law banned foreign land ownership.

The lands were then given to Lord Chancellor William Wykeham who made major renovations to the church. He subsequently gave Hornchurch to Oxford, which still owns all church lands and buildings. Due to this fact Saint Andrews church was not a part of the Church of England until a contract was signed between them and New College, Oxford in the 1930s. This parish of Hornchurch therefore had incredible religious freedom for most of its history.

During World War II nearby Hornchurch Airfield was an important RAF station, home to a number of Spitfire squadrons. The land has since been reused for a large housing development and Hornchurch Country Park.

Like most suburbs of London, Hornchurch had been entirely rural until the arrival of the railway which spurred huge property development during the early 1900s. Whole estates were constructed such as Emerson Park to the north. Development was fuelled further by the arrival of the electrified District Line during the 1930s with inter and post war housing developments south and west of Hornchurch in places such as Elm Park.

Hornchurch Urban District was formed in 1926 from part of Romford Rural District. In 1934 it was enlarged to include Upminster and North Ockendon although neither are today considered part of Hornchurch. The council offices were located at Langtons until 1965 when the present-day London Borough of Havering was formed.

Hornsey is a place in the London Borough of Haringey. It should not be confused with the Yorkshire town of Hornsea.

Hornsey lent its name to a district council, covering a wider area than the "village" of Hornsey itself, until the creation of the London Borough of Haringey. The area is in the Hornsey and Wood Green constituency. The area has two secondary schools. One formally known as St. David and St. Katherines (D&K), now after poor acheievement rates the school was reopened as an academy and renamed as Greig City Academy. The second of which is Hornsey school for Girls, this is the second (and sometimes the third) best in the league tables for Haringey. Hornsey is the base of Hornsey Housing Trust, local Haringey housing association and provider of care and support for older people.

Nearest places: Wood Green, Crouch End, Muswell Hill, Holloway, Stamford Hill, Stoke Newington

Hungerford is located on the River Dun in the Kennet Valley at grid reference SU337685. It is the westernmost town in Berkshire, situated on the border with Wiltshire, and lies within the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The highest point in the entire South East England region is the 297m (974ft) summit of Walbury Hill, situated only 4 miles (7 km) from the town. The Kennet separates Hungerford from what might be described as the town's only suburb, the small hamlet of Eddington.

The town marks the border of the South East England and South West England regions (it is situated only 3 km within South East England), being some 68 miles (109 km) west of central London and 55 miles(88 km) east of Bristol on the A4 national trunk route. It is equidistant 10 miles (16 km) from the towns of Newbury and Marlborough.

The parish was formerly divided into four tithings: Hungerford or Town, Sanden Fee, Eddington with Hidden and Newtown and Charnham Street. North and South Standen and Charnham Street were always officially detached parts of Wiltshire until transferred to Berkshire in 1895. Leverton and Calcot were transferred to Hungerford parish from Chilton Foliat in Wiltshire in 1895. All the land south of the Kennet was formerly included in Savernake Forest.

Hungerford is a Saxon name meaning 'Hanging Wood Ford'. The town’s symbol is the six-pointed star and crescent moon.

The place does not occur in the Domesday Book, but certainly existed by 1173. By 1241, it called itself a borough. In the late 14th century, John of Gaunt was lord of the manor and he granted the people the lucrative fishing rights on the Kennet.

Elizabeth I’s coachman died at Hungerford during a Royal visit. During the English Civil War, the Earl of Essex and his army spent the night here in June 1644. In October of the same year, the Earl of Manchester’s cavalry were also quartered in the town. Then, in the November, the King’s forces arrived in Hungerford on their way to Abingdon. During the Glorious Revolution of 1688, William of Orange was offered the Crown of England whilst staying at the Bear Inn here.

The noble family of Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford originated from the town, although they very early moved to Heytesbury in Wiltshire.

St Lawrence's Church stands next to the canal. It was rebuilt in 1814-1816 by John Pinch the elder in Gothic style and refurbished again in the 1850s.

In the late 19th century, two policeman were shot by poachers in Eddington. Their memorial crosses still stand where they fell.

Ickleton is a village on the Cambridgeshire–Essex border in England. It grew at the point where the ancient Icknield Way crossed the River Cam, so it is likely that some form of habitation has existed on the site since prehistoric times. However, the present layout of the village probably dates mainly from the late Saxon period.

There has been a settlement at Ickleton for at least two thousand years. The pre-Roman Icknield Way runs through the parish, and in Roman times there was a villa in the village, not far from a nearby Roman fort at Great Chesterford. The Domesday Book of 1087 shows that the village then had a population of about 250. By the time the railway arrived in 1845, the population had grown somewhat and today Ickleton is home to about 650 people.

Cambridge lies about 20 km (12 miles) to the north, and Saffron Walden about 8 km (5 miles) to the south. The River Cam (or Granta) forms the eastern border of the village. Houses are mainly grouped around three streets, Abbey Street, Frogge Street, and Church Street, which leads into Brookhampton Street. The village itself lies at the eastern end of the parish which stretches for 3 km (2 miles) to the west amidst rolling farmland.

Ilford is a town in the London Borough of Redbridge in East London. It is a suburban development situated 9.1 miles (14.6 km) east north-east of Charing Cross.

The area is predominantly residential, mostly of commuters into Central London, although it is locally reckoned a large proportion of London's taxi drivers live in the area.

A number of major businesses have been founded in the town, including the eponymous photographic film and chemicals manufacturer Ilford. Originally called the Britannia Works and growing to occupy a large site in the centre of the town it was founded in 1879 by Alfred Hugh Harman and initially made photographic plates, later coming to worldwide attention for its black and white films and papers, as well as its range of Ilfochrome (formerly Cibachrome and developed in partnership with CIBA Geigy) and Ilfocolor colour printing materials. In 1989, Ilford was acquired by the USA-based International Paper company, also owners of graphic arts materials manufacturer Anitec and the two companies were merged in 1990 to become Ilford Anitec. Their UK base has moved to Knutsford, Cheshire. In 2004 the company went into receivership. The UK site was subject to a management buyout forming Harman technology Ltd in February 2005 and is now producing high quality monochrome products trading as Ilford Photo and inkjet products for the Swiss part of the old company. The Swiss part of the company was bought by the Oji Paper Company of Japan in July 2005.

Also a major employer here was the radio, electronics and telecommunications company Plessey. Founded in 1917 in Marylebone but moving to Cottenham Road in Ilford early in 1919 then to Vicarage Lane where it remained, becoming one of the largest manufacturers in this field. Plessey were partners in the development of the Atlas Computer in 1962. The site closed in 1998 when the company was taken over.

Islington is a district in north London. The area usually referred to as Islington is now only a part of the London Borough of Islington to which it gave its name. Because of its proximity to the City of London, Islington developed as a fashionable area in the nineteenth century, with large well-built houses. However changes in residential patterns led to a decline in its popularity, and by the mid-twentieth century it was largely run down and a by-word for urban poverty.

From about the 1980s the district was rediscovered, and experienced a rapid process of gentrification, becoming very popular among fashionable people, particularly of a younger generation. A number of the central figures in the New Labour movement lived there, including Tony Blair before his victory in the 1997 General Election, and the district has become synonymous with a new class of left-leaning fashionable professionals, dismissed by some as "trendies". Despite this, much of Islington still suffers from urban deprivation, and grim council estates sit cheek by jowl with elegant Georgian houses. It is one of the most socially divided boroughs in the UK and is in the parliamentary constituencies of Islington North and Islington South and Finsbury

Islington features extensively in modern English literature and culture. Notably, Douglas Adams lived in Islington and used it as a setting in his novels. In Neil Gaiman's best selling novel Neverwhere Islington is an angel that lives under London. He is a being of pure light, and helps anyone who searches for him. Knife and Packer's cartoon It's grim up North London, published in Private Eye, satirises the stereotypical Islingtonian. George Orwell lived there between the wars, and based the depressing setting of 1984 on his run-down surroundings. Nick Hornby lives in Highbury and set books such as High Fidelity and About A Boy in Islington (mainly around the Holloway Road, near Highbury). Hornby moved to Highbury partially due to his intense fandom for Arsenal, who are based in the Highbury area; his first literary success, Fever Pitch, is about Islington's most famous institution. Mike Leigh's recent film Vera Drake was set and filmed there.

Islington is well known for its antique shops. The area is also well-known through the British version of Monopoly which features The Angel, Islington. However, in the game the Angel is the third cheapest property on the board, and is said to have been included as the licencees considered the names of places they were to use on the board over tea in the Lyon's Corner House built on the site of the original Angel Inn.

The street that forms the linear centre of Islington is Upper Street; estate agents like to speak of its 'elite amenities'. It contains numerous restaurants, clothes boutiques, present shops, pubs, and (naturally) estate agents.

Kenilworth is perhaps best known for Kenilworth Castle, although other significant local landmarks include Kenilworth Clock, Abbey Fields and St Nicholas' Church. A settlement has existed at Kenilworth since at least the time of the Domesday Book, the book refers to Kenilworth as Chinewrde. However, the main development of the town occurred to serve Kenilworth Castle and St Mary's Abbey. The original development by Geoffrey de Clinton II in 1140 being along what is now Warwick Road, from the present St John's Church to the clock tower. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries the Abbey grounds, adjacent to the Castle, were designated as common land, in exchange for the common land used for expansion of the Castle by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Only a few walls and a storage barn of the original Abbey now exist.

The first potato grown in England, brought back from South America by Sir Walter Raleigh, is thought to have been planted in the Little Virginia area of the town, near the castle.

Just off the Coventry Road, Kenilworth, is a field known as 'The Parliament Piece', traditionally said to be the site where Henry III held a Parliament in August 1266 while he was besieging Kenilworth Castle, where the late Simon de Montfort's followers, led by his son Simon, were still holding out against the King's forces. This Parliament led to the "Dictum of Kenilworth", a settlement that offered the rebels a way of recovering the lands that the Crown had seized from them. One copy of the Dictum is endorsed "in castris apud Kenilworth" - in the camp at Kenilworth. Members of the public have free access to Parliament Piece, which is owned by the Open Spaces Society and leased by Warwick District Council. The Council own and manage land across the Coventry Road at Tainter's Hill. This area of public open space was designated "for the poor of the parish" under the 1756 enclosure acts and is now registered as common land.

The arrival of the railways in 1844 brought industrialists from Birmingham and Coventry who developed the residential area around the town's railway station. In the nineteenth century the town had some fine large mansions with landscaped gardens, these were demolished after the First World War and the Second World War for housing developments. The names of these mansions still survive in the names of some roads and areas of the town (for example, Towers Close, built upon the grounds of Rouncil Towers) and some large trees from their grounds still survive (for example sequoiadendrons from The Moorlands and Rouncil Towers). The original railway station (1844) was partially rebuilt as the Kings Arms and Castle public house (later called Drummonds) when the new station was built in 1883. Sir Walter Scott stayed in the Kings Arms when he wrote Kenilworth. Drummonds is presently being redeveloped, although the developers pledge to retain the building's hallmark pillars on its Warwick Road frontage.

The railways also boosted Kenilworth's market gardening. There were reputedly 40 nurseries growing market garden produce in Kenilworth and all have now been used for housing developments (the last nursery, Guests Nursery, was developed as 23 houses in 2002). The railway transported the produce to London where Kenilworth tomatoes had a reputation for quality. The Victorian period saw a large expansion of the town to the West of Abbey Fields and in the land surrounding Warwick Road. Most of the buildings along Warwick Road date from this period and later, although a few cottages still exist. Warwick Road is now the main commercial centre of the town.

Most of the older existing buildings of Kenilworth are on Castle Green, New Row and the High Street (formerly Alta Strata, meaning the high dry ground above the Abbey). The age of these buildings make it appear that this is the original settlement, but in fact this is simply the oldest existing part of the town. The original settlement along the present day Warwick Road having been subject to continuous redevelopment since the 12th century and now retains little of the original town. Many of the houses around Castle Green are made of stone salvaged when the castle walls were torn down after the English Civil War.

Modern Kenilworth is frequently regarded as a dormitory town for commuters to Coventry, Birmingham and Leamington Spa. Despite its proximity to the University of Warwick on Coventry's southern outskirts, it has only a small student population. The town has good transport links - the Birmingham International Airport, and M6, M42 and M40 motorways are within 16 km (10 miles) of central Kenilworth. The town's station was closed in the 1960s as part of the Beeching rail cuts, but there is a regular bus service to Coventry and Leamington stations, and Warwick Parkway railway station is less than 10 minutes' drive away on the A46 bypass (which was built in June 1974).

Kensington is a district of West London within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, located 2.8 miles (4.5km) west of Charing Cross. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.

Kensington is bordered by Notting Hill to the north, Brompton and Knightsbridge to the east, Chelsea to the south and Shepherd's Bush, Hammersmith and Earl's Court to the west.

Its name came from Anglo-Saxon Censiginga tun = "The village or enclosure of Keen-Victory's people".

Kimberley was a village in Norfolk but has since become part of the Forhoe area.

Kingsland Road is the name of a road, part of the A10, in the London Borough of Hackney in England. It runs from the junction with Old Street and Hackney Road to the junction with Balls Pond Road and Dalston Lane, where it changes its name to Kingsland High Street.

Modern Kingsland is a debatable (see below) district roughly located to the west of the borough and, insofar as it is profitable to assign borders to the area, it can be said to be bounded by Dalston to the north and east, Shacklewell (itself a vanishing district) to the north, De Beauvoir Town and Haggerston to the south and Mildmay in Islington to the west. It is not to be confused with Kingsland Basin, which is a small area of redevelopment to the south of De Beauvoir Town named after a basin on the Regent's Canal.

Kingsland is an area that lives a shadowy existence, appearing in street names, station names and preserved on some modern maps, such as the London A-Z (2005), that valiant conserver of lost London districts. But if you were to go looking for it, you would be hard put to find such a place in modern Hackney—it appears on no signposts, such as the ubiquitous blue signs that point to more vital locales. So where has it gone?

For an answer, we have to look at an accident of history. For, back in the 18th century, the area that most people now regard as Dalston was Kingsland. This is why the section of the A10 road that is modern Dalston's main shopping centre is Kingsland High Street, and why Kingsland Road, not Dalston Road, extends south from the junction.

Dalston, in fact, was quite overshadowed by Kingsland at this time, and was a less important settlement ranged along that part of Dalston Lane to the north of Graham Road. In the mid-19th century, however, the busy junction of Kingsland Road with Dalston Lane and Ball's Pond Road, which should have been called Kingsland Junction, instead became known as Dalston Junction. Perhaps this was because, at the time, Kingsland was seen as less respectable than Dalston and Shacklewell.

When the North London Railway in 1865 adopted 'Dalston Junction' as the name of their new station—one of the most important on the line, since it connected directly with the City—Kingsland's fate was sealed. Over time, the area round the junction became known by the name of the station—a common phenomenon in London—though simple 'Dalston' was reserved for the area around the original settlement. In 1986, the closure of Dalston Junction station and its route to the city might have spelled a reprieve for Kingsland, since it was replaced with a new east-west station called Dalston Kingsland. But it was not to be—the result was that people simply dropped the 'Junction', effectively moving the centre of Dalston a kilometre west and putting the last nail in Kingsland's coffin.

Although the kindly A-Z (2005) still assigns Kingsland a place just southwest of Dalston Junction, this area became lost to Kingsland a long time ago—it is, in fact, part of De Beauvoir Town, a later settlement than either Kingsland or Dalston, but one that runs all the way north to the Balls Pond Road. The picture right shows the Trolley Stop pub (just under the 'D' of Kingsland in the 2005 A-Z on Stamford Road), however the wrought iron work betrays the pub's original identity as The De Beauvoir Arms. And about 100 metres to the west is the De Beauvoir Primary School.

Is there anything left of Kingsland? It may be that there are people remaining in the area who still consider that they live in the district but, given the highly mobile nature of London's population, especially after the second world war, one may hazard a guess that they are few in number. But there are still signs and relics to be seen, in the form of plaques on houses, the names of roads and a few stubborn fragments.

If the area has any last flicker of vitality, it is probably vested in Kingsland Waste, a narrow strip of shops and—on Saturdays—market stalls on the east side of Kingsland Road between Forest Road and Middleton Road and in Glebe Road backing on to the railway. The Waste was unused manorial land, later colonised by smallholders, in the days when Kingsland was a country village. Kingsland Waste Market's wares vary from 'cheap and useful' to out-and-out tat (which is no great criticism, if you love tat). When it's open, one feels that Ridley Road's slightly down-at-heel older brother has dropped in for a cup of tea—and maybe to borrow a fiver.

It might finally be noted that the western movement of Dalston has also made space in the east for new namings. The area around London Fields, handwaved into a sort of 'Greater Dalston' some time in the last century, has now appeared as a distinct area of Hackney under its own name. And the eastern end of Old Dalston would be considered by many now to be a part of Hackney Central.

Kingston upon Thames is the principal settlement of the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in London.

It was the ancient market town where Saxon kings were crowned and is now a lively suburb situated 10 miles (16.1 km) south west of Charing Cross. It is one of ten major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan.

Kingston was built at the first crossing point of the Thames upstream from London Bridge and a bridge still exists at the same site. Kingston was occupied by the Romans, and later it was either a royal residence or a royal demesne. There is a record of a council held there in 838, at which Egbert of Wessex, the first King of All England, and his son Ethelwulf of Wessex were present; and in this record it is styled Kyningestun famosa illa locus. In Old English, tun, ton or don meant farmstead - so the name Kingston may have been thought to mean farmstead of the kings. Seven Saxon kings are traditionally said to have been crowned at Kingston, while seated on a large stone - The Coronation Stone - that stands outside the Guildhall. There is a local rumour that these Saxon coronations gave Kingston its name, but the records of the 838 council disprove this. (Dickens 1887)

The first of the charters given to the town of Kingston was granted by King John in 1208 and this document still exists in the town's archives. Other charters were issued by later kings, including Edward IV's charter that gave the town the status of a borough in 1481. Some interesting relics have been discovered to support this history, and statues of some of the Saxon kings and of King John were preserved in a chapel. In 1730 the chapel containing the royal effigies collapsed, burying the sexton, who was digging a grave, the sexton's daughter and another person. The daughter survived this accident and was her father's successor as sexton. Another chapel, The Lovekyn Chapel, still exists. It was founded in 1309 by a former mayor of London, Edward Lovekyn. It is the only private chantry chapel to survive the Reformation.

Kingston sent members to early parliaments, until a petition by the inhabitants prayed to be relieved from the burden.

Kingston was one of the boroughs to be reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, becoming a municipal borough. It retained this status until the London Government Act 1963 came into force in 1965, merging it to form part of the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames.

For much of the 20th century, Kingston was a major military aircraft manufacturing centre - first with Sopwith, then Hawker Aviation and eventually British Aerospace.

Kintbury is a large village and civil parish in central-southern England, located in West Berkshire between the towns of Newbury and Hungerford.

Kintbury was spelt Cynetanbyrig in the 10th century and Kenetebury in the 13th. After Saint Birinus converted the people of Berkshire to Christianity in the mid-7th century, minsters soon became established in the county from which priests were sent out into the countryside. One such was founded at Kintbury, possibly it was the 'holy place' mentioned in the will of the Saxon thegn, Wulfgar, in 935.

Knowl Hill is a small village in the civil parish of Hurley in the English county of Berkshire. It is situated 3 miles west of Maidenhead on the A4 Bath Road towards Reading.

The village is home to the Knowl Hill Primary School, St Peter's Church, a greasy spoon café and a tool shop. There are two fine pubs within the village, the Bird in Hand and the Seven Stars, and others in neighbouring places, each with its own unique character and history. Situated on the south side of the A4 is Knowl Hill Common, this consists of a small hill looking out over Berkshire towards Windsor Castle which can clearly be seen on a nice day. On the north side is a small woods known as 'The Clumps'.

Knowl Hill is most famous for the Knowl Hill Steam Rally. This was an internationally known event that was held every in August. Unfortunately, due to rising insurance costs the decision was made to hold the very last Steam Rally in 2004. This caused much disappointment in the local community. The Steam Rally provided an enjoyable opportunity for the public to see, and for enthusiast to show, a wide range of vintage machinery that has been an integral part of the United Kingdom's history. This included Traction engines, steam powered labour machinery, vintage cars and motorcycles and a working railway extraction engine. The Event also had a large fun fair, local and commercial food traders, craft and animal showing tents and helicopter rides.

Letcombe was first recorded as ‘Regis’ in the reign of Richard II, but hundreds of years earlier it had been a Royal manor of the kings of Wessex, passing to William the Conqueror in 1066. King Stephen granted it to the Abbey of Cluny in France in 1136, and later kings had a hunting lodge here. The Old Manor was the original manor house

Antwicks Manor, once an ancient moat house, was rebuilt at the end of the 19th century. ‘Boss’ Croker, who had made his millions in New York, turned it into a neo-Elizabethan mansion and headquarters of his racing stables. He also invented its name. One Bonfire Night in the early 1900s, a blazing effigy of a later owner of Antwicks was carried on a cart up to the iron gates. The crowd tried to tear down the gates and, from the steps of the Greyhound Inn, the Riot Act was read for the last time in England.

The third manor house in the village is more recent and houses the Letcombe Laboratory, now owned by the international firm of Dow Elanco. There used to be a story that another owner, an Edwardian lady, was so shocked by two naked statues in the grounds that she ordered them to be sunk in the lake. In 1982, when the lake was dredged, the 6 ft high white marble statue of a man was found — a 2nd century Roman statue of the hero Hercules, which was later sold for £28,000. His female companion could not be traced, but there used to be tales of a woman in white who haunted the banks of the Letcombe Brook after drowning herself for love. The Letcombe Laboratory is visited by a ghostly but friendly nun.

St Andrew’s church stands on a mound at the centre of the village, near where the two streams meet. An earlier church is mentioned in the Domesday Book, and parts of the present church date from the 12th century. The east window contains fragments of 14th century glass which have recently been reassembled. An obelisk in the churchyard records the death of George King Hipango, a Maori chief who came to England to train as a Christian minister. He died here of tuberculosis when he was 19 years old, while staying at the vicarage. There are many interesting buildings in the village, from the church with its partly 12th century tower to the late 19th century Old Bakery, and including thatched cottages such as Regis Cottage with its carvings of angels, the thatched Manor Farm, the two dovecotes, the Gothick gatehouse to the Letcombe Laboratory, the Georgian ‘Hollies’ and the Victorian vicarage.

Letcombe Regis is still an agricultural and racing village with four stables. Visitors find they need to drive carefully along the winding roads as they meet strings of horses, promenading ducks, occasional flocks of sheep, and even a sleeping dog in the road, as well as numbers of parked cars. Many people work away from the village at Harwell and the Rutherford Laboratory or in nearby towns. The village school is very much part of the community. The Cricket Club, the Gardening Club, the WI, bellringers and the Letcombe Singers, are some of the clubs and societies.

Up on the Downs above the village is the Court Hill Ridgeway Centre, a new youth hostel made out of five old barns. A few hundred yards to the west stands the Iron Age hill fort of Letcombe Castle, also known as Segsbury Camp. The story is still told of a great battle fought at Letcombe Castle. The blood from the slaughter came pouring down Castle Hill and the villagers shouted ‘Let the blood come! Let it come! Let come!’ — and so the village, according to legend, was named.

Segsbury Camp is an Iron Age hill fort situated on the Berkshire Downs, near the Ridgeway above Wantage, in the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire, England. It has an alternative name: Letcombe Camp, from the nearby village of Letcombe Regis.

Excavation at the site by Dr Phene, in 1871, discovered a cist grave on the south side of the hill fort rampart. The grave was floored with stone slabs and the sides were walled with flint. Finds included a shield boss and fragments of an urn or drinking cup. Among other finds were human bones and flint scrapers. It has been suggested that this was a secondary Anglo-Saxon burial, placed at the camp. Further excavation was carried out in 1996 and 1997. The report on this work describes the periodic occupation of the hill fort between the 6th and 2nd centuries BC and suggests that it was a communal centre for various activities, including sheep management and exchange.

Lewisham is an area within the London Borough of Lewisham in south-east London. It is a major transport hub, lying on the A20 road towards Dover and at the start of A21 to Hastings, with its own bus station, mainline railway station and the southern terminus of the Docklands Light Railway.

It is most likely to have been founded by a pagan Jute, Leof, who settled (by burning his boat) near St Mary's Church (Ladywell) where the ground was drier, in the 6th Century. 'Leofshema' was an important settlement at the confluence of the rivers Quaggy (from Farnborough) and Ravensbourne (Caesar's Well, Keston), so the village expanded north into the wetter area as drainage techniques improved. In the mid-fifteenth century the then vicar of Lewisham, Abraham Colfe, built a grammar school, primary school and six almshouses for the inhabitants.

The village of Lewisham was originally centred further south around the parish church of St Mary, towards the present site of University Hospital Lewisham. The centre migrated north with the coming of the North Kent railway line to Dartford in 1849, encouraging commuter housing.

Lewisham's High Street is particularly long and wide for a London suburb. The town centre was bombed in 1944, commemorated by a plaque outside the Lewisham Shopping Centre (opened in 1977). This area at the north end of the High Street was pedestrianised in 1994. It is home to a daily street market and a local landmark, the Clock Tower, completed in 1900 to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897.

Leyton is an area of East London and part of the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is a high density suburban area, located 6.2 miles (10 km) north east of Charing Cross. It borders Walthamstow, Leytonstone, Stratford, Hackney and Clapton areas.

Leyton means "Town on the River Ley" and is at the heart of the Lea Valley. The name 'Leyton' has been used since the 9th century. Leyton is situated on the Prime Meridian and is less than 1 mile east of the site of the 2012 Olympic Park. Leyton Orient Football Club is also based here. The area is made up largely of terraced housing. Many high rise council estates that dominated the skyline have been demolished over the past 15 years.

The area is one of the most multi-cultural parts of London and Britain with many different types of people. As well as the main minority group, Afro-Caribbeans, who make over 60 percent of Leyton's population, there are also many people whose origins are from Nigeria, Pakistan, Ireland, Cyprus, Italy and newer arrivals from Bosnia, Serbia and Poland.

The New Spitalfields Market relocated in 1991 from the Old Spitalfields market, is the UK's leading horticultural market specialising in exotic fruit and vegetables.

Leyton was historically part of Essex and formed an urban district of that county from 1894. It gained the status of municipal borough in 1926. In 1965 the Municipal Borough of Leyton was abolished and its former area transferred to Greater London to be combined with that of other districts to form the London Borough of Waltham Forest.

The main route through the town is the High Road, which forms part of the ancient route to Waltham Abbey. At the top end of the High Road is a crossroads with Lea Bridge Road and Hoe Street. This junction and the surrounding district is known as Baker's Arms, named after the public house which still stands at the spot.

There are 2 main shopping areas in the town, located at opposite ends of the High Road. A new retail park is to be found at Leyton Mills. This has a large Asda store, a B&Q store and a selection of furniture and electrical stores. Baker's Arms, has a more traditional selection of shops lining Lea Bridge Road and the High Road, including a Woolworths and a Tesco.

There are numerous pubs and a few bars situated on the High road, the Local police station is based on Francis Road, which also has two primary schools and A mini supermarket.

In 1886 a pavilion was built at Leyton Cricket Ground, becoming the headquarters of Essex County Cricket Club until 1933, however Essex continued to play at Leyton until 1977. The pavilion still stands today and is used as a sports ground by local schools.

The town is the home to Leyton Orient FC, who play at Brisbane Road. The stadium has recently been re-constructed, including improved terraces and some residential property.

During World War II, Leyton suffered as a target because of its proximity to Temple Mills Yard. The yard is now reduced in size as part of it has become a retail park 'Leyton Mills', whilst the rest has been renovated to serve as a depot for high speed trains.

Large scale redevelopment and inner city regeneration has been underway in Leyton for many years ,as is also the case in the neighbouring areas of Hackney, Clapton and Stratford. High rise estates which were amongst Britain's poorest estates like the Oliver Close Estate and the Cathall Road estate have been completely redeveloped by demolition and rebuilding with the help of the multi-million pound Waltham Forest Housing Action Trust scheme (Along with the Oatland Rise, Gosport Road estate , Cambridge Road estate in neighbouring Walthamstow and the Chingford Hall Estate). Other problematic areas like the Avenue Road Estate have also been redeveloped over the past 10 years. The last large high-rise estate in the area, the Beaumont Road Estate (which is currently ranked as the 5th poorest housing estate in Britain at the moment), is now also beginning to be demolished and redeveloped.

Nearest places: Forest Gate, Leytonstone, Stratford, Lower Clapton, Upper Clapton, Homerton, Walthamstow

Leyton is a place in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. It is a suburban development located 6.2 miles (10 km) north east of Charing Cross.

Leyton means "Town on the River Ley" and the name has been used since the 9th century. Leyton is situated on the Prime Meridian and is less than 1 mile east of the site of the 2012 Olympic Park. Leyton Orient Football Club is also based here.

In 1886 a pavilion was built at Leyton Cricket Ground becoming the headquarters of Essex Cricket Club until 1933. The pavilion still stands today.

Nearest places: Forest Gate, Leytonstone, Stratford, Lower Clapton, Upper Clapton, Homerton, Walthamstow

Clare Rural District was a rural district in the county of West Suffolk, England. It was created in 1894. On April 1, 1935 it was enlarged by the addition of the parishes of Lidgate and Ousden from the disbanded Moulton Rural District, Cavendish and Hawkedon from the Melford Rural District and Depden from the Thingoe Rural District. It was named after and administered from Clare.

At the time of its dissolution it consisted of 24 civil parishes, one of which was Lidgate.

Limehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Cuckold's Point. Geographically, Limehouse is commonly thought to be centred on Narrow Street and the Limehouse Basin.

The name 'Limehouse' is often thought to have been derived from the nickname for the seamen that disembarked there, who had earned the name 'Lime-juicers' or 'limeys' after the obligatory ration of lime juice the English Navy gave their sailors to ward off scurvey. However, the name is in fact due to the local lime-kilns operated by the large potteries that served the London docks.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert (1539 - 1578), the exponent of opening up the Northwest Passage lived here. This inspired Martin Frobisher to sail to Greenland returning with a mysterious black rock. Gilbert set up the Society of the New Art with Lord Burghley and the Earl of Leicester who had their alchemical laboratory in Limehouse. However their attempts to transmute the black rock into gold proved fruitless. (Humphrey's brother Adrian Gilbert was reputed a great alchemist and worked closely with John Dee.)

St Anne's Limehouse was built by Nicholas Hawksmoor. A pyramid originally planned to be put atop the tower now stands in the graveyard. The church is next door to Limehouse Town Hall. For several years this housed the National Museum of Labour History and included trade union banners and other artefacts including the table that once belonged to Peter Kropotkin, the Russian Anarchist Prince. Now it is the home of the FacultyUnix FreeBSD workshops, Boxing Club and the Space Hijackers. Across the road is the Sailors' Mission, where the Situationist International held its conference in 1960. The building subsequently became a run down hostel for the homeless which became notorious for its squalor.

The Limehouse area was also notorious for opium dens in the late 19th century. This notion of limehouse as a lurid, crime-ridden area was often featured in pulp fiction works by Sax Rohmer and others. Like much of the East End it was a focus for immigration, particularly by Chinese people. As the community prospered it moved west to the current Chinatown in Soho.

The area inspired Douglas Furber (lyricist) and Phillip Braham (composer) in 1922 to write the popular jazz standard "Limehouse Blues".

Linton is a village in rural Cambridgeshire much expanded since the 1960s and now one of several dormitory villages of Cambridge. The former railway station was on the Cambridge to Colchester line, now closed. The Rivey Hill overlooks the village, with its famous water tower.

A recent local tradition is the wacky races. This popular event occurs on the second Bank Holiday Weekend in May, and involves participants dressed in comedy costumes, racing down the High Street, stopping in all the pubs for a pint, and then through the fields next to the village and back down the High Street, again drinking in the pubs.

Linton has become famous through fictional character Alan Partridge, who once justified his extended stay at the Linton Travel Tavern by claiming that Linton is equidistant between London and Norwich. Indeed, Linton is near the halfway point of the London to Norwich A11 trunk road, although some 4 miles from the actual road. This suggests that the travel tavern was in fact not in Linton itself, but nearby on the A11. Even in this location, the travel tavern is probably further than Partridge would have wanted from the M11 motorway, to which he once walked to purchase several bottles of windscreen washer fluid from a petrol station.

Liverpool is a major city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. Built across a ridge of hills rising up to a height of around 230 feet (70 metres) above sea-level at Everton Hill, the city's urban area runs directly into Bootle and Crosby in Sefton to the north, and Huyton and Prescot in Knowsley to the east. It faces Wallasey and Birkenhead across the River Mersey to the west. Liverpool is governed by one of five councils within the Metropolitan county of Merseyside, and is one of England's core cities and its fifth most populous - 441,477 in 2002, with 816,000 in the Liverpool Urban Area, which includes suburbs on the Liverpool side of the Mersey but not those on the Wirral. Inhabitants of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians and nicknamed "Scousers", in reference to the local meal known as 'scouse', a form of stew. The word scouse has also become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect.

In the late 19th century, Liverpool reached the zenith of its power and was the "second Port of the Empire", It controlled one seventh of all the world's shipping and handled more goods than any British city outside London.[1] Liverpool in the late Nineteenth century and early Twentieth century was thought of as a 'world city', rather than British provincial. During the late 20th century, towards the 1980s, the decline of the Port of Liverpool as a source of employment and the later contraction of manufacturing industry in the city region badly affected the city's economy. However, the city's economy has grown strongly and faster than the national average since the mid nineties.[2] The city has been undergoing a general economic and civic revival since then, which was kick started by the regeneration of the city's Queen's Square. In 2007, the city will be celebrating its 800th anniversary, and in 2008, will hold the European Capital of Culture title. In 2004 Liverpool was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage site. As part of the ongoing regeneration in the city, the developers Grovsenor are constructing the 'Paradise Street Project' (PSDA), which is the largest retail-led regeneration project in Europe. The Construction of a new cruise liner terminal at the Pier Head, will allow the world's largest vessels to visit the city, which the QE2 intends to do as part of Liverpool's birthday celebrations at the end of this year.

King John's letters patent of 1207 announced the foundation of the borough of Liverpool and by the middle of the 16th century the population was still only around 500. In the 17th century there was slow progress in trade and population growth. A number of battles for the town were waged during the English Civil War, including an eighteen-day siege in 1644. In 1699 Liverpool was made a parish by Act of Parliament, that same year its first slave ship, Liverpool Merchant, set sail for Africa. As trade from the West Indies surpassed that of Ireland and Europe, Liverpool began to grow. The first wet dock in Britain was built in Liverpool in 1715. Substantial profits from the slave trade helped the town to prosper and rapidly grow. By close of the century Liverpool controlled over 41% of European and 80% of Britain's slave commerce.

By the start of the nineteenth century, 40% of the world's trade was passing through Liverpool and the construction of many major buildings reflected this wealth. In 1830, Liverpool (along with Manchester) became the first city to have an intercity rail link, through the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. The population continued to rise rapidly, especially during the 1840s when the Irish began arriving by the thousands due to the Great Famine. By 1851, approximately 25% of the city was Irish-born. During the first part of the 20th century, Liverpool was pulling in emigrants from across Europe. During World War II there were 80 air-raids on Merseyside, killing 2500 people and causing damage to almost half the homes in the metropolitan area. Since 1952 Liverpool has been twinned with Cologne, Germany, a city that shared the horrifying experience of excessive aerial bombing. Significant rebuilding followed the war, including massive housing estates and the Seaforth Dock, the largest dock project in Britain.

Lowestoft is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England, lying between the eastern edge of The Broads National Park at Oulton Broad and the North Sea.

Nearby Lowestoft Ness is the most easterly point in the United Kingdom and is twinned with the French town of Plaisir (in Yvelines "département" and Île-de-France region) and was twinned with Katwijk in the Netherlands until that relationship ended in the 1990's.

The name is said to come from toft (a Viking word for "homestead"') and Loth or Lowe (a Viking male name). The town's name has been spelled variously: Lothnwistoft, Lestoffe, Laistoe, Loystoft, Laystoft. In the Domesday Book, Lowestoft is described as a small agricultural village of 20 families, or about 100 people. Rent for the land was paid to the landowner Hugh de Montfort in herrings.

In the Middle Ages, Lowestoft developed into a fishing port. Great Yarmouth saw Lowestoft as a rival and tried to push it out of the herring trade.

The rivalry has never completely gone away - in the English Civil War (1642 - 1651) Yarmouth took the side of Parliament and Lowestoft took the Royalist side, possibly so that co-operation would not be required. However this was not taken very seriously, as Lowestoft's defences consisted of a rope across the High Street and a single, unmanned, unloaded cannon.

In 1662 two old women, Rose Cullender and Amy Denny, lving in Lowestoft were accused of witchcraft by their neighbours. They were tried at the Assize held in Bury St. Edmunds by one of England's most eminent judges Sir Mathew Hale. The jury found them guilty on thirteen charges of using malevolent witchcraft and the Judge sentenced them to death. They were hanged at Bury St. Edmunds on 17th March 1662.

In the 1665, the first battle of the Second Dutch War was the Battle of Lowestoft near the town.

During the 1790s, Lowestoft's fishing community established their own "Beach Village", living in upturned boats.

In the 19th century, the arrival of Sir Samuel Morton Peto brought about a huge change in Lowestoft's fortunes. Peto started by building a rail link between Lowestoft and Norwich, and links with other towns soon followed. He developed the harbour and provided mooring for 1,000 boats. This gave a boost to trade with the Continent. He also established Lowestoft as a flourishing seaside holiday resort.There is a road named after him in Lowestoft, called Peto Way, which does take you to Lowestoft's train station. During the Second World War the town was used as a navigation point by German bombers. As a result it was the most heavily bombed town per head of population in the UK. Old mines and bombs are still dredged up and have been hazardous to shipping.

Lowestoft has been subject to periodic flooding, the most memorable was in January 1953 when a North Sea swell driven by low pressure and a high tide swept away many of the older sea defences and deluged most of the southern town.

Until the mid 1960s fishing was Lowestoft's main industry. Fleets comprised drifters and trawlers, with the drifters primarily targeting herring while the trawlers caught cod, plaice, skate and haddock, etc. By the mid 1960s the catches were greatly diminishing, particularly the herring. Consequently the drifter fleet disappeared and many of the trawlers were adapted to work as service ships for the newly created North Sea oil rigs. A large fisheries research centre which is a part of Defra is still located in south Lowestoft,this is due to be relocated together with plush offices for Waveney District Councillors in an area presently occupied by eight businesses.

The Eastern Coach Works was another big employer and in the 1960s it was a regular occurrence to see a bare bus chassis being driven through the town to the coach works by a goggled driver. Installing the bus's superstructure, body work and seats was the job of Eastern Coach Works. Both double deck and single deck buses were built there and sent all over the country.

Brooke Marine and Richards shipbuilding companies who together employed over a thousand men also went out of business at about the same time.

King's Lynn is a town and port in the English county of Norfolk. Over the years, the town has been known variously as Bishop's Lynn and Lynn Regis; to local people it is simply Lynn. King's Lynn is the 3rd largest town in Norfolk after the city of Norwich and the town of Great Yarmouth. Sandringham House, the Norfolk residence of the Royal family, is 6 miles north of King's Lynn.

Whilst it is believed that there has been some form of habitation at King's Lynn for well over a thousand years it was not until St Margaret's Church was founded in 1101 by Bishop Herbert de Losinga that the town started appearing on records. The town was originally named Bishop's Lynn, as the town was part of the manor of the Bishop of Norwich in the 12th century.

By the 14th century, the town ranked as the third port of England - and is considered to be as important to England in Medieval times as Liverpool was during the Industrial Revolution. It still retains two buildings that were warehouses of the Hanseatic League that were in use between the 15th and 17th centuries.

When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1538, the town and manor became royal property. As a result, the town became renamed King's Lynn and Lynn Regis; however, it was King's Lynn which stuck. The town became very prosperous from the 17th century through the export of corn; the fine Customs House was built in 1683 to the designs of local architect Henry Bell.

The town went into decline after this period, and was only rescued by the relatively late arrival of railway services in 1847 - with services mainly provided by the Great Eastern Railway (subsequently London and North Eastern Railway) and its fore-runners, and by the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway, which had its headquarters in the town at Austin Street, and an important station at South Lynn (now dismantled) which was also its operational control centre.

In the post-Second World War period King's Lynn was designated a London Expansion Town, and its population roughly doubled as thousands of people were relocated from the capital.

Lytchett Minster is a small village in the Purbeck district of Dorset, England, in the outer suburbs of Poole. It is part of the Lytchett Minster and Upton parish, which has a population of 7,573 (2001). Lytchett Minster is on the A35 road, the main route between the towns of Poole and Dorchester. The settlement is also linked to Upton, another village, the Upton by-pass route dividing them in-between. Lytchett Minster is home to a number of manor houses, one of which now hosts the local Secondary School 'Lytchett Minster School' which suffered fire damage in 2000.

Maidenhead is a town in the English county of Berkshire. It lies on the River Thames and is situated 25.7 miles (41.3 km) west of Charing Cross in London.

The town is part of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. It has a population of around 60,000. The Maidenhead urban area includes urban and suburban regions within the bounds of the town, called Maidenhead Court, North Town, Furze Platt, Pinkneys Green, Highway, Tittle Row, Boyn Hill, Fishery and Bray Wick; as well as suburbs in surrounding civil parishes: Cox Green and Altwood in Cox Green parish, Woodlands Park in White Waltham parish, and Holyport and part of Bray Wick in Bray parish. Bray village itself is still just about detached.

Maidenhead's name, strictly speaking refers to the busy riverside area where the 'New wharf' or 'Maiden Hythe' was built, perhaps as early as Saxon times. It has been suggested that the nearby Great Hill of Taplow was called the 'Mai Dun' by the Iron Age Brythons. The area of the town centre was originally known as 'South Ellington' and is recorded in the Domesday Book as Ellington in the hundred of Beynhurst.

In 1280, a bridge was erected across the river to replace the ferry and the Great Western Road was diverted in order to make use of it. This led to the growth of Maidenhead: a stopping point for coaches on the journeys between London and Bath and the High Street became populated with inns. The current Maidenhead Bridge, a local landmark, dates from 1777 and was built at a cost of £19,000.

King Charles I met his children for the last time before his execution in 1649 at the Greyhound Inn, which is now a branch of the NatWest Bank. A plaque commemorates their meeting.

A significant river resort in the 19th century, Maidenhead was notably ridiculed in Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome:

Maidenhead itself is too snobby to be pleasant. It is the haunt of the river swell and his overdressed female companion. It is the town of showy hotels, patronised chiefly by dudes and ballet girls. When these mere distractions are overlooked however, one can notice how the residence porlume any wellbeing before eroding any left parchment.

With the railways beginning to expand in the mid-19th century, the High Street began to change again. Muddy roads were replaced and public services were installed — modern Maidenhead appeared. It became its own entity in 1894, being split from the civil parishes of both Bray and Cookham.

The world famous Maidenhead Railway Bridge, with the road bridge in the background

Maidstone is the county town of Kent, in southeast England, about 30 miles from London. It is also the administrative centre for the Borough of Maidstone. It stands on the River Medway at a point where the tributaries of the combined Rivers Beult and Teise enter the main stream.

Maidstone is literally a "stone of the maidens", most likely indicating a place where they were known to gather. Its Anglo-Saxon form was Mægthan stan.

Although Stone Age finds have been made locally, it is the Romans who first gave Maidstone some importance. Their road from Watling Street at Rochester to Hastings across the Weald passed through the site, and two villas have been discovered. They were also among the first to extract stone (the sandstone known as Kentish Rag) from the area.

This part of the Medway Valley was important too, by the time of the Domesday Book. In the Middle Ages there were two hospitals here built for the care of wayfarers, especially those on pilgrimage; and a "college" of secular priests.

Maidstone's town status was confirmed when, in 1549, it was incorporated. It had originally been governed by a portreeve, 12 brethren and 24 commoners under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury. However, when the people of Maidstone rebelled against the crown in support of Thomas Wyatt in 1554, this charter was revoked, although a new charter was established five years later, when Maidstone was created a borough.

The town's charter was finally ratified in 1619 under James I, and the coat of arms, bearing a golden lion and a representation of the river, was designed. Recently these arms were added to by the head of a white horse (representing Invicta, the motto of the county of Kent), a golden lion and an iguanodon. The iguanodon relates to the discovery in the 19th century of the fossilised remains of such a dinosaur locally. These remains are now displayed in the Natural History Museum in London.

The quarrying of good building stone around Maidstone has always been important and continues even today. Some of the sandstone is also used in the glass industry.

In the 17th century the Wealden cloth industry reached as far north as the town; for here were deposits of Fuller's earth used for degreasing the wool and, perhaps more importantly, the means of transporting the finished products-the river.

In Maidstone there were many little breweries at the end of the 19th century. the river being useful for transport and water for the beer production. As a result one of the biggest, the Style & Winch brewery, was situated on the river bank in the centre of the town. The brewery shut in 1965 and the building demolished in 1976. There were five other breweries; today only a very small one (Goachers) remains.

Another by-product of the riverside location was paper mills, known locally as "the treacle mines". Paper was produced at places such as Turkey Mill and Hayle Mill, and what was to become the Reed group had several paper and cardboard milling plants in Maidstone.

Until 1998 the sweet factory of Trebor Basset, makers of liquorice allsorts, was located in central Maidstone and provided a significant source of employment.

Improvements had been made about 1740 to the river, so that barges of 40 tons could get upriver to East Farleigh, Yalding and even Tonbridge. This meant that a good deal of trade, including corn, fodder, fruit, stone and timber passed through the town, where there were several wharfs.

The medieval stone bridge was replaced in 1879 to give better clearance: it was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette. There are now two bridges, a modern one having been built in the 1980s.

Today the river is of importance only to pleasure-boat owners and the considerable number of people living on houseboats. For many years there has been an annual river festival during the last weekend in July, and a millennium project inaugurated the Medway River Walk, the Medway Park and a new footbridge linking the former cattle market (which is now a multiplex cinema and nightclub) south of the river to the shopping area to the north.

One of the first roads in Kent to be turnpiked was that from Rochester to Maidstone, in 1728, giving some indication of the town's importance. Today the town is served by the M20 motorway, although it is the hub of the pre-motorway network in this part of Kent. Major roads link it to the Medway Towns, the Isle of Sheppey, Ashford and Folkestone, Hastings, Tonbridge, Sevenoaks and London.

Maidstone was not well served when railways were first being built in the 1840s. It was reported at the time that inhabitants were bitterly opposed to the railway: the mayor suggesting that "Maidstone will be ruined as a commercial town". It was said that wharfingers and corn and coal merchants would be hard hit.

In the event, in 1842, the South Eastern Railway, in its haste to reach the Channel ports of Folkestone and Dover, put its main line through Tonbridge and Ashford, some six miles to the south. A station named Maidstone Road was built in an isolated spot called Paddock Wood, from where coaches were run to the county town.

Two years later a branch line was built to Maidstone. In 1846 another branch line (the Medway Valley Line) connected Strood with the town. It was not until 1874 that the line from London arrived; and another 10 years before Ashford was connected by rail. There are three stations: Maidstone West and Maidstone Barracks on the Medway Valley Line (whose platforms are visible one from the other); and Maidstone East on the Ashford line.

Kenilworth is a town in central Warwickshire, England. In 2001 the town had a population of 22,582 (24,000 est.2006). It is situated 10 km (6 miles) south of Coventry, 10 km (6 miles) north of Warwick and 145 km (90 miles) northwest of London.

Martley is a village in the Malvern Hills district of the English county of Worcestershire. It is approximately nine kilometres from Worcester.

There is a post office, a general shop, the Crown public house and a petrol station/garage.

It has two schools, Martley Primary School and The Chantry High School not to mention the Pre-School with a before and after school club. The High School has approx 700 students and has a special technology status. It serves a large rural catchment area. The sports facilities also are very good with the sports hall which the Chantry shares with the public.

In the village is a cricket club. The football club has two Saturday teams and a Sunday team. There are many walks in the local area such as the Worcestershire way. Also in the area is the Admiral Rodney in Berrow Green and the Mason's Arms in Wichenford.

The village boasts it own historic monument, Berrow Hill, and Iron Age fort which hosts a beacon.

Marylebone (sometimes written St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone and pronounced Mar(i)-lee-bone) is an area in the City of Westminster North of Oxford Street and South of Regents Park. Edgware Road forms the Western boundary. Portland Place forms the Eastern boundary with the area known as Fitzrovia.

Marylebone gets its name from a church, called "St Mary's", that was built on the bank of a small stream or "bourne" called the tybourne, in an area named after the stream Tyburn. The church and the surrounding area later became known as St Mary at the bourne, which over time became shortened to its present form Marylebone. It is a common misunderstanding that the name is a corruption of Marie la bonne.

The Metropolitan Borough of St Marylebone was a metropolitan borough of the County of London between 1899 and 1965 when it was merged with the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington and the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster to form the London Borough of Westminster.

Such place-names in the neighborhood as Cavendish Square and Portland Place reflect the Dukes' of Portland landholdings and Georgian-era developments there.

Today the area is mostly residential. However, centred around Marylebone High Street and Marylebone Lane, Howard de Walden Estates Ltd is keeping an eye to maintain a mix of stylish and fashionable shops and restaurants of relevance to the locals, in what it calls the Marylebone Village. It is also notable for its Arab population on its far western border around Edgware Road.

Nearest places:

Soho

Bloomsbury

St. John's Wood

Paddington

Nearby places of interest:

Madame Tussaud's

University of Westminster

Harley Street

Regent's Park

Lord's cricket ground

Wallace Collection

Famous Residents:

Ringo Starr

John Lennon

Yoko Ono

Jacqueline du Pre

Pitt the Elder

H. G. Wells

Sherlock Holmes

Marylebone High Street in London

Mattishall is situated in the heart of Norfolk 13 miles from the centre of Norwich and 4 miles from East Dereham.

Mattishall lies at the geographical centre of Norfolk. It is situated on a plateau of boulder clay left By the glaciers about 300.000 years ago. The soil in the area varies from sands around the neighbouring Mattishall Burgh to stickier clays around Mattishall.

Evidence of human activity in these villages reaches back to the period between 8000 and 1000 BC. The discovery in 1968 of a hoard of 110 silver coins provides a link with the Roman period. However no proof of Roman occupation has been found so far. The four panels of the Mattishall village sign, erected in 1984, depict different periods of history from Roman, the Domesday Survey of 1086, medieval. to the mid-twentieth century.

All Saints church, Mattishall dates from the late 14th century, possibly replacing an earlier church on the site. The Patron is Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and it is thought that Dr. Caius was instrumental in initiating the building of the larger church. Saint Peter's, Mattishall Burgh, which is much smaller, is mainly late 13th century.

Mattishall has been divided in a religious sense for many years, first with the Reformation, then the growth of Quakerism. The Quakers established a Meeting House in 1687. Almost 100 years later the Old Moor Congregational Chapel was built. Both had their own burial ground. When it become uneconomical to continue at Old Moor, the Congregationalists transferred to their Lecture Room in Welgate built in 1829. It is now the United Reformed Church. Primitive Methodism gained a following in the 19th century but it was not until 1900 that a site was found for a permanent meeting place along the main road. The second half of the 20th century saw the establishment of the Evangelical Church.

During the reign of Edward VI, cleric Matthew Parker married Margaret Harlestone of Mattishall. He became the first Archbishop of Canterbury to be appointed under Elizabeth 1. Local tradition has it that the house behind the butcher's shop in Church Plain was the Harlestone family home.

In the 16th century the wool merchants of Mattishall were well known, even notorious, in East Anglia. A number of them were warned or fined by the Court for failing to sell their wool through Norwich market. They had found more lucrative outlets in Suffolk and other places.

Apart from husbandry, wool combing and weaving, many other trades were followed in the area. There was a decline in the wool trade in the 18th century, which led to unemployment for combers and weavers. These occupations had almost disappeared by the beginning of the 19th century. Some found work on the land but others became chargeable on the Parish and either suffered the indignity of living in accommodation set aside for paupers or worse still were sent to the Workhouse at Gressenhall.

Most farmers brewed beer but brewing on a larger scale centred on the Malthouse which was demolished in the 1920s. Apart from the Swan Inn, The George and Cross Keys there were several ale houses dotted around the villages and in the 19th century included The White House, The Ringers, Ivy Cottage, The Duke of Edinburgh and the Crown and Anchor. Today only the Swan survives as a public house, in a 20th century building, which replaced the old thatched place of centuries past.

The population of the two villages reached a peak of 1385 in 1841 and then began to decline as, due to mechanisation on forms, people left the area to look for work. By 1931 the figure had dropped to 829 and by 1961 was only 929. Since then substantial development and infilling has taken place resulting in rapid increases in the population. Despite the growing size numerous local shops and businesses have not survived the advent of the family car and of super- and hypermarkets. The haulage business of A. J. Farrow provided local employment for many people for more than 50 years. Other family business, names which have gone, include Dobbs, King, Horne, Fisher, Howard, Turner and Reynolds. Norton's Bakery is still run by a member of the family but Hewitt's Butchers is just a trade name now. In farming, the names of Hill and Edwards span several generations.

Some of the very old buildings in Mattishall are hidden behind brick and mortar skins and Georgian facades, but others remain to be admired. Of the three 19th century, mills the bases of two remain. One has been converted recently into a holiday cottage.

The National School was built in 1872. A notable Headmistress was Miss Johnson (1884 - 1919), the daughter of the Station Master at Hardingham. Miss Mildred Edwards, a pupil-teacher, was still around when the school celebrated its centenary. It was she who planted the conker, which grew into the very large chestnut tree in the garden of Church Cottage near the corner of the school playing field.

The fortunes and well being of the villagers have fluctuated over the centuries. In 1835 the family of Sir Edward Parry, the Polar explorer, occupied South Green House (now Mattishall Hall) for a few months. On half pay from the Navy, he was sent to Norfolk as an Assistant Commissioner for the New Poor Law. His sister-in-law wrote to her mother: ....... a large population, immense families, and not work for half, and no resident gentleman near to do anything for them ...... such a disagreeable neighbourhood....' How would she view Mattishall today ?

This is a pleasant place to live although it is in danger of losing its rural character. There have been many developments since the 1960s; a Memorial Hall. Sports and Social Club, new school buildings on a large site and an excellent surgery and pharmacy.

Middlesex is one of the 39 traditional counties of England. When county councils were introduced in England in 1889 part of Middlesex was used to form the County of London and the remainder formed the administrative county of Middlesex.

As London further expanded the area steadily become more urbanised and in 1965 almost all of the original area was incorporated into Greater London.

The name means the territory of the middle Saxons and its first recorded use was in A.D 704 as Middleseaxan. Geographically, Middlesex included the City of London, which has been self-governing since the thirteenth century and the city of Westminster. The highest point is the High Road in Bushey Heath at 504 feet.

Middlesex was recorded in the Domesday Book as being divided into the six hundreds of Edmonton, Elthorne, Gore, Hounslow (later Isleworth), Ossulstone and Spelthorne. Settlement was divided as follows:

Elthorne Hundred - Cowley - Cranford - Greenford - Hanwell - Harefield - Harlington - Harmondsworth - Hayes - Hillingdon - Ickenham - New Brentford - Northolt - Norwood - Perivale - Ruislip - Uxbridge - West Drayton

Gore Hundred - Edgware - Great Stanmore - Harrow-on-the-Hill - Hendon - Kingsbury - Little Stanmore - Pinner

Ossulstone Hundred - Acton - Bloomsbury - Bow - Bromley - Chelsea - Chiswick - Clerkenwell - Ealing - Finchley - Friern Barnet - Fulham - Hackney - Hammersmith - Hampstead - Minories - Hornsey - Kensington - Mile End - Paddington - Poplar - Ratcliffe - Shadwell - Shoreditch - Spitalfields - Holborn - St Pancras - Stepney - Wapping - West Twyford - Whitechapel - Willesden

Spelthorne Hundred - Ashford - East Bedfont - Feltham - Hampton - Hampton Wick - Hanworth - Laleham - Littleton - Shepperton - Staines - Stanwell - Sunbury - Teddington

Mile End is an area of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London, England. Mile End is 3.6 miles (5.8 km) east north-east of Charing Cross.

Mile End takes its name from a milestone signifying the point one mile east of the boundary of the City of London at Aldgate. Although historically the stone's position was near Stepney Green tube station, in the modern era Mile End is used to describe the area about half a mile east of this point, around Mile End tube station.

Mile End is in a part of London known as the East End and home to the main campus of Queen Mary, University of London.

In 1381, an uprising against the tax collectors of Brentwood quickly spread first to the surrounding villages, then throughout the South-East of England but it was the rebels of Essex led by a priest named Jack Straw, and the men of Kent led by Wat Tyler who marched on London. On the 12th June, the Essex rebels, 60,000 men, camped at Mile End and on the following day the men of Kent arrived at Blackheath. On the 14th June, the young king Richard II rode to Mile End where he met the rebels and signed their charter. Unfortunately, their subsequent behaviour caused the king to have the leaders and many rebels executed.

Besides suffering heavily in earlier blitzes, Mile End was hit by the first V-1 to strike London. On 13 June 1944, this 'doodlebug' impacted next to the railway bridge on Grove Road, an event now commemorated by a plaque.

Monmouth (Welsh: Trefynwy) is a town in south Wales, county town of the traditional county of Monmouthshire. It is situated where the River Monnow meets the River Wye.

Monmouth boasts a 13th-century stone gated bridge, unique in Britain as it is the only preserved bridge of its design remaining. After centuries of waiting a second bridge over the Monnow was finally opened on March 15, 2004, thus allowing the old bridge to become pedestrianised. This project has, however, meant the demolition of the old cattle market, thus Monmouth is no longer the market town it has traditionally been; however, a farmers' market selling local produce is still held.

Monmouth is very much a town of schools. Apart from the comprehensive school with over 1600 pupils, there are two independent schools - Monmouth School (founded 1614) and Haberdashers' Monmouth School for Girls (founded 1892). There are also several state primary schools, with most areas served by both infants' and juniors' Schools.

The annual Monmouth Show has been held each year (traditionally on the last Thursday of August) since 1919 (when it was called the Monmouthshire County Show), though its history can be traced back further, to May 30th 1857, when the eighth Duke of Beaufort and Sir Charles Morgan M.P. put up the funds for a Monmouth Cattle Show, and even prior to that there had been an agricultural society in existence in the town dating back to the 1790s, which held ploughing competitions.

Montego Bay is a city in Jamaica that contains Jamaica's largest airport, the Sir Donald Sangster International Airport.

Montego Bay is known for its duty free shopping and cruise line terminal at its Free Port on a beautiful peninsula jutting into the bay. Its sheltered Doctor's Cave Beach with clear turquoise waters is one of the most famous beaches on the island. The bay is surrounded by picturesque low mountains.

Montego Bay is fourth in population to Kingston, Portmore and Spanish Town with about 120,000 people and lies in St. James Parish on the northwest coast of the island. Air Jamaica and several American and British airlines run their Caribbean hub in "MoBay" (Sangster International Airport) connecting the island with the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and recently Canada with flights to Toronto and Edmonton. The southern U.S. cities of Houston, Atlanta, Tampa, and Miami are reached by nonstop flights in less than three hours.

Montego Bay has recently suffered negative publicity due to the extremely high crime rate, with more than 176 murders in 2006 (up from 144 in 2005) and a murder rate approximately 28 times higher than that of New York City.[1]

The name "Montego Bay" is believed to have originated as a corruption of the Spanish word manteca ("lard"), allegedly because during the Spanish period it was the port where lard, leather, and beef were exported. Jamaica was a colony of Spain from 1511 until 1655 when Oliver Cromwell's Caribbean expedition, the Western Design, drove the Spanish from the island. Christopher Columbus, when he first visited the island in 1494, named the bay Golfo de Buen Tiempo ('Fair Weather Gulf')

During the epoch of slavery, from the mid-17th century until 1834, and well into the 20th century, the town functioned primarily as a sugar port. The island's last major slave revolt, the Christmas Rebellion or Baptist War (1831–1832) took place in the area around Montego Bay; the leader of the revolt, Samuel Sharpe, was hanged there in 1832. In 1975, Sharpe was proclaimed a national hero of Jamaica, and the main square of the town was renamed in his honour.

In 1980, Montego Bay was proclaimed a city by act of parliament, but this has not meant that it has acquired any form of autonomy as it continues to be an integral part of St. James parish.

Today, the city is known for its large regional hospital (Cornwall Regional Hospital), port facilities, second homes for numerous upper class Jamaicans from Kingston as well as Americans and Europeans, fine restaurants, and shopping opportunities. The coastland near Montego Bay is occupied by numerous tourist resorts, some newly built, some occupying the grounds of old sugar cane plantations with some of the original buildings and mill-works still standing. The most famous of these are the "White Witch's" Rose Hall and Tryall, both of which now feature world-class golf courses.

The city was the subject of the namesake song by Bobby Bloom in 1970, later covered by Jon Stevens ten years later, and was revived by Amazulu to became a minor hit in the U.S. in September 1986.

Stratfield Mortimer is a village and civil parish, just south of Reading, in the English county of Berkshire.

Strictly speaking, the village of Stratfield Mortimer sits at the foot of Mortimer Hill which rises westward from the Foudry Brook. It includes Mortimer railway station, the Fox and Horn public house, St Mary's Church of England parish church, Mortimer St Mary's Junior School and the headquarters of the Berkshire Federation of Women's Institutes.

The much larger and better known village of Mortimer Common, commonly called Mortimer, is at the top of the hill. It has a surgery, a bank, another school, a post office, the Church of England parish church of St John the Evangelist and four public houses: The Turner's Arms, the Victoria Arms, the Carpenters Arms and the Horse and Groom. The three main roads in Mortimer are The Street, West End Road and Victoria Road. It also has a football team.

The Lockram Brook flows through the middle of the parish and there is much woodland in the area, including Starvale Woods and Holden Firs.

As Stratfield Mortimer used to be a cross-county parish, the Hampshire part was known as Mortimer West End. It is now a civil parish in its own right.

Newbury is a civil parish and the principal town in the west of the county of Berkshire in England. It is situated on the River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal, and has a town centre containing many 17th century buildings. Newbury is best known for its racecourse and the adjoining former airbase at Greenham Common.

The civil parish of Newbury consists of the town, and the suburbs of Wash Common, the City, West Fields, East Fields and Speenhamland. The modern conurbation of Newbury, however, also takes in the surrounding villages of Speen, Donnington, Shaw & Greenham.

Today, Newbury town has a population of about 32,000 (2004) and, with adjacent towns such as Thatcham, is the centre of a continuously built up area with an overall population of around 60,000.

The River Kennet and the Kennet and Avon Canal flow through the centre of the town, while the River Lambourn partly forms its northern boundary and the River Enborne forms its southern boundary (and also the county boundary with Hampshire). Adjoining the town's south-eastern border is Greenham Common and the famous racecourse. Newbury is surrounded on three sides (north, west and south) by the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The downland to the south rises steeply out of the river valley providing scenic views, including Watership Down (made famous by the novel of the same name), Beacon Hill and Combe Gibbet.

Today, Newbury town has a population of about 32,000 (2004) and, with adjacent towns such as Thatcham, is the centre of a continuously built up area with an overall population of around 60,000.

The name has fallen out of common usage because of London's urban sprawl and most residents would refer to the area as either Borough or Elephant and Castle. The name lives on in the streets Newington Causeway and Newington Butts and in the open space Newington Gardens. Stoke Newington is a quite separate place in North London.

Newmarket is a market town in the English county of Suffolk, approximately 65 miles (105 kilometres) north of London, which has grown and become famous because of its connection with race horses and Thoroughbred horse racing at Newmarket Racecourse.

Racing at Newmarket has been dated as far back as 1174, making it the earliest known racing venue of post-classical times. King James I (reigned 1603 - 1625) greatly increased the popularity of horse racing there, and King Charles I followed this by inaugurating the first cup race in 1634. In 1967 Queen Elizabeth II opened The National Stud, a breeding centre for thoroughbred horses. The town is also home to Tattersalls, the famous bloodstock auctioneers whose sales are attended by big names in the racing business. The town is home to the National Horseracing Museum and an Equine Centre for horse health.

The town has special horse routes so the horses can reach the gallops safely and many training establishments occupied by top trainers. More than 2,500 race horses inhabit Newmarket.[1] By comparison, the human population is of the order of 15,000 and it is estimated that one in four jobs are connected to horseracing in one way or another. 'The gallops' is a hill overlooking the town and used as a training run to improve the horses' workload when training. This and the surrounding heath is chalk downland and has special birds and animals only suited to this terrain. It is also a very historical area with the remains of 6th century living to be found. This hill is part of the chalk formation the Newmarket Ridge.

Most of the Newmarket-based racing stables are situated in the centre of the town, where they can easily access the gallops. Outside the town the land-use is dominated by thoroughbred breeding, studs occupying large areas in every direction. Around 70 licensed trainers and more than 60 stud farms operate in and around Newmarket. [2]Dalham Hall Stud (the headquarters of Darley), Cheveley Park Stud and Banstead Manor Stud (Headquarters of Juddmonte Farms) are well-known examples all which can be found in the village of Cheveley, three miles from Newmarket.

The town has two race courses situated on Newmarket Heath, these are the Rowley Mile and the July Course. The two courses are separated by the Devil's Dyke. This large earthwork starts in neighbouring Woodditton (sometimes spelt as Wood Ditton) and ends in Reach, a distance of over 8 miles.

From 1808 to 1814 Newmarket hosted a station in the shutter telegraph chain which connected the Admiralty in London to its naval ships in the port of Great Yarmouth.

According to "The Strange Laws of Old England" by historian and author Nigel Cawthorne, it was against the law to blow your nose in the street and 'a person or persons going about the street with a head cold or distemper' was liable to a fine. This law was introduced to protect not the Newmarket citizens but the vast racing stock.

Newmarket is a market town in the English county of Suffolk, approximately 65 miles north of London, which has grown and become famous because of its connection with race horses and racing.

Racing at Newmarket has been dated as far back as 1174, making it the earliest known racing venue of post-classical times. King James I (reigned 1603 - 1625) greatly increased the popularity of horse racing there, and King Charles I followed this by inaugurating the first cup race in 1634. In 1967 Queen Elizabeth II opened the National Stud, a breeding centre for Thoroughbred horses. The town is also home to Tattersalls, the famous bloodstock auctioneers whose sales are attended by big names in the racing business. The town also has a Horse Racing Museum and an Equine Centre for horse health.

The town has special horse routes so the horses can reach the gallops safely and many training establishments occupied by top trainers. More than two thousand race horses inhabit Newmarket. By comparison, the human population is of the order of 15,000 and it is estimated that one in four jobs are connected to horseracing in one way or another. 'The gallops' is a hill overlooking the town and used as a training run to improve the horses' workload when training. This and the surrounding heath is chalk downland and has special birds and animals only suited to this terrain. It is also a very historical area with the remains of 6th century living to be found. This hill is part of the chalk formation the Newmarket Ridge.

Most of the Newmarket-based racing stables are situated in the centre of the town, where they can easily access the gallops. Outside the town the land-use is dominated by thoroughbred breeding, studs occupying large areas in every direction. Dalham Hall Stud (the headquarters of Darley), Cheveley Park Stud and Banstead Manor Stud (Headquarters of Juddmonte Farms) are well-known examples all which can be found in the village of Cheveley, three miles from Newmarket.

The town has two race courses situated on Newmarket Heath, these are the Rowley Mile and the July Course. The two courses are separated by the Devil's Ditch. This large earthwork starts in neighbouring Woodditton (sometimes spelt as Wood Ditton) and ends in Reach. This is a distance of over 8 miles and when you realise that this was dug out using antler horns and the like and that from peak to trough it is over 30 feet the sheer scale of effort involed is incredible. There are many theories why it exists but no categorical answer.

The area of Suffolk containing Newmarket is nearly detached, with only a narrow strip of territory linking it to the rest of the county. Traditionally the town was split with one parish in Suffolk and another in Cambridgeshire.

Norwich (pronounced variously "Norritch" or "Norridge") is a city in East Anglia, in Eastern England, and the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk.

In effect the City expands a long way beyond its actual borough boundary, with large suburban areas on most sides. The Parliamentary seats cross over into adjacent local government districts.

The Romans had their regional capital at Venta Icenorum on the river to the south which is now at modern day Caistor St Edmund. No sign of Roman influence can be seen in Norwich.

Norwich was a construct of the Anglo-Saxons, the Danes and the Normans. The word Norvic appears on coins minted during the reign of King Athelstan (early 10th century AD). The ancient city was already a thriving centre for trade and commerce in East Anglia when Swein Forkbeard the Viking destroyed it in 1004 AD.

At the time of the Norman Conquest the city was one of the largest in England, and it continued to be a major centre for trade, especially wool. The River Wensum was a convenient exporting route to the sea.

The main area of the city south of the Wensum was destroyed by the construction of the Norman castle (see Norwich Castle) during the 1070s creation of a "New" or "French" borough.

In 1096 Bishop Losinga, then Bishop of Thetford, began construction of the cathedral, then moved his See there to what became the cathedral church for the Diocese of Norwich.

By the middle of the 14th century the City Walls, about 2 1/2 miles long had been completed, these along with the river enclosed a large area, larger than that of the City of London.

The wealth generated by the wool trade throughout the Middle Ages resulted in the construction of many fine churches. Norwich still has one of the highest number of medieval churches in Western Europe. Around this time, the city was made a county corporate.

The great immigration of 1567 brought a substantial Walloon community of weavers to Norwich. Norwich has been the home of various dissident minorities, notably the French Huguenot and the Belgian Walloon communities in the 16th and 17th centuries. Primarily through trading connections with mainland Europe, ideas of religious reform and radical politics were introduced to Norwich.

The eastern counties were profoundly Parliamentarian in nature and Norwich followed suit, at the cost of some discomfit to the Lord Mayor, a Royalist, and the Bishop Joseph Hall a moderate but targeted because of his position.

The Norwich Canary was first introduced into England by Flemish refugees fleeing from Spanish persecution in the 1500s. They brought with them not only advanced working skills in textiles but also their pet canaries, which they began to breed. The canary is the emblem of the city's football team, Norwich City F.C., nicknamed "The Canaries".

Norwich remained a major provincial capital and rated closely after London alongside Bristol.

Norwich's geographical isolation was such that until 1834 when a railway connection was established, it was often quicker to travel to Amsterdam by boat than to London. The railway was brought to Norwich by Morton Peto who also built the line onto Great Yarmouth

West Norwood (sometimes referred to as Norwood) is a place in the London Borough of Lambeth. Before 1885 it was known as Lower Norwood, in contrast to Upper Norwood and South Norwood

West Norwood is 5.4 miles (8.7 km) south south-east of Charing Cross. It is bordered by Upper Norwood, Crystal Palace, West Dulwich, Tulse Hill and Streatham.

Norwood is a contraction of the Great North Wood. Its history began in 1797 when the Croydon enclosure act was passed that started Norwood – the wood north of Croydon, being divided into separate areas to grow more food during the Napoleonic Wars.

South Norwood is a place in the London Borough of Croydon. It is a suburban development 7.8 miles (12.5 km) south-south-east of Charing Cross. In common with West Norwood and Upper Norwood it is named after a contraction of Great North Woo

Upper Norwood is an elevated area in south London, England within the postcode SE19. It is a residential district largely in the London Borough of Croydon although some parts extend into the London Borough of Lambeth and the London Borough of Bromley. Upper Norwood borders West Norwood, South Norwood, Norbury, Anerley and Thornton Heath.

Upper Norwood is situated along the London clay ridge known as Beulah Hill. Most housing stock dates from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with large detached properties on the peak of the ridge and smaller semi-detached and terraced dwelling on its flanks. There are some more modern areas of social housing that date from the 1970s. The hill offers panoramic views northward to central London and southward to central Croydon and the North Downs.

The area is one of the highest in the London area and for centuries was occupied by the Great North Wood, an extensive area of natural oak forest which formed a wilderness close to the southern edge of the ever-expanding city of London. The name 'Norwood' comes from a contraction of the 'North Wood' (Old English north + wudu). Local legend has it that Sir Francis Drake's ship, The Golden Hind, had its timbers cut from trees in this area. The forest was a popular area for Londoners' recreation right up to the nineteenth century when it began to be built over. It was also a haunt of gypsies with many local street names and pubs recording the link, notably Gipsy Hill. The area still retains large amounts of woodland for an urban situation.

Paddington is an place in the City of Westminster. It is a London district situated 2.2 miles (3.5 km) west north-west of Charing Cross.

Important places in Paddington include St Mary's Hospital (and nurse-training centre) and Paddington Green police station (high-security police station). The IRA bombed the telephone box outside the police station early one morning in the late 1990s as a demonstration to the British security services.

The Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal terminates at Paddington Basin (this canal links Manchester and London).

Paddington has several famous sons, notably Alexander Fleming — the scientist who discovered Penicillin (a plaque commemorating this is placed outside his laboratory at St Mary's Hospital on Praed Street) — and Alan Turing (mathematician; there is a plaque on the Hotel where he was born: The Colonnade in Warrington Crescent). More recent natives of Paddington include the musicians Seal, Courtney Pine and Elvis Costello, the footballer Les Ferdinand the actresses Emma Thompson and Rhona Mitra.

An early nineteenth century political rhyme comparing the stature of two politicians goes "London is to Paddington as Pitt is to Addington".

Padworth is a hamlet and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, between Burghfield Common and Tadley.

Padworth is in the unitary authority of West Berkshire, not far from the Hampshire border. Padworth proper is around the little Norman church and the old manor house, once the home of the military Darby-Griffith family but now an International Residential College for Girls. However, the biggest centres of population in the parish are the two hamlets of Lower Padworth, along the A4 Bath Road, and Padworth Common, and the village of Aldermaston Wharf. Grim's Ditch in the parish is supposed to be a sub-Roman bank and ditch dug to defend Silchester Roman Town when the Anglo-Saxons began to settle the area.

Pamber is a parish located in the north of Hampshire, England, near the border with Berkshire. It contains three settlements, Pamber Heath, Pamber Green and Pamber End

Peckham is a place in the London Borough of Southwark. It is located 3.5 miles (5.7 km) south east of Charing Cross, about a mile (1.6 km) east of Camberwell and a mile (1.6 km) west of New Cross.

Peckham has never been an administrative district, or a single ecclesiastical parish in its own right, but it developed a strong sense of identity in the nineteenth century when Rye Lane was one of the most important shopping streets in South London. It was the setting for the popular sitcom "Only Fools and Horses" throughout the eighties and early nineties, and has not yet shaken off its reputation as the run-down, dangerous area that was depicted in the TV series, although the series was never filmed in Peckham, but in various locations including Acton, Brighton, Salisbury, Ipswich, Hull and Bristol. Most media coverage of Peckham is in relation to its high crime rate - recent famous cases include the murder of Damilola Taylor in November 2000 and the machine-gunning of eight or nine (contemporary reports vary) people queueing outside Chicago's nightclub in the summer of 2000.

Peckham is an area of great diversity: gang-related shootings, muggings and burglary characterise one picture whilst another emphasises the high population of artists and professionals. The Bellenden area in the south west is busy with cafés, wine bars, niche shops and artists' studios. There is also clear cultural diversity: the offspring of generations of Londoners mix with members of communities from Bangladesh, the Caribbean, China, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey and Vietnam.

'Peckham' is a Saxon place name meaning the village of the river Peck, a small stream that ran through the district until it was enclosed in 1823. Archaeological evidence indicates earlier Roman occupation in the area, however, although the name of this settlement is lost.

The first certain reference to Peckham is as 'Pecheha' in Domesday Book, when it measured about 240 acres (1 km²), land for one plough, one villager and three smallholders. The manor was owned by King Henry I who gave it to his son Robert, Earl of Gloucester. When Robert married the heiress to Camberwell the two manors were united under royal ownership. John of England probably hunted at Peckham and local anecdotes suggest that the right to an annual fair was granted to celebrate a particularly good day's sport. The fair grew to be a rowdy major event lasting three weeks until its abolition in 1827.

Peckham became popular as a wealthy residential area by the sixteenth century and there are several claims that Christopher Wren had local links. By the eighteenth century the area was a more commercial centre with extensive market gardens and orchards growing produce for the nearby markets of London. Local produce included melons, figs and grapes. The formal gardens of the Peckham Manor House, rebuilt in 1672 by Sir Thomas Bond were particularly noticeable and can be seen on the Rocque map of 1746. The Manor House was sacked in 1688, as its then owner Sir Henry Bond was a Roman Catholic and staunch supporter of James VII and II. The house was finally demolished in 1797 for the formation of Peckham Hill Street, as the Shard family developed the area. Today Shard's Terrace, the block that contains Manze's Pie and Mash shop, and the western side of Peckham Hill Street represent this Georgian planned expansion.

The village was the last stopping point for many cattle drovers taking their livestock for sale in London. The drovers stayed in the local inns (such as The Red Cow) while the cattle were safely secured overnight in holding pens. Most of the villagers were agricultural or horticultural workers but with the early growth of the suburbs an increasing number worked in the brick industry that exploited the local London Clay.

In 1767 William Blake visited Peckham Rye and had a vision of an angel in a tree. In 1993, at the request of the Dulwich Festival, artist Stan Peskett painted a mural of Blake's vision next to the Goose Green playground in East Dulwich.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century Peckham was a "small, quiet, retired village surrounded by fields". Since 1744 stage coaches had travelled with an armed guard between Peckham and London to give protection from highwaymen. The rough roads constrained traffic so a branch of the Grand Surrey Canal was proposed as a route from the Thames to Portsmouth. The canal was built from Surrey Commercial Docks to Peckham before the builders ran out of funds in 1826. The abbreviated canal was used to ship soft wood for construction and even though the canal was drained and backfilled in 1970 Whitten's timber merchants still stands on the site of the canal head.

In 1851 Thomas Tilling started an innovative omnibus service from Peckham to London. Tilling's buses were the first to use pre-arranged bus stops, which helped them to run to a reliable timetable. His services expanded to cover much of London until his horses were requisitioned for the army in World War I.

Before Peckham Rye station was opened in 1865 the area had developed around two centres: north and south. In the north, housing spread out to the south of the Old Kent Road including Peckham New Town built on land owned by the Hill family (from whom the name Peckham Hill Street derives). In the south, large houses were built to the west of the common land called Peckham Rye and the lane that led to it.

With the arrival of the railway and the introduction of horse-drawn trams about ten years later, Peckham became accessible to artisans and clerical staff working in the City and the Docks. Housing for this socio-economic group filled almost all the remaining fields except the Rye. In 1868 the Vestry of Camberwell St Giles bought the Rye to keep it as common land. Responding to concerns about the dangerous overcrowding of the common on holidays the Vestry bought the adjacent Homestall Farm (the last farm in the area) in 1894 and opened this as Peckham Rye Park.

With the influx of younger residents with money to spend Rye Lane became a major shopping street. Jones & Higgins opened a small shop in 1867 (on the corner of Rye Lane and Peckham High Street) that would become the best known department store in south London for many years. It closed in the 1980s.

The late nineteenth century also saw the arrival of George Batty, a manufacturer of condiments, whose main business stood at Finsbury Pavement. The company's Peckham premises occupied 19 railway arches. It was acquired by H. J. Heinz Company in 1905 as their first UK manufacturing base.

The southern end of Peckham was the location for the railway line that once served The Crystal Palace in Sydenham. Though the line was eventually dismantled due to the collapse of the embankment into the gardens of Marmora Road it is still possible to see large sections of it. The flats on Wood Vale and the full length of Brenchley Gardens trace its route.

Marmora, Therapia, Mundania and Scutari Roads all derive their curious names from locations during the Crimean war. Close by to them is the Aquarius Golf Course which is located over an underground reservoir. When the reservoir was built it was the largest covered reservoir in the world.

Camberwell Old Cemetery, on Forest Hill Road, is a later example of the ring of Victorian Cemeteries that were built to alleviate the overcrowding of church yards that was experienced with the rapid expansion of London in the 19th Century. The Stone House at its main entrance was used in the filming of Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane (released 1970). It was gutted by fire in the mid 1970’s and rebuilt some years later. Camberwell Old Cemetery did not have the grandeur of nearby Nunhead Cemetery, which was one of the original London necropoles, and once full it was replaced by Camberwell New Cemetery on Brenchley Gardens.

In the 1930s George Scott Williamson and Innes Pearse opened the Pioneer Health Centre in Queens Road. They planned to conduct a large experiment into the effect of environment on health. 'The Peckham Experiment' recruited 950 families at one shilling a week. The members joined something like a modern sports club with facilities for physical exercise, games, workshops and socialising with no mandatory programme. The centre moved into a purpose built modernist building by the architect Sir Owen Williams in 1935.

North Peckham was heavily redeveloped in the 1960s with concrete housing characterised by high walkways. This became a sink estate by the 1980s with a marked rise in gun crime and illegal drug dealing. At the end of the 1990s a drastic plan was enacted to demolish the entire estate and replace it with low-rise dwellings and eliminate the no-go area that had become such a high-profile embarrassment. Less dramatic changes have also flowed from extensive investment in the housing and streets throughout Peckham.

In the early 1990s Peckham was a nexus of the underground music culture because of a large squat in the disused DHSS building near Peckham High Street. The squatters adopted the name Dole House Crew and held impromptu parties on the ground floor of the building whilst living on the upper floor.

Plaistow, Essex, a village and ecclesiastical district of West Ham parish, and a Station on the London and Southend Railway, 1 mile east of West Ham, 4½ miles east of Whitechapel church: pop. 6699 (Plaistow St Mary, 3448; St. Andrew, 3251). But this is exclusive of the new district in the Plaistow Marshes, Canning Town, and Victoria Docks ("London over the border"), which in 1871 had 7874 inhabitants.

The old village of Plaistow, lying loosely along North Street, the Broadway, Balaam Street, and Greengate, with roomy old houses and large gardens, tree-girt and surrounded with green though level fields, secluded, quiet, rural, was in the last and early part of the present century a favourite place of abode with sedate merchants and citizens of credit and renown. Pelleys, Morleys, Gurneys, Frys, Howards, Sturges, Hoares, Martins, Schroders, dwelt within it or on its borders. There was a Friends' Meeting House before there was a church, and Mrs. Fry, Joseph John, and Samuel Gurney, the Howards, and the Sturges were among the regular worshippers and frequent ministrants. The Independents and other dissenters were strongly represented, and the village had altogether a staid and somewhat of a puritanic aspect. Apart from the requirements of the wealthier residents, the occupations of the inhabitants were mainly agricultural and pastoral.

Plaistow is a place in the London Borough of Newham in East London. Despite the spelling, the name should be pronounced Plar-stow.

Plaistow is a mainly residential area, including several council estates; the main road (alternately named Plaistow Road and Greengate Street) contains relatively few shops and amenities. Places of interest in the area include Plaistow Park, the East London Cemetery and Newham General Hospital.

Plymouth is a city in the South West of England, or alternatively the Westcountry, and is situated within the traditional county of Devon. It is located at the mouths of the rivers Plym and Tamar and at the head of one of the world's largest and most spectacular natural harbours, the Plymouth Sound. The city has a rich maritime past and was once one of the two most important Royal Navy bases in Britain, a factor that made the city a prime target of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. After the destruction of the dockyards and city centre in the blitz of 1941, Plymouth was rebuilt under the guidance of architect Patrick Abercrombie and is now one of the few remaining naval dockyards in Britain and the largest naval base in Western Europe. Important locations in the city include The Royal Citadel, Devonport Dockyard and The Barbican from where the Pilgrims left for the New World in 1620.

People born in Plymouth are known as Plymothians or less formally as Janners. In the Royal Navy, "Guz" is a nickname for Devonport.

Poole is a coastal town, port and tourist destination, situated on the shores of the English Channel, in the ceremonial county of Dorset in southern England. The town has a population of 141,128 and is famed for its large natural harbour. Prominent employers in Poole include Barclays Bank, Hamworthy Engineering, Poole Packaging, and Ryvita. The town is home to the headquarters of luxury yacht manufacturer Sunseeker, Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), cosmetics company Lush, and the clothing company, Animal.

The Poole Harbour area has been inhabited for well over 2,000 years. The local tribe were the Celtic Durotriges who lived in Dorset in the Iron Age, particularly around Wareham, five miles to the west. The earliest significant archaeological find in the harbour itself is the Poole Longboat, a 10 metre boat made from a single oak tree and dating to 295 BC. At the time the harbour was probably shallower and any settlement would now be under water. During the last few centuries before the Roman invasion the Celtic people were moving from the hilltop settlements, such as Maiden Castle and Badbury Rings on the chalk downs to the north, and onto the lower vales and heathland around the River Frome. It may be this marshy area which gave the Durotriges, "water dwellers", their name. The Durotriges probably engaged in cross-channel trading at Poole with the Veneti, a seafaring tribe from Brittany.

In the Roman invasion of Britain in the 1st century, Poole was one of a number of harbouring sites along the south coast where the Romans landed. The Romans founded Hamworthy, an area just west of the modern town centre, and continued to use the harbour during the occupation. The town's name derives from the Old English pol which was given to people who lived near a small body of water such as a pool or pond. Variants include Pool, Pole, Poles, Poll, Polle, Polman, and Poolman

Poplar is an area of the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. During the development of the Isle of Dogs the street signs pointed to the new development (by the LDDC), and Poplar was lost for a decade or more.

St Matthias Old Church is located on Poplar High Street, opposite Tower Hamlets College. It is next to Poplar Town Hall - which has mosaic detail - and Poplar Bowls Club, which is part of Poplar Recreation Ground.

A sports centre stands on the site of Poplar workhouse, where local politician Will Crooks spent some of his earliest years (a nearby council housing estate is named after him).

Poplar was the location, in 1921, of the Poplar Rates Rebellion, led by George Lansbury.

As part of the 1951 Festival of Britain, a new council housing estate was built to the north of the East India Dock Road and named the Lansbury Estate after George Lansbury. This estate includes Chrisp Street Market, which was greatly commended by Lewis Mumford.

The same era also saw the construction of the Robin Hood Gardens housing complex (overlooking the northern portal of the Blackwall Tunnel) - designed by architects Peter and Alison Smithson - and the similarly Modernist Balfron Tower, Carradale House and Glenkerry House (to the north) - designed by Ernö Goldfinger.

The area was originally known as the Common and lay between the town of Portsmouth and the nearby Dockyard. The Common started to be developed at the end of the seventeenth century, as a response to the overcrowding in the walled town of Portsmouth. This development worried the governor of the dockyard as he feared the new buildings would provide cover for any forces attempting to attack the dockyard. In 1703, he threatened to demolish any buildings within range of the cannons mounted on the dockyard walls. However, after a petition to King George, royal consent for the development was granted in 1704. In 1792 the name of the area was changed from the Common to Portsea.

By the start of the twentieth century Portsmouth council had started to clear much of the slum housing in Portsea. The city's first council houses were built in the district in 1911.

The area's proximity to the dockyard resulted in its taking massive bomb damage during World War II. After the war the area was redeveloped as all council housing, in a mixture of houses, maisonettes and tower blocks.

The Church of England parish of Portsea covers a wider area than the district of Portsea, but does not include the entirety of Portsea Island.

Putney is a place in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It is located 5.1 miles (8.2 km) south west of Charing Cross.

Putney is situated on the southern bank of the Thames opposite Fulham. At St Mary's Church, Putney in 1647, representatives of the New Model Army held the so-called Putney Debates on the constitutional future of England.

The University Boat Race, first raced for in 1829 in Henley-on-Thames, has had Putney as its starting point since 1845. Since 1856 it has been an annual event, beginning at the University Stone, just upstream from Putney Bridge. Several rowing clubs are based on the Thames there, including London Rowing Club, Thames Rowing Club, Imperial College Boat Club and Vesta Rowing Club.

Nearest places: Fulham, Wandsworth, Roehampton, Barnes, Sheen, Southfields, Wimbledon

Stow cum Quy is a parish east of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, England. It covers an area of 764 hectares.

Ratcliff or Ratcliffe is a former hamlet which now is a section of the contemporary city of London, England, and is located in Stepney near the River Thames.

Ratcliffe in earlier times was also known as "sailor town". Located on the edge of Narrow Street on the Wapping waterfront it was made up of lodging houses, bars, brothels, music halls and opium dens. This overcrowded and squalid district acquired an unsavory reputation with a large transient population. In 1794 approximately half of the hamlet was destroyed in a fire but, even so, it continued as a notorious slum well into the nineteenth century. The hamlet was divided between the parishes of Limehouse and Stepney until 1866, when it was constituted a separate civil parish (as Ratcliffe). From 1855 it was administered by Limehouse District Board of Works, and in 1900 became part of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney.

Reach is located at the north end of Devil's Dyke, about 1.5 miles west of Burwell. The dyke split the settlement in two (East Reach and West Reach) until part of it was refilled to create the current Fair Green in the 18th century. East Reach has since vanished, filled in by arable land.

The village was a thriving port in Roman times, and was home to a large Roman villa and baths. It was an important economic centre; goods were loaded at its common hythe (wharf) for transport into the fen waterway system from at least 1100, and it was a large producer of clunch; a new wood has been planted on the old clunch pits, where chalky cliffs are still visible from early quarrying. Its use as a port continued until about 200 years ago. Reach Lode, a Roman canal, still exists, and is still navigable.

The village is scene of the Reach Fair, one of England's oldest festivals. The Fair was originally held annually at Rogationtide (which replaced the pagan festival of May Day) and is now held every May Day Bank Holiday. Officially run by the Cambridge Corporation and opened annually by the Mayor of Cambridge, it has been an annual event for over 800 years since receiving its charter in 1201 from King John. Reach Fair was historically a grand regional occasion, hosting feasting and parades over three days. The Fair is held on the central Fair Green, and probably extended down further to Reach Lode in its earlier days. In 2001, on the 800th anniversary of the fair, a plaque was unveiled on one of the Fair Green's older buildings commemorating the charter.

Reading is a town and unitary authority in Berkshire in England, at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, halfway between London and Oxford. The district has a population of over 144,000. Reading is probably the most important business centre in South East England and outside Greater London, often referred to as the capital of the Thames Valley with the headquarters of some major British companies and the UK offices of a number of major foreign multinationals.

This Hospital was opened in 1839 and was originally designed with 50 beds. It was extended in the 1860's and a Chapel added in 1882.

Tilehurst was originally a village, but is now a large suburb some three miles to the west of Reading in the English county of Berkshire.

Tilehurst is situated on the high ground to the west of Reading, which rises gradually from central Reading with its highest point at the extreme west of Tilehurst. The area is bounded to the north by the valley of the River Thames, to the south by the valley of the River Kennet and to the west by the valley of the Rivers Pang and Bourne. In contrast to the gentle rise from the east, the drops into all three of these valleys are steep, as instanced by the steep road inclines of Kentwood, Langley, Norcot and Sulham Hills.

Because of this high ground, the main roads and railway lines of the area by-pass Tilehurst, with the Bath Road and railway line to the West Country in the valley to the south, and the Oxford Road and railway line to Bristol, South Wales and the Midlands in the valley to the north. Tilehurst railway station, on the latter railway line, is in the extreme north of the Tilehurst area.

The name Tilehurst comes from tigel or tile and hurst or wooded hill. Tile manufacturing was present in the district until recent times.

The manor house of Tilehurst is at Calcot Park within the ancient parish. It was, for many years, the home of the Blagrave family, whose members include the mathematician, John Blagrave, and the regicide, Daniel Blagrave. In March of 1894 JH Blagrave sold an area of land to the Church wardens and overseers of the parish of Tilehurst. This land later became known as the Blagrave Recreation Park (or the Rec). It was agreed that the land was there for the children of the area to use. Since then, it has been used by people of all ages, from various backgrounds. In March 1898 Tilehurst Parish Council were appointed as trustees being replaced by the forerunner of Reading Borough Council in February 1914.

William Lloyd, the late 17th century bishop of St Asaph, Lichfield and Coventry, and Worcester was born in Tilehurst in 1627.

Remenham is a village on the Berkshire bank of the River Thames near Henley-on-Thames, close to the start of the Henley Royal Regatta course. Remenham Club is a private members club for rowers nearby, with a good view of the river halfway along the course.

The parish church is Norman in origin, but has been rebuilt subsequently. The tower has chequerwor turrets and in the chancel there are some Sienese wrought iron gates.

Romford is a place in East London. It is the principal town of the London Borough of Havering and is 14.1 miles (22.7 km) east north-east of Charing Cross.

Romford has been a market town since 1247, and it holds the exclusive right to hold markets over an area of radius "six and two thirds miles" centred on Romford, a right granted in mediæval times but successfully used to prevent nearby Ilford from opening a market as recently as the 1990s. Romford shopping centre grew up around the original marketplace, on the line of the old Roman road from London to Colchester.

Rotherfield Greys is a village in the Chiltern Hills, located three miles to the west of Henley-on-Thames, south Oxfordshire, England. The village was mentioned in the Domesday Book.

The village church, St. Nicolas' Church, is Norman with Victorian improvements. The church includes the 16th-century Knollys Chapel, which houses an ornate tomb of the Knollys family. This includes effigies of Sir Francis Knollys and his wife, who was Lady in Waiting to Queen Elizabeth I.

Rotherhithe is a district of south-east London in the London Borough of Southwark. It is located on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping and the Isle of Dogs on the north bank, and is a part of the Docklands area.

Rotherhithe has been a port since the 12th century or earlier, and a shipyard since Elizabethan times. It was the site from which the Mayflower set off on its journey to carry the Pilgrim Fathers to Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. The ship's captain, Christopher Jones, lived in Rotherhithe and was buried there in 1622.

The name "Rotherhithe" derives from Anglo-Saxon hryðer-h?ð = "Landing-place for cattle". The first recorded use of this name is circa 1105, as Rederheia.

Because much of Rotherhithe was covered by the now-defunct Surrey Commercial Docks, the district is often referred to as Surrey Docks or (since the late 1980s) Surrey Quays, though the latter name tends to be used more for the southern half of the peninsula. An eastern part, which became in effect an island when the docks were in use and locks open is called "Downtown". In the past Rotherhithe has also been known as the cognate "Redriff". It is part of the SE16 postal district. Electorally, the western half is Rotherhithe ward and the eastern half Surrey Docks ward.

Redriff was the fictional birthplace of Jonathan Swift's character Lemuel Gulliver, of Gulliver's Travels fame, and where his family waited for him.

Rotherhithe is joined to the north bank of the Thames by three tunnels. The Thames Tunnel to Wapping was the first underwater tunnel in the world, built by the Brunels as a pedestrian tunnel. It is now occupied by the East London Line of the London Underground. The later Rotherhithe Tunnel (opened 1908) carries a two-lane road to Limehouse. The Jubilee Line extension (opened 1999) has a railway tunnel to Canary Wharf in the Isle of Dogs.

Although the docks were closed and largely filled in during the 1980s, and have now been replaced by modern housing and commercial facilities, Rotherhithe is still dominated by its former maritime heritage. The largest surviving dock on the south bank, Greenland Dock, is the focal point for the southern part of the district, while preserved wharves dominate the riverside at the north end of Rotherhithe. St. Mary's Church dominates the old town centre, a short distance from the historic Brunel Engine House at the south end of the Thames Tunnel.

Rotherhithe had its own general hospital, St Olave's Hospital, in Lower Road. Built originally in the early 1870s on land adjoining Rotherhithe Workhouse, it became the infirmary of St Olave's Union in 1875, and was renamed St Olave's Hospital in 1930. Subsequently becoming part of the Guy's Hospital Teaching Group in 1966, it closed in 1985 and the site has been redeveloped into the residential Ann Moss Way.

Rotherhithe is the traditional home of the football team, Fisher Athletic F.C., although the team currently groundshares in Dulwich Hamlet.

The sustainable transport charity Sustrans has proposed the construction of a bicycle and pedestrian swing bridge from Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf, and a feasibility study is underway.

Because much of the former Surrey Docks had strong trade links to Scandinavia and the Baltic region the area is still home to a striving Scandinavian community. During World War II, in fact, it housed the Norwegian Government-in-Exile. Originally established as seafarers' missions, Rotherhithe is home to a Norwegian, a Finnish and a Swedish church. The Finnish Church and the Norwegian Church are both located in Albion Street; they were built in 1958 and 1927 respectively (Rotherhithe Library is located between them). There are also a number of "community centres" for the Nordic community in London, including hostels, shops and cafés and even a sauna, mostly linked closely to the churches.

Some of the redeveloped areas were built by Nordic architects, such as the Greenland Passage development by Danish Company Kjaer & Richter. This gives some areas a distinctly "Nordic" feel in terms of house and street design.

The relationship with Scandinavia and the Baltic is also reflected in the names of some of the buildings (such as the King Frederik IX Tower), the street names (e.g. Sweden Quay, Norway Gate, Helsinki Square) or other place names (e.g. Greenland Dock). Another major influence factor was trade with Russia and Canada (mainly timber), reflected in names such as Canada Water and the Russia Dock Woodland.

Saffron Walden is a small market town in the district of Uttlesford in Essex, England, 12 miles North of Bishop's Stortford, and about 15 miles South of Cambridge. The town retains a picturesque, rural appearance and many old buildings dating from the medieval period onwards. The parish had a population of 14873 in 2001.

The town has the largest parish church in Essex, St. Mary and the Virgin, which mainly dates from the 15th century. It is 183 feet (56 m) long and has a spire, built in 1832, which is 193 feet (59 m) high.

Saffron Walden also features the ruins of the 12th century Walden Castle. Nearby is the Maze, a series of circular excavations cut into the turf of the common. It is the largest turf maze in England, the main part being about 100 feet (30 m) in diameter. The earliest record of it was in 1699, and it has been extensively restored several times, most recently in 1979.

Another tourist attraction is Audley End, a manor house built by the Earl of Suffolk in the 17th century. At the north edge of the town are Bridge End Gardens, which date from the 1840's and were originally laid out by Francis Gibson, a member of the locally well-known Gibson family who were eminent Quakers, bankers and brewers.

Formerly known as Chipping Walden, its current name dates from the sixteenth century. It is a combination of the old pre-Norman manor of Waldana and the saffron crocuses which were commercially grown in the area until the 18th century. The plant was used for medicine, dye and as a spice.

Sir Thomas Smyth, a 16th century scholar and diplomatist, was born here, whilst Henry Winstanley, creator of the first Eddystone Lighthouse was born in nearby Littlebury.

Salhouse is a village and civil parish within The Broads National Park in the English county of Norfolk. It lies south of the River Bure and Salhouse Broad, about 10 km north-east of Norwich.[1]

The civil parish has an area of 8.96 km² and in the 2001 census had a population of 1462 in 604 households. For the purposes of local government, the parish falls within the district of Broadland.[2]

Salhouse is served by Salhouse railway station, which is on the Bittern Line from Norwich to Cromer and Sheringham. The village features the Bell Inn, a 17th century public house.

RAF Shipdham is a former World War II airfield in England. The field is located 3 miles S of East Dereham in Norfolk.

Shoreditch is 2.3 miles (3.7 km) north east of Charing Cross and is located at the point where five postcode areas converge. Before 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Shoreditch.

It was the site of an Augustinian priory in the 12th Century until its dissolution in 1539. In 1576 the first playhouse (theatre) in England was opened, and in 1577 The Curtain theatre was opened in the middle of what is Curtain Road today.

During the 17th Century wealthy traders and Huguenot silk weavers moved to the area, establishing a textile industry centered to the South around Spitalfields Market. The area declined along with the textile industry and from the end of the 19th Century to the 1960s, Shoreditch was a by-word for crime, prostitution and poverty.

Today Shoreditch is a busy and popular district, noted for its large number of galleries, bars and media businesses (although the prostitution and, to a lesser degree, the textile industry still remain).

Situated at the mouth of the River Sid, it is surrounded by the East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and is on the Jurassic Coast world heritage site and the South West Coast Path, a long distance footpath that skirts almost the entire coast in the West Country of England. The principal income of the town is from tourism. The town is also popular as a retirement community, with about 60% of the population being over retirement age.

Erosion remains a serious concern east of the mouth of the River Sid. The cliffs have been heavily eroded, threatening cliff top homes and the coastal footpath.

A wide esplanade has been a seafront feature since Regency times. A series of southwesterly storms in the 1980s washed away much of the shingle beach protecting the masonry, and a series of artificial rock islands were constructed to protect the sea front and tonnes of pebbles were trucked in to replace the beach.

Once a relatively small fishing village and failed port, Sidmouth became a fashionable resort for the gentry in the early nineteenth century. The town's numerous fine Georgian and Regency villas and mansions are now mostly hotels. The Lockyer Observatory and Planetarium, completed in 1912, fell into disuse and ruin but was saved from demolition by the appeals of local enthusiasts to East Devon District Council. The observatory now operates as a science education project and is regularly open to the public.

In 1819 George III's son Edward, Duke of Kent, his wife and baby daughter, came to stay at Wolbrook Glen for a few weeks. In less that a month he had died of pneumonia. His daughter was the future Queen Victoria. The house later became the Royal Glen Hotel, and a plaque on an exterior wall records the visit.

Slough is a town and unitary authority in the county of Berkshire in the south of England. In the 2001 census the population was 119,070.

Original villages which now form suburbs of modern-day Slough are: Britwell, Chalvey, Cippenham, Colnbrook, Langley, Poyle, Upton, Wexham and much of Burnham.

Most of the area was traditionally part of Buckinghamshire and formed over many years by the amalgamation of villages along the Great West Road between London and Bath and Bristol. The first recorded uses of the name occur as Slo in 1196, Sloo in 1336, and Le Slowe, Slowe or Slow in 1437. The name may have derived from the various sloughs (wetland) in the area; although some people think it may refer instead to Sloe bushes growing in the vicinty. Pubs and Coaching Inns grew up along the Great West Road to service the traffic between London and the West. Most people in the area lived in the joint parish of Upton and Chalvey, termed Upton-cum-Chalvey.

The astronomer William Herschel (1738 - 1822), and his sister Caroline, produced the first true map of the universe with a telescope he built in his garden in Windsor Road, Slough. A monument in Windsor Road commemorates his achievement. William married and is buried in St Laurence's Church, Upton, Slough.

The arrival of the railway in Slough in 1840 led to Queen Victoria making her first ever railway journey, from Slough station to Bishop's Bridge near Paddington, in 1842. In later years, a railway spur would be built from Slough Station to Windsor Central for the Queen's greater convenience.

On January 1, 1845, John Tawell, who had recently returned from Australia, murdered his lover, Sarah Hart, at Salt Hill in Slough by poisoning her with prussic acid. With various officials in chase, Tawell fled to Slough Station and boarded a train to Paddington. Fortunately, the electrical telegraph had recently been installed and so a message was sent ahead to Paddington with Tawell's details. Tawell was trailed and subsequently arrested, tried and executed for the murder at Aylesbury on March 28, 1845. This is believed to be the first time ever that the telegraph had been involved in the apprehension of a murderer.

The Grand Junction Canal spur arrived in 1882, and, during the mid to late 1800s, the arrival of the large-scale brickmaking industry into Langley and the area north of the Great West Road, saw dramatic growth northwards encroaching on the very south of the parish of Stoke Poges. This new development saw the population centre of the town move northwards and the name Slough suppressed Upton-cum-Chalvey.

An area of boggy ground to the west of Slough was used to store huge numbers of motor vehicles coming back from the First World War in Flanders. Local engineering companies sprung up to service this ready resource, and, in the early 1920s, these companies formed the Slough Trading Estate, one of the first such Industrial Estates in the world. Spectacular growth and employment ensued, with Slough attracting workers from many parts of the UK and abroad. Large housing estates were formed to cater for these workers and their families, notably Manor Park and Cippenham.

After the Second World War, several further large housing developments arose to take large numbers of people migrating from war-damaged London, notably Britwell, Wexham Court and Langley.

In the early 1970s the main A4 road was routed onto Wellington Street, north of and parallel to the High Street. This re-routing allowed the building of a major shopping complex, Queensmere, between the High Street and Wellington Street.

Slough was incorporated into Berkshire in the 1974 local government reorganisation. On April 1, 1995, the Borough of Slough expanded slightly into Buckinghamshire and Surrey, to take in Colnbrook and Poyle. It became a unitary authority on April 1, 1998, with the abolition of Berkshire County Council.

Somerleyton is a village near the River Waveney in north-eastern Suffolk, England within The Broads National Park.

Many of the houses consist of the model village built around a green that once belonged to the Somerleyton Estate, formerly the property of Morton Peto. Somerleyton Hall is still a private residence, and is open to the public.

The village has a County Primary school and a thatched combined post office and village shop. Somerleyton railway station is nearby, on the Norwich to Lowestoft line.

Somerleyton was the home of Christopher Cockerell while he invented the hovercraft

Sonning (occasionally called Sonning-on-Thames) is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, a few miles east of Reading. The village is situated on the River Thames and was described by Jerome K. Jerome in his book Three Men in a Boat as "the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river.

The parish of Sonning originally included Charvil, Woodley and Earley and, before 1866, was a cross-county-boundary parish containing Sonning Eye, Dunsden Green and Playhatch in Oxfordshire as well. It is now much smaller and triangular shaped. The north-western boundary is formed by the River Thames before passing through the middle of the Thames Valley Business Park. The southern border follows the railway line. The north-eastern boundary travels over Charvil Hill and follows the edge of the housing at Charvil itself until it reaches the confluence of St Patrick's Stream with the Thames, near St Patrick's Bridge. The northern corner of the parish consists of very low-lying land adjoining the River. The Sonning Golf Course sits in the south-east corner, with Holme Park, Sonning Hill and the business park in the south-west, and the village roughly in the middle.

The historical name of the village is Sunning, derived from the name of the Saxon Sunna. Older more traditional villagers still pronounce the name of the village in this way and the spelling can be found on old maps and documents. In Saxon times, the village was of considerable importance as the lesser centre of the bishopric of Ramsbury, sometimes called the see of Ramsbury and Sonning. The church was a secondary cathedral and the present structure contains re-used Saxon carvings.

Sonning prospered as an important stopping post for travellers, both by road and by boat. There were a number of ancient hostelries where they could have stayed, notably the Great House on the site of the original ferryman's cottage. The Bull Inn had the added bonus of being near the church where pilgrims could worship a relic of Saint Cyriacus. The Bishops of Salisbury succeeded those of Ramsbury and Sonning and had a Bishop's Palace in the village until the 16th century. King Richard II's young bride, Queen Isabella of Valois, was kept captive there during his imprisonment and deposition.

Just outside the village, above the lock, is the independent secondary school, Reading Blue Coat School, located in the 19th century manor house, Holme Park. Built in the 'Home Park' of the old palace, it replaced a georgian mansion erected for the Lords of the Manor who eventually superseded the bishops. The first of these was Laurence Halstead, partner to the great Reading cloth merchant, John Kendrick. In the early 20th century, a second country house was built in the village, the Deanery. It provides a fine example of an Edwin Lutyens house with a Gertrude Jekyll garden, originally designed as a show house for the founder of Country Life magazine.

The Bishops of Ramsbury & Sonning, including SS Oda the Severe and Bertwald of Ramsbury

Laurence Halstead, 17th century cloth merchant and partner of philanthropist, John Kendrick

Sir Terence Rattigan, dramatist, briefly at The Red House during 1945–47 — there is a blue plaque

Sir Thomas Rich, 17th century merchant, money-lender to the King and benefactor to both Sonning and Gloucester.

The following recipients of the Victoria Cross are buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's Church:

Print of Sonning Bridge (1799) with the tower of St Andrew's Church, Sonning, in the background.

South Ockendon is a place in the Thurrock borough and unitary district in the East of England, United Kingdom.

South Ockendon was an ancient parish and formed in 1894, along with North Ockendon, part of Orsett Rural District of Essex. In 1929 it was transferred to Purfleet Urban District and became administratively separated from North Ockendon.

At the time of the 1931 census the parish consisted of 2,936 acres and a population of 1,355. It was abolished in 1935. Its former area was used to form part of Thurrock Urban District in 1936.

South Ockendon has been a village since before the Norman Invasion. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Wokenduna. Until the late 1940's, the village centred on The Village Green, with its Norman Church facing "The Royal Oak" a 17th century tavern. North, South and West Roads all converge on The Green.

In 1912, Mollands Farm to the South of the village was bought for use as a 'rehabilitation' facility for what are now termed disadvantaged people. It gradually developed into a major mental hospital (known locally as The Colony) between 1912 and 1994 when it closed and was demolished as an indirect result of the devastating "South Ockendon Report" which frankly redefined the borders of bad management of mental patients and led to a nationwide reappraisel of mental care in the UK.

Separately, South Ockendon village was used as a location for pre-fab houses to accommodate bombed-out residents of East London/West Essex in the very late 40's. Almost all of these 'houses', built we are told by POWs!, are still standing and being lived in almost sixty years later. Although there are no prefabs along the length of Orchard Road, there were originally. But they were replaced by more convivial accommodation between 1955? and 1960? [dates to be confirmed]

The railway line from Upminster to Grays separates the old village of South Ockendon from 'Belhus Park' which has been in continuous development since the early 50's and has been subsumed in name at least into 'South Ockendon.

South Walsham is a village (population 738) in Norfolk, England within The Broads National Park.

Southampton is a city and major port situated on the south coast of England. It is the closest city to the New Forest and lies at the northern-most point of Southampton Water approximately halfway between Portsmouth and Bournemouth.

Formerly a County Borough within the county of Hampshire (to which it gives its full name, the County of Southampton) , the city reverted to independent unitary authority status in local government re-organisations on April 1, 1997. This makes Southampton an administrative county in its own right. Within Southampton there are several districts including Woolston, Bitterne, Portswood, Bassett, Shirley, Freemantle, Millbrook and Swaythling.

In common with many British towns and cities, such as Coventry and Plymouth, it was heavily bombed during the Second World War. Many historic buildings were lost as a result but the old city walls remain, as does the Bargate, formerly the main gateway to the city at the northern end of the walls (Southampton has England's second-longest stretch of surviving Medieval wall, the longest being in York). The Bargate is often used as a symbol of the city, and is a prominent part of the city council's corporate identity. There are numerous large parks in the city centre. Most of Southampton's municipal services, including the library and the well-endowed art gallery are to be found in the Civic Centre.

The city is home to the University of Southampton, Southampton Solent University and West Quay shopping centre. It is also the headquarters of Ordnance Survey, the UK's national mapping agency. The local newspaper for the city is the Southern Daily Echo, a Newsquest publication.

Southampton has always been strongly connected with maritime history and developments. In particular, it is a primary port for cruise ships, its heyday being the first half of the 20th Century, and in particular the inter-war years, when it handled almost half the passenger traffic of the UK. Today it remains home to many luxury liners, as well as being a very important container port.

The outstanding harbour means it is the principal port on the south coast, and one of the largest in the UK. Sailing is a popular sport here. Much of this is centred around the Ocean Village development, a local marina which includes one of the South Coast's major independent cinema complexes, Harbour Lights.

Southampton is graced with many green spaces and parks. The largest of these is Southampton Common, parts of which are used to host the annual summer festival. The Common includes a Wildlife Centre on the former site of Southampton Zoo.

Southampton Football Club (a.k.a. the "Saints") is also based here at St Mary's Stadium. It was a Southampton team member, Charles William Miller, who founded Brazil's first football club.

The Borough or Southwark is an area of the London Borough of Southwark situated 1.5 miles (2.4 km) east south-east of Charing Cross.

The Borough is also known as Southwark and is the area of London immediately south of London Bridge.

It has been called The Borough since the 1550s, to contrast it with the neighbouring City, in later years to distinguish it from the larger Metropolitan Borough of Southwark and now to distinguish it from the much larger London Borough of Southwark.

Much of the area around the Tate Modern gallery and the Globe Theatre is now referred to by the historic name of Bankside.

Southwark is on a previously marshy area south of the River Thames. Recent excavation has revealed prehistoric activity including evidence of early ploughing, burial mounds and ritual activity. The area was originally a series of islands in the River Thames. This formed the best place to bridge the Thames and the area became an important part of Londinium owing its importance to its position as the endpoint of the Roman London Bridge. Two Roman roads, Stane Street and Watling Street, met at Southwark in what is now Borough High Street.

At some point the Bridge fell or was pulled down. Southwark and the city seem to have become largely deserted during the Early Middle Ages. Archaeologically, evidence of settlement is replaced by a largely featureless soil called the Dark Earth which probably (although this is contested) represents an urban area abandoned.

Southwark appears to recover only during the time of King Alfred and his successors. Sometime in and around 886 AD the Bridge was rebuilt and the City and Southwark restored. Southwark was called 'Suddringa Geworc' which means the 'defensive works of the men of Surrey'. It was probably fortified to defend the bridge and hence the re-emerging City of London to the north. This defensive role is highlighted by the use of the Bridge as a defense against King Swein, his son King Cnut and in 1066, against King William the Conqueror. He failed to force the Bridge during the Norman conquest of England, but Southwark was devastated.

Much of Southwark was originally owned by the church - the greatest reminder of monastic London is Southwark Cathedral, originally the priory of St Mary Overy.

During the Middle Ages, Southwark remained outside of the control of the City and was a haven for criminals and free traders, who would sell goods and conduct trades outside the regulation of the City Livery Companies. An important market - later to become known as the Borough Market - was established there some time in the 13th century. The area was renowned for its inns, especially The Tabard, from which Chaucer's pilgrims set off on their journey in The Canterbury Tales.

After many decades' petitioning, in 1550, Southwark was incorporated into the City of London as 'The Ward of Bridge Without'. It became the entertainment district for London, and it was also the red-light area. In 1599, William Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was built on the South Bank in Southwark, though it burned down in 1613. A modern replica, also called the Globe, has been built near the original site. Southwark was also a favorite area for entertainment like bull and bear-baiting. There was also a famous fair in Southwark which took place near the Church of St. George the Martyr. William Hogarth depicted this fair in his engraving of Southwark Fair (1733).

In 1844 the railway reached Southwark with the opening of London Bridge station.

In 1861 the Great Fire of Southwark destroyed a large number of buildings between Tooley Street and the Thames, including those around Hays Wharf, where Hays Galleria was later built, and blocks to the west almost as far as St Olave's Church.

In 1899 Southwark was incorporated along with Newington and Walworth into the Metropolitan Borough of Southwark, and in 1965 this was incorporated with the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell and Metropolitan Borough of Bermondsey into the London Borough of Southwark.

St George's Cathedral Southwark is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Southwark, South London. It should not be confused with the Anglican Southwark Cathedral.

The cathedral is the Mother Church of the Roman Catholic Province of Southwark which covers the Archdiocese of Southwark (all of London south of the River Thames including Kent and north Surrey) and the Dioceses of Arundel and Brighton, Portsmouth, and Plymouth.

The original cathedral was opened in 1848 as the first Catholic cathedral in England since the Reformation. It was designed by Pugin and badly bombed during World War II. The rebuilt cathedral was opened in 1958.

St Andrew the Less was an Ecclesiastical Parish in the county of Cambridgeshire, in England

The parish of St Andrew the Less is also known as Barnwell. From the 1840s the term New Town refers to the new development in the Hills Road area, later served by St Paul's Church. The early church was often also referred to as “The Abbey” but when this building fell into disrepair a new church, known as Christchurch, was built in a different location on Newmarket Road.

Saint Helier (Jèrriais: St Hélyi) is one of the twelve parishes, and the largest town in Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. It has a population of about 28,000, and is the capital of the Island (although Government House is situated in St. Saviour).

The parish covers a surface area of 5,738 vergées (10.6 km²; 4.1 sq. mi), being 9% of the total land area of the Island (this includes reclaimed land area of 957 vergées (2 km²; 494 acres).

The parish crest is two crossed gold axes on a blue background, symbolising the martyrdom of Helier and the sea.

It is thought that the site of St. Helier was settled at the time of the Roman control of Gaul.

The medieval hagiographies of Helier, the patron saint martyred in Jersey and after whom the parish and town are named, suggest a picture of a small fishing village on the dunes between the marshy land behind and the high-water mark.

Although the Parish Church of St Helier is now some considerable distance from the sea, at the time of its original construction it was on the edge of the dunes at the closest practical point to the offshore islet called the Hermitage (site of Helier's witness and martyrdom). Before land reclamation and port construction started, boats could be tied up to the churchyard wall on the seaward side.

An Abbey of St. Helier was founded in 1155 on L'Islet, a tidal island adjacent to the Hermitage. Closed at the Reformation, the site of the abbey was fortified to create the castle that replaced Mont Orgueil as the Island's major fortress. The new Elizabeth Castle was named after the Queen by the Governor of Jersey 1600-1603, Sir Walter Raleigh.

Until the end of the 18th century, the town consisted chiefly of a string of houses, shops and warehouses stretching along the coastal dunes either side of the Church of St. Helier and the adjacent marketplace (since 1751, Royal Square). La Cohue (a Norman word for courthouse) stood on one side of the square, now rebuilt as the Royal Court and States Chamber (called collectively the States Building). The market cross in the centre of the square was pulled down at the Reformation, and the iron cage for holding prisoners was replaced by a prison gatehouse at the western edge of town.

George II gave £200 towards the construction of a new harbour - previously boats would be beached on a falling tide and unloaded by cart across the sands. A statue of the king (by John Cheere) was erected in the square in 1751 in gratitude, and the market place was renamed Royal Square, although the name has remained Lé Vièr Marchi (the old market) to this day in Jèrriais. Many of St. Helier's road names and street names are bilingual English/French or English/Jèrriais, some having only one name though, although the names in the various languages are not usually translations: distinct naming traditions survive alongside each other.

The Royal Square was also the scene of the Battle of Jersey on January 6, 1781, the last attempt by French forces to seize Jersey. John Singleton Copley's epic painting The Death of Major Pierson captures an imaginative version of the scene.

As harbour construction moved development seaward, a growth in population meant that marshland and pasture north of the ribbon of urban activity was built on speculatively. Settlement by English immigrants added quarters of colonial-style town houses to the traditional building stock.

Continuing military threats from France spurred the construction of a citadel fortress, Fort Regent, on the Mont de la Ville, the crag dominating the shallow basin of St. Helier.

Military roads linking coastal defences around the island with St. Helier harbour had the effect of enabling farmers to exploits Jersey's temperate micro-climate and get their crops onto new fast sailing ships and then steamships to get their produce into the markets of London and Paris before the competition. This was the start of Jersey's agricultural prosperity in the 19th century.

From the 1820s, peace with France and better communications enabled by steamships and railways to coastal ports encouraged an influx of English-speaking residents. Speculative development covered the marshy basin north of the central coastal strip as far as the hills within a period of about 40 years, providing the town with terraces of elegant town houses.

In the second half of the 19th century, the need to facilitate access to the harbour for hundreds of trucks laden with potatoes and other produce for export prompted a programme of road-widening which swept away many of the ancient buildings of the town centre. Pressure for redevelopment has meant that very few buildings remain in urban St. Helier which date to before the 19th century, giving the town primarily a Regency or Victorian character.

Pierre Le Sueur, reforming Constable of St. Helier, was responsible for installing sewerage and provision of clean water in St. Helier following outbreaks of cholera in the 1830s. An obelisk with fountain in the town centre was raised to his memory following his premature death in office from overwork.

In the 1970s, a programme of pedestrianisation of the central streets was undertaken.

St Mary the Great with St Michael is a Church of England church in Cambridge, UK. It is locally also known as Great St Mary's or GSM.

In addition to being a parish church in the Diocese of Ely, it is the University Church for the University of Cambridge. As such it has a minor role in the University's legislation: for example, University Officers must live within 20 miles of Great St Mary's. The church also hosts University Sermons, and houses the University Organ and the University Clock. The latter chimes the Cambridge Chimes which were later used by the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament ("Big Ben").

The first church on the site of the current one was built in 1205, but this was mostly destroyed by fire in 1290 and then rebuilt. In the Middle Ages it became an official gathering place for meetings and debates for Cambridge University, but this ceased in 1730 when the University's Senate House was built across the street.

Various leading philosophers of the English Reformation preached there, notably Erasmus. Martin Bucer, who influenced Cranmer's writing of the Book of Common Prayer, was buried there. Under Queen Mary, his corpse was burnt in the marketplace, but under Elizabeth I, the dust from the place of burning was replaced in the church. The Tractarian movement in the 19th century prompted the removal of the east and west galleries, and the north and south still stand.

Staines is a Thames-side town in the Spelthorne borough of Surrey and part of the London Commuter Belt of South East England. It is a suburban development within the western bounds of the M25 motorway and located 17 miles (27 km) west south-west of Charing Cross in London.

The name Staines is thought to derive from Old English for 'stones', due to a long-lost site of monoliths in nearby Stanwell. Others believe the name to derive from 'St Anne's in the Thames'.

There has been a bridge since Roman times (hence the Roman name of the town Pontes). Claudius led the Romans into Britain in 43 AD and they settled in Staines the same year. Soon after this invasion the first Staines Bridge was constructed to provide an important Thames crossing point on main road from Londinium (London) to Silchester, near Reading.

A border stana, or stone, on the bank of the River Thames, dated 1280, still remains, indicating the western limit of the City of London jurisdiction over the Thames. (Although familiarly known as the 'London Stone', it is not to be confused with the more famous (and probably more ancient) London Stone in Cannon Street in the City of London).

The situation of Staines as a major crossing point over the River Thames, its position on the main road from London to the southwest, and its proximity to Windsor has led to the town being involved in national affairs. The barons assembled there before they met King John at Runnymede in 1215, and Stephen Langton held a consecration there shortly after the issue of Magna Carta. Sir Thomas More was tried in 1535 in a Staines public house, to avoid the outbreak of plague in London at that time. Kings and other important people must have passed through the town on many occasions: the church bells were rung several times in 1670, for instance, when the king and queen went through Staines.[1]

During the period 1642–48 there were skirmishes on Staines Moor and numerous troop movements over Staines Bridge during the Civil War

Staines was the major producer of linoleum, a type of floor covering, after the formation of the Linoleum Manufacturing Company in 1864 by its inventor, Frederick Walton. Linoleum became the main industry of the town and was a major employer in the area up until the 1960s. In 1876 about 220 and in 1911 about 350 people worked in the plant. By 1957 it employed some 300 people and in 1956 the factory produced about 3,200 sq yd. of linoleum each week. The term 'Staines Lino' became a world-wide name but the factory was closed around 1970 and is now the site of the Two Rivers shopping centre. A bronze statue of two lino workers in Staines High Street commemorates the Staines Lino Factory. The Spelthorne Museum in Staines has a display dedicated to the Linoleum Manufacturing Company.

Staines was also the home of the fabulous Lagonda Motor car. It was built on the site of what is now Sainsbury's.

Staines was the site of the Staines air disaster in 1972, at the time the worst air crash to have occurred on British soil, until the Lockerbie disaster of 1988. The crash was commemorated in June of 2004, with the opening of a dedicated garden, created at the request of relatives, near to the crash site, and the unveiling of a stained glass window at St. Marys Church, where a memorial service was held.

Stepney is an inner-city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located 3.6 miles (5.8 km) east north-east of Charing Cross and forms part of the East End of London.

The area consists of mostly post-war high density housing and a few streets of terraced housing that escaped slum-clearance. There is light industry and a few warehouses although this is mostly in decline.

Commercial Road, part of the A13, passes through the area east to west. Stepney is served by Stepney Green tube station which takes its name from the open space Stepney Green.

The area has thusfar mostly escaped mass gentrification although the nearby areas of Whitechapel, Wapping, Limehouse and Mile End, which surround Stepney, are becoming increasingly redeveloped.

Stockwell is 2.4 miles (3.9 km) south south-east of Charing Cross and located between Brixton, Clapham, Vauxhall and Kennington. The A3 road runs through Stockwell.

From the thirteenth to the start of the nineteenth century, Stockwell was a rural manor at the edge of London. It included market gardens and John Tradescant's botanical garden – commemorated in Tradescant Road which was built over it in 1880, and in a memorial outside St Stephen's church. In the nineteenth century it developed as an elegant middle class suburb. Residents included the artist Arthur Rackham, who was born in South Lambeth Road in 1867, moving with his family to Albert Square when he was 15.

Its social and architectural fortunes in the twentieth century were more mixed. The area immediately around Stockwell tube station was extensively rebuilt following the Second World War, and its appearance remains somewhat dispiriting. The area also has much social housing, some of it of doubtful quality. However, many remnants of the area's nineteenth century grandeur can be found in the side and back streets of Stockwell, notably in the Stockwell Park Conservation Area, built around 1840 and centred on Stockwell Park Road and Stockwell Park Crescent, and in the area's own Albert Square. The only twentieth century building of significant architectural interest in the area is Stockwell Garage.

Stockwell and neighbouring South Lambeth are home to the UK's biggest Portuguese communities, most originating in Madeira. They have established many cafes, restaurants, bakeries, neighbourhood associations and delicatessens. People of Caribbean and of west African origin are also well represented locally.

Famous former and current residents of Stockwell include Lilian Baylis, Edward Thomas, Vincent Van Gogh (briefly), French Resistance heroine Violette Szabo, Joanna Lumley, Jerry Dammers, Roger Moore, Roots Manuva and Will Self. Following the 21 July 2005 London bombings, Stockwell gained a certain unexpected and unwelcome notoriety as the scene of the shooting by police of a terror suspect (who later proved to be an innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes) in the tube station and of the arrests of other suspects in nearby housing.

TOWNS & PLACES IN THE HALL / BARLOW FAMILY TREE