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ABERDULAIS is a village in Neath Port Talbot, Wales (ceremonial county of Glamorgan), lying on the River Neath.
The village grew around the Aberdulais Falls, the site of successive industries and now a hydro-electric station.
The first business there was a copper smelting industry; that failed because it received only sporadic copper delivered via boat from Cornwall. The site was then chosen again by an ironworks forge. This, too, failed, but not much is known, so nobody knows why. It was chosen twice to be the site for an ironworks. Between the works, Aberdulais was used as a corn watermill; that failed because it was too small scale, and the high price of corn at the time of the Corn Laws. It was then used as a tinplate site; that failed because tinplate was made redundant after the Bessemer Process.
Aberdulais is also the name of an electoral ward covering the village. It is a constituent of the parish of Blaenhonddan. The electoral ward of Aberdulais includes some or all of the settlements of Aberdulais and Cilfrew in the parliamentary constituency of Neath. Most of the ward consists of woodland and farmland with a small residential area to the far south. Aberdulais is bounded by the wards of Crynant to the north; Resolven to the east; Tonna to the south; and Cadoxton and Bryncoch North to the west.
B
BARNSLEY is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Dearne, 11.8 miles (19 km) north of the city of Sheffield, 17 miles (27 km) south of Leeds and 14.5 miles (23 km) west of Doncaster. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Barnsley is notable as a former industrial town centred on coal mining and glassmaking; although in the town a few factories remain, notably the glassworks and coking plant. Though these industries demised in the 20th century, Barnsley's local culture remains rooted in this industrial heritage - Barnsley has a tradition of brass bands, originally created as social clubs for its mining communities.
Most of the pits were actually in the villages surrounding Barnsley, rather than in the town itself. The proportion employed in mining varied hugely, even before recent times. Barnsley Main Colliery was in the town, but was fairly small; it closed in 1991. All of the mines in the borough are now closed; Goldthorpe was the last to close in 1994. Wire, linen and glassmaking were also major industries, but only glassmaking remains, with two large companies still operating. The coat of arms for the town includes a coal miner and a glassblower.
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DARLINGTON is a town in the ceremonial county of County Durham, England, known for its associations with the birth of railways - the world's first passenger rail journey was between Shildon and Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington, on the Darlington and Stockton Railway in 1825.
The town later became an important centre for railway manufacturing, with three significant works. The largest of these was the main line locomotive works, known as North Road Shops, opened in 1863 and closed in 1966. Another was Robert Stephenson & Co. (colloquially: Stivvies), who moved to Darlington from Newcastle upon Tyne in 1902, became Robert Stephensons & Hawthorns in 1937, were absorbed by English Electric around 1960, and closed by 1964. The third was Faverdale Wagon Works, established in 1923 and closed in 1962, which in the 1950s was a UK pioneer in the application of mass-production techniques to the manufacture of railway goods wagons.
The town's football team, Darlington F.C. is known as The Quakers because of the contributions made to the town by men such as Edward and Joseph Pease, members of the Religious Society of Friends.
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GATESHEAD is a town in Tyne and Wear, England. There has been a settlement on the Gateshead side of the River Tyne, around the old river crossing where the Swing Bridge now stands, since Roman times. Theories of the derivation of the name Gateshead include head of the (Roman) road or goat's headland, as the River Tyne at this point was once roamed by goats.
Throughout the industrial revolution the population of Gateshead expanded rapidly; between 1801 and 1901 the increase was over 100,000. This expansion resulted in the spread southwards of the town. In 1854, a catastrophic explosion on the quayside destroyed most of Gateshead's mediaeval heritage, and caused widespread damage on the Newcastle side of the river.
Robert Stirling Newall took out a patent on the manufacture of wire ropes in 1840 and in partnership with Messrs. Liddell and Gordon, set up his headquarters at Gateshead. A worldwide industry of wire-drawing resulted. The submarine telegraph cable received its definitive form through Newall's initiative, involving the use of gutta percha surrounded by strong wires. The first successful Dover-Calais cable on 25 September 1851, was made in Newall's works. In 1853, he invented the brake-drum and cone for laying cable in deep seas. Half of the first Atlantic cable was manufactured in Gateshead.
Sir Joseph Swan lived at Underhills, Kells Lane from 1869-83, where his experiments led to the invention of the electric light-bulb. The house was the first in the world to be wired for domestic electric light.
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HASTINGS is a town and Borough on the coast of East Sussex in England. In historical terms, Hastings can claim fame through its connection with the Norman conquest of England; and also because it became one of the medieval Cinque Ports. Hastings was, for centuries, an important fishing port; although much reduced, it has the largest beach-based fishing fleet in England. As with many other such places, the town became a watering place in the 1760s, and then, with the coming of the railway, a seaside resort. The Town is sometimes referred to as "the birthplace of television" since the pioneer of television, John Logie Baird, lived at 21 Linton Crescent from 1922 to 1924.
The start of the Norman Conquest was the Battle of Hastings, fought on 14 October 1066; although the battle itself took place eight miles to the north at Senlac Hill, and William had landed on the coast between Hastings and Eastbourne at a site now known as Norman's Bay. It is thought that the Norman encampment was on the town's outskirts, where there was open ground; a new town was already being built in the valley to the east. That New Burgh was founded in 1069, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book as such. William defeated and killed Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon King of England, and destroyed his army; thus opening England to the Norman conquest.
In the Middle Ages Hastings became one of the Cinque Ports; Sandwich, Dover, and New Romney being the first, Hastings, and Hythe followed, all finally being joined by Rye and Winchelsea, at one point 42 towns were directly or indirectly affiliated to the group.
Hastings, it is thought, was a Saxon town before the arrival of the Normans: the Domesday Book refers to a new Borough: as a borough, Hastings had a corporation consisting of a "bailiff, jurats, and commonalty". Its importance was such that it also gave its name to one of the six Rapes or administrative districts of Sussex.
Until the development of tourism, fishing was Hastings' major industry. The beach launched fishing fleet, based at the Stade remains Europe's largest and has recently won accreditation for its sustainable methods. The fleet has been based on the same beach, below the cliffs at Hastings, for at least 400, possibly 600, years. Its longevity attributed to the prolific fishing ground of Rye Bay nearby.
Hastings has long been known as a retreat for artists and painters. For example, the pre-Raphaelite painters including Dante Gabriel Rossetti (who married there) and William Holman Hunt, who painted pictures of nearby cliffs at Fairlight, admired the town.
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HOYLAND (Yorkshire - South, formerly West Riding of) is a town near Barnsley in Northern England. The town developed from the hamlets of Upper Hoyland, Hoyland, and Hoyland Common. The town has also been known as Nether Hoyland. That name was given to it when to prevent confusion with High Hoyland. When the urban district council was formed the name they used was Hoyland Nether Urban District Council. This was also applied to the area run by Hoyland UDC. However, most locals have always known it simply as Hoyland.
Hoyland was home to an ironworks known as Milton Forge. It was linked with the coal mines in Elsecar but both the mines and forge have been closed for many years. There is now little evidence that it ever existed except clues in nearby road names - Millhouses Street, Millmount Road, Milton Road - and there is a public house nearby called The Furnace. There is also a large playing field locally known as the Forge.
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LUTON is a town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 32 miles (51 kilometres) north of London. The town was for many years famous for hat-making (Luton Town Football Club is nicknamed The Hatters) and was also home to a large Vauxhall Motors factory; the head office of Vauxhall Motors is still situated in the town. Car production at the plant began in 1905 and continued until 2002, but commercial vehicle production remains.
The first urban settlement nearby was the small Roman town of Durocobrivis at Dunstable, but Roman remains in Luton itself consist only of scattered farmsteads. The foundation of Luton is usually dated to the 6th century when a Saxon outpost was founded on the River Lea, Lea tun. Luton is recorded in the Domesday Book as Loitone and also as Lintone.
Agriculture dominated the local economy at that time, and the town's population was around 700-800. The agriculture base of the town changed in the 16th century with a brick making industry developing around Luton, and many of the older wooden houses were rebuilt in brick. The hat making industry began in the 17th century and became synonymous with the town. By the 18th century the industry dominated the town. Hats are still produced in the town on a much smaller scale. Newspaper printing arrived in the town in 1854.
In the 20th century, the hat trade severely declined and was replaced by other industries. In 1905, Vauxhall Motors opened the largest car plant in the United Kingdom in Luton. Electrolux built a household appliances plant which was followed by other light engineering businesses.
In World War II, the Vauxhall Factory built Churchill tanks as part of the war effort. Despite heavy camouflage, the factory made Luton a target for the Luftwaffe and the town suffered a number of air raids. Other industry in the town, such as SKF which produced ball bearings, made a vital contribution to the war effort. Although a bomb landed at the SKF Factory, no major damage was caused.
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NEATH (Welsh: Castell-nedd, literally Castle [on the river] Neath) is a town situated in the principal area of Neath Port Talbot, Wales. The town is located on the river of the same name, 7 miles (11 km) east north east of Swansea. The castle was built in Norman times.
Historically, Neath was the crossing place of the River Neath and has existed as a settlement since the Romans established the fort of Nido or Nidum in the AD 70s. The Roman fort took its name from the river Nedd; the meaning is obscure but shining or simply river have been suggested. The Antonine Itinerary (c. 2nd century) names only nine places in Roman Wales, one of them being Neath. There is evidence of undated prehistoric settlements on the hills surrounding the town, which were probably Celtic. The fort covered a large area which now lies under the playing fields of Dwr-y-Felin Comprehensive School. In the late 1960s, there were reports in the local media of a massive Roman marching camp being found above Llantwit which would have accommodated many thousands of troops.
St Illtyd visited the Neath area and established a settlement in what is now known as Llantwit on the northern edge of the town. The church of St Illtyd was built at this settlement and was enlarged in Norman times. The Norman and pre-Norman church structure remains intact and active today within the Church in Wales.
Neath was a market town that expanded with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century with new manufacturing industries of iron, steel and tinplate. Coal was mined extensively in the surrounding valleys and the construction of canals and railways made Neath a major transportation centre, and the Evans & Bevan family were major in the local coal mining community as well as owning the Vale of Neath Brewery. Silica was mined in the Craig-y-Dinas area of Pontneddfechan, after Quaker entrepreneur William Weston Young invented the blast furnace silica firebrick, later moving brick production from the works at Pontwalby to The Green in Neath. The town continued as a market trading centre with a municipal cattle market run by W.B.Trick. Industrial development continued throughout the 20th century with the construction by British Petroleum of a new petroleum refinery at Llandarcy.
Admiral Lord Nelson stayed at the Castle Hotel en route to Milford Haven when the fleet was at anchor there. Lt. Lewis Roatley, the son of the landlord of the Castle Hotel, served as a Royal Marines officer with Lord Admiral Nelson aboard HMS Victory in the Battle of Trafalgar.
The River Neath is a navigable estuary and Neath was a river port until recent times. The heavy industries are no more with the town being a commercial and tourism centre. Neath hosted the National Eisteddfod of Wales in 1918, 1934, and 1994.
S
ST-LEONARDS-ON-SEA is part of Hastings, lying immediately to the west of the town centre. The original part of the settlement was laid out in the early 19th century as a new town: a place of elegant houses designed for the well-off; it also included a central public garden, a hotel, an archery, assembly rooms and a church. Today's St Leonards has extended well beyond that original design, although the original town still exists within it.
The land that is now St Leonards was once owned by the Levett family, an ancient Sussex gentry family of Norman origin who owned the adjacent manor of Hollington, and subsequently by their descendants, the Eversfields, who rose to prominence from their iron foundries and widespread property holdings during Tudor times. Eversfields served as sheriffs of Surrey and Sussex in the 16th and 17th centuries and were later baronets before the family became extinct.
James Burton (1761-1837), a successful London architect who had developed large areas of Bloomsbury and the houses around Regent's Park, purchased land from the Eversfield estate in order to put into being his concept of a seaside resort. The land was part of Gensing Farm; and included a small wooded valley leading down to the sea. Before he died in 1837 St Leonards (Royal Victoria) Hotel, the South Colonnade, an archway marking the town boundary with Hastings, and tall seafront houses (as far as 71 Marina) had also been completed. His grave is marked by a pyramid in the churchyard above St Leonards Church. In 1850 his son Decimus (1800-1881) started the second phase of building, by acquiring more land and extending the development westward.
Decimus Burton became a Commissioner of the new town in 1833. He leased a triangle of land bounded by Mercatoria, St John's Church, Maze Hill and Kenilworth Road. Here he built The Cottage (now St Leonards Lodge), Maze Hill House (demolished), The Mount (13 houses), The Uplands (6), The Lawn (10), and a school (now part of the College). Later, in Upper Maze Hill he built Baston Lodge, Tower House and Clone House (now Healey House). He gave some land in Mercatoria for a National School, and completed his father's seafront terrace by building 72 to 82 Marina.
The popularity of St Leonards, however, was not lost upon the town of Hastings. It had already begun to expand westwards, through Pelham Place and Wellington Square, and further building began. The Eversfield Estate, from whom the Burtons had bought land, saw the potential and it too began to sell off more space, having obtained an Act of Parliament opening the way for speculative builders beyond the Burton boundaries. As a result the area between the two towns began to fill with properties. In 1875 the two towns merged into the County Borough of Hastings, and by then the total seafront had reached some three miles (4.8km). Soon after that, the Warrior Square and Upper St Leonards areas were being developed.
By now the railways had arrived: the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway reached West Marina in 1845, although it was not until 1852 that the station later named St Leonards Warrior Square was opened by the South Eastern Railway.
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SHEFFIELD is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the city has grown from its largely industrial roots to encompass a wider economic base.
During the 19th century, Sheffield gained an international reputation for its steel production. Many innovations were developed locally, including crucible and stainless steel, fuelling an almost tenfold increase in the population during the Industrial Revolution. Sheffield received its municipal charter in 1893, when it officially became the City of Sheffield. International competition in iron and steel caused a decline in traditional local industries during the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with the collapse of coal mining in the area.
The City of Sheffield is near the confluence of five rivers, and much of it is built on hillsides with views either into the city centre or out onto the countryside. Sheffield has more trees per person than any other city in Europe, estimated at more than two million; 61% of the city is green space.
The settlements that grew and merged to form Sheffield, date from the second half of the 1st millennium, and are of Anglo-Saxon and Danish origin. In Anglo-Saxon times the Sheffield area straddled the border between the kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that King Eanred of Northumbria submitted to King Egbert of Wessex at the hamlet of Dore (now a suburb of Sheffield) in 829. This event made Egbert the first Saxon to claim to be king of all England. After the Norman conquest, Sheffield Castle was built to protect the local settlements, and a small town developed that is the nucleus of the modern city.
By 1296, a market had been established at what is now known as Castle Square, and Sheffield subsequently grew into a small market town. In the 14th century Sheffield was already noted for the production of knives, as mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and by the early 1600s it had become the main centre of cutlery manufacture in England outside of London, overseen by the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire. From 1570 to 1584 Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Sheffield Castle and Sheffield Manor.
During the 1740s, a form of the crucible steel process was discovered that allowed the manufacture of a better quality of steel than had previously been possible. In about the same period, a technique was developed for fusing a thin sheet of silver onto a copper ingot to produce silver plating, which became widely known as Sheffield plate. These innovations spurred Sheffield's growth as an industrial town, but the loss of some important export markets led to a recession in the late 18th and early 19th century. The resulting poor conditions culminated in a cholera epidemic that killed 402 people in 1832.
The population of the town grew rapidly throughout the 19th century; the town was incorporated as a borough in 1842 and was granted a city charter in 1893. The influx of people also led to demand for better water supplies, and a number of new reservoirs were constructed on the outskirts of the town. The collapse of the dam wall of one of these reservoirs in 1864 resulted in the Great Sheffield Flood, which killed 270 people and devastated large parts of the town. The growing population led to the construction of many back-to-back dwellings that, along with severe pollution from the factories, inspired George Orwell in 1937 to write: "Sheffield, I suppose, could justly claim to be called the ugliest town in the Old World".
A recession in the 1930s was halted by increasing international tensions as the Second World War loomed; Sheffield's steel factories were set to work manufacturing weapons and ammunition for the war effort. As a result, the city became a target for bombing raids, the heaviest of which occurred on the nights of 12 and 15 December 1940, now known as the Sheffield Blitz. More than 660 lives were lost and many buildings destroyed.
In the 1950s and 1960s, many of the city's slums were demolished, and replaced with housing schemes such as the Park Hill flats. Large parts of the city centre were also cleared to make way for a new system of roads. Increased automation and competition from abroad resulted in the closure of many steel mills. The 1980s saw the worst of this run-down of Sheffield's industries, along with those of many other areas of the UK. The building of the Meadowhall shopping centre on the site of a former steelworks in 1990 was a mixed blessing, creating much needed jobs but hastening the decline of the city centre. Attempts to regenerate the city were kick-started when the city hosted the 1991 World Student Games, which saw the construction of new sporting facilities such as the Sheffield Arena, Don Valley Stadium, and the Ponds Forge complex.
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TONNA (Welsh: Tonnau) is the name of a village and a coterminous electoral ward and community in Neath Port Talbot, Wales (formerly Glamorgan).
Today it is essentially a suburb of the town of Neath. Once mainly agricultural fields, the name derives from the archaic Welsh tonnau, meaning grassland and not, as is sometimes assumed, the modern Welsh for "waves". Some areas of pasture remain.
One of these fields houses the Ivy Tower, a folly built by the wealthy Mackworth family in the 1740s as a ballroom to entertain their guests. Although now largely ruined, the Ivy Tower is still the most visible and distinctive landmark in the Neath Valley. The nearby Moss House Cascades in the Gnoll Estate, built by the Mackworths around the same time as the Ivy Tower, have recently been restored and are popular family attractions.
Immediately between Tonna and the adjoining parish of Llanilltud ("Llantwit-juxta-Neath") is a cottage once occupied by the Welsh born engineer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who had arrived at his theory of evolution independently of Charles Darwin, with whom he later corresponded. Eventually Wallace and Darwin jointly presented the first paper on Natural Selection to the Linnean Society.
W
WORKSOP is the largest town in the Bassetlaw district of Nottinghamshire, England on the River Ryton at the northern edge of Sherwood Forest. It is about 19 miles (31 km) east-south-east of the City of Sheffield. Worksop is known as the Gateway to the Dukeries, so called for the number of ducal residences in the area.
Evidence that Worksop existed before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 is provided by the Domesday Book of 1086:
In Werchesope, (Worksop) Elsi (son of Caschin) had three carucates of land to be taxed. Land to eight ploughs. Roger has one plough in the demesne there, and twenty-two sokemen who hold twelve oxgangs of this land, and twenty-four villanes and eight bordars having twenty-two ploughs, and seven acres of meadow. Wood pasture two miles long, and three quarentens broad.
This early period of the town's history was humorously depicted in the children's television show, Maid Marian and her Merry Men, where it was largely portrayed as a mass of mud.
After the conquest, in about 1103, William de Lovetot established a castle and Augustinian priory at Worksop. Subsequently Worksop grew into a market town. The building of the Chesterfield Canal in 1777, and the subsequent construction of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway in 1849, both of which passed through the settlement, led to a degree of growth. Discovery of sizable coal seams further increased interest in the area.