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Southport Merseyside

Approximate Population: 99,456

Southport is a seaside town within the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, in Merseyside, England. The town is located on the Irish Sea coast, 16.5 miles (26.6 km) to the north of Liverpool and 14.8 miles (23.8 km) west-southwest of Preston. Southport has a population of around 100,000,[1] with approximately 40% of the population over 55 years old and around 55% defined as social class ABC1.

Historically a part of Lancashire, tourist attractions include Southport Pier, the second longest seaside pleasure pier in the British Isles, Lord Street, a tree-lined shopping street once home of Napoleon III of France, and a fairground which was originally opened in 1912.

The town contains examples of Victorian architecture and town planning. These include much of Lord Street in addition to Cambridge Hall, Town Hall and Wayfarers’ Arcade.  A particular feature of the town is the extensive tree planting.   This was one of the conditions required by the Hesketh family when they made land available for development in the 19th century.   Hesketh Park at the northern end of the town is named after the Hesketh family.

Extensive sand dunes stretch for several kilometers between Birkdale and Ainsdale/Woodvale to the south of the town.   The Ainsdale sand dunes have been designated as a National Nature Reserve in England and a Ramsar site. Local fauna include the Natterjack toad and the Sand lizard.

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Stoke Staffordshire

Approximate Population: 457,165

An early proposal for a federation took place in 1888, when an amendment was raised to the Local Government Bill which would have made the six towns districts within a county of ‘Staffordshire Potteries’.   It was not until 1 April 1910 that the Six Towns were brought together.   The county borough of Hanley, the municipal boroughs of Burslem, Longton, and Stoke, together with the urban districts of Tunstall and Fenton now formed a single county borough of Stoke-on-Trent.  The combined borough took the name of town of Stoke.

The borough proposed in 1919 to expand further and annex the neighbouring borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme and the Wolstanton United Urban District, both to the west of Stoke: this met strong objections from Newcastle Corporation and never took place.   A further attempt was made in 1930, with the promotion of the Stoke-on-Trent Extension Bill.   Ultimately, Wolstanton was added to Newcastle-under-Lyme instead in 1932. Although attempts to take Newcastle, Wolstanton and Kidsgrove (north of Tunstall) were never successful, the borough did however expand in 1922, taking in Smallthorne Urban District, and parts of other parishes from Stoke upon Trent Rural District.   The borough was officially granted city status in 1925 with a Lord Mayor from 1928.

The city’s county borough status was abolished in 1974, and it became a non-metropolitan district of Staffordshire.   Its status was restored as a unitary authority with the local authority as Stoke-on-Trent City Council whilst remaining part of the ceremonial county of Staffordshire on 1 April 1997.

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Garden Furniture Rochester Kent

Approximate Population: 27,000

Rochester City Council bought the land at Rochester Airfield in September 1933 from the landowner as the site for a municipal airport. One month later Short Brothers, who had started building aircraft in 1909 on the Isle of Sheppey, asked for permission to lease the land for test flying.
Rochester station building. The railway passes at first floor level on a viaduct.

In 1934-5 Short Brothers took over the Rochester Airport site when they moved some of their personnel from the existing seaplane works. The inaugural flight into Rochester was from Gravesend, John Parker flying their Short Scion G-ACJI.

In 1979 the lease reverted to the council. After giving thorough consideration to closing the airport, GEC (then comprising Marconi and instrument makers Elliot Automation) decided to take over management of the airport. It maintained two grass runways while releasing some land for light industrial expansion.

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Doncaster South Yorkshire

Approximate Population: 67,977

During the 14th century a number of friars arrived in Doncaster who were known for their religious enthusiasm and preachings.   In 1307 Franciscan friars arrived and they were called Greyfriars because of the colour of their costumes.   Carmelites or Whitefriars arrived in the middle of the 14th century.   In the Mediaeval period other major features of the town included the Hospital of St Nicholas and leper colony of the Hospital of St James, a moot hall, grammar school, and the five-arched stone town bridge with a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Bridge.

By 1334, Doncaster was the wealthiest town in southern Yorkshire and the sixth most important town in Yorkshire as a whole, even boasting its own banker.   By 1379, it was already recovering from the Black Death and had a population of around 1,500 people, and by 1547, it had over 2,000.   The town was incorporated in 1461 and its first Mayor and corporation were established.

Today, many of Doncaster’s streets are named with the suffix ‘gate’.   The word ‘gate’ is derived from the old Danish word ‘gata’ which meant street. During Medieval times, craftsmen or tradesmen with similar skills, tended to live in the same street.   Baxter is an ancient word for baker thereby confirming that Baxtergate was indeed the bakers’ street.   It is assumed that ‘Frenchgate’ may be named after French speaking Normans who settled on this street.

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Manchester Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 458,100

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. Manchester was granted city status in 1853.   In 2007, the population of the Manchester local government district was estimated to be 458,100, whilst the surrounding Metropolitan County of Greater Manchester had an estimated population of 2,562,200.

Manchester itself lies at the centre of the wider Greater Manchester Urban Area, which at the 2001 census was shown to have a population of 2,240,230 (of which 394,269 lived within the Manchester subdivision), and it was the United Kingdom’s third largest conurbation at that census.

Manchester has the second most populous Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) in the UK with an estimated population in the 2004 Urban Audit of 2,539,100 and is the fourteenth most populated in Europe.   Forming part of the English Core Cities Group, often described as the second city of the UK, and the “Capital of the North”, Manchester today is a centre of the arts, the media, higher education and commerce.   In a poll of British business leaders published in 2006, Manchester was regarded as the best place in the UK to locate a business.

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Gloucester Gloucestershire

Approximate Population: 123,205

Kip’s West prospect of Gloucester, c. 1725, emphasizes the causeway and bridges traversing the water meadows of the floodplain.

The traditional existence of a British settlement at Gloucester (Caer Glow, Gleawecastre, Gleucestre) is not confirmed by any direct evidence, but Gloucester was the Roman municipality of Colonia Nervia Glevensium, or Glevum, founded in the reign of Nerva.   Parts of the walls can be traced, and many remains and coins have been found, though inscriptions are scarce. Evidence for some civic life after the end of Roman Britain includes the mention in the Historia Brittonum that Vortigern’s grandfather ruled Gloucester.   According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Gloucester passed briefly to Wessex from the Battle of Deorham in 577 until 584, when it came under the control of Mercia.

Gloucester (Glowancestre, 1282) derives from the Anglo-Saxon for fort (Old English ceaster) preceded by the Roman stem Glev- (pronounced glaiw).   In Old Welsh, the city was known as Caerloyw, caer = castle, and loyw from gloyw = glowing/bright.   Gloucester was captured by the Saxons in 577.   Its situation on a navigable river, and the foundation in 681 of the abbey of St Peter by Æthelred, favoured the growth of the town; and before the Norman Conquest of England, Gloucester was a borough governed by a portreeve, with a castle which was frequently a royal residence, and a mint.

In the early tenth century the remains of Saint Oswald were brought to a small church in Gloucester, bringing many pilgrims to the town.  The core street layout dates back to the reign of Ethelfleda in late Saxon times.

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Lisburn Northern Ireland

Approximate Population: 71,465

* Lisburn railway station was opened on 12 August 1839.  The railway remains a popular means of transport between Lisburn and Belfast, with the express trains taking 8-10 minutes to reach Belfast’s Great Victoria Street. The train also links the city directly with Portadown, Lurgan, Moira and Bangor. Connections to Dublin require a change at either Portadown or Belfast Central.

* The city is served by a variety of bus routes to Belfast city centre via the Lisburn Road (523/4/5) and also the Falls Road (530/1/2). There are also routes passing through the city heading for Banbridge or Newry (service 38) and Craigavon (service 51). There are few buses that access Belfast using the M1 motorway, adding to the popularity of the train.

* The city has a vast network of local buses, serving the local housing developments and amenities.

* A new ‘Bus Centre’ opened on 30 June 2008 at the corner of Smithfield Street and the Hillsborough Road. The new structure replaces the simple shelters at Smithfield Square, 200 yards to the east.

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Warrington Cheshire

Approximate Population: 195,200

Warrington is a large town, borough and unitary authority area in Cheshire, England.   It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley.   The population of the borough of Warrington, including its 18 civil parishes, is around 194,000.   Its population has more than doubled since its designation as a New Town in 1968.

Historically a part of Lancashire, Warrington was founded by the Romans at an important crossing place on the River Mersey.   A new settlement was established by the Saxons and by the Middle Ages, Warrington had emerged as a market town at an important bridging point.   A local tradition of textile and tool production dates from this time.

The expansion and urbanisation of Warrington largely coincided with the Industrial Revolution, particularly after the Mersey was made navigable in the 18th century.   The West Coast Mainline runs north to south through the town, and the Liverpool to Manchester railway (the Cheshire Lines route) west to east.   The Manchester Ship Canal cuts through the south of the borough (west to east).   The M6, M56 and M62 motorways form a partial box around the town.

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Garden Furniture Basildon Essex

Approximate Population: 99,876

The first historical reference to Basildon is in records from 1086.   It is mentioned in the Domesday Book as ‘Belesduna’.  The name ‘Basildon’ means ‘Beorhtel’s hill’ and is derived from the Anglo-Saxon personal name ‘Beorhtel’ and the Anglo-Saxon word ‘dun’, meaning hill.   In historical documents, this name had various forms over the centuries, including Berdlesdon, Batlesdon and Belesduna.

By the beginning of the 1900s, Basildon had evolved with much of the land having been sold in small plots during a period of land speculation and development taking placed haphazardly with building by plotowners ranging from shelters created from recycled materials to brick-built homes and with amenities such as water, gas, electricity and hard-surfaced roads lacking.

In the 1940s, Billericay and Essex County Councils, who were concerned about the lack of amenities on the area and how it had evolved, petitioned the Government to create a New Town, and on January 4 1949, Lewis Silkin, Minister of Town and Country Planning, officially designated Basildon as a ‘New Town’.   Basildon Development Corporation was formed in February 1949 to transform the designated area into a modern new town.   The New Town incorporated Laindon and Pitsea and was laid out around small neighbourhoods with the first house being completed in June 1951.  The first tenants moved into homes on 18 June 1951, in numbers 59, 61, and 63 Redgrave Road in Vange.

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Garden Furniture Bath Somerset

Approximate Population: 80,000

Archaeological evidence shows that the site of the Roman Baths’ main spring was treated as a shrine by the Celts, and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva; however, the name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, leading to the town’s Roman name of Aquae Sulis (literally, “the waters of Sulis”).   Messages to her scratched onto metal, known as curse tablets, have been recovered from the Sacred Spring by archaeologists.

These curse tablets were written in Latin, and usually laid curses on people by whom the writer felt they had been wronged.   For example, if a citizen had his clothes stolen at the baths, he would write a curse, naming the suspects, on a tablet to be read by the Goddess Sulis Minerva.

The temple was constructed in 60–70 AD and the bathing complex was gradually built up over the next 300 years.  During the Roman occupation of Britain, and possibly on the instructions of Emperor Claudius, engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead.  In the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted building, which housed the calidarium (hot bath), tepidarium (warm bath), and frigidarium (cold bath).  The city was given defensive walls, probably in the 3rd century.  After the Roman withdrawal in the first decade of the 5th century, the baths fell into disrepair and were eventually lost due to silting up.

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