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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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East Kilbride Scotland

Approximate Population: 73,796

East Kilbride grew from a small village of around 900 inhabitants in 1930 to become eventually a large burgh.   Behind this growth lay the rapid industrialisation of the nineteenth century which left much of the working population throughout Scotland’s central belt from Glasgow to Edinburgh living in the housing stock built at the end of that century but accommodating far more people.

The Great War postponed any better housing as did the Treaty of Versailles and the period of post war settlement it created. In turn this was followed by the Great Depression.   After the Second World War, Glasgow, already suffering from chronic shortages of housing, had to deal with bomb damage from the war.

From this unlikely backdrop a new dawn emerged which would bring East Kilbride to its unlikely success.   In 1946 the Greater Glasgow Regional Plan allocated sites where overspill satellite “new towns” could be constructed to help alleviate the housing shortage.  Glasgow would also undertake the development of its peripheral housing estates.   East Kilbride was the first of five new towns in Scotland to be designated, in 1947, followed by Glenrothes (1948), Cumbernauld (1956), Livingston (1962) and Irvine (1964).

The town has been subdivided into residential precincts, each with its own local shops, primary schools and community facilities. The housing precincts surround the town centre, which is bound by a ringroad. Industrial estates are concentrated at sites to the north, west and south, on the outskirts of the town.

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Preston Lancashire

Approximate Population: 131,900

In the mid-12th century, Preston was in the hundred of Amounderness,in the deanery of Amounderness and the archdeaconry of Richmond.   The name “Amounderness” is more ancient than the name of any other “Wapentake” or hundred in the County of Lancashire, and the fort at Tulketh, strengthened by William the Conqueror, shows that the strategic importance of the area was appreciated even then.

In the last great Jacobite Rising, on 27 November 1745 the Jacobite Prince of Wales and Regent, Bonnie Prince Charlie passed through Preston with his Highland Army on the way south through Chorley and Manchester to Derby intending to take London and the Crown.

Preston was the first of the very few places in England where the Prince was cheered as he rode by and where he was actually joined by some English volunteers for his Army.   From 10 to 12 December the Prince gave his retreating Army a rest in Preston on their long, last and fatal retreat from Derby through Lancaster and Carlisle to their dreadful day of destiny the following 16 April on Culloden Moor near Inverness.

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Lambeth Greater London

Approximate Population: 267,785

Lambeth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Lanchei. It was held partly by Lambeth Church and partly by Count Robert of Mortain. Its domesday assets were: 2½ hides; 1 church, 10 ploughs, 22 acres (89,000 m2) of meadow, woodland worth 3 hogs, 19 burgesses in London paid £1 16s 0d. It rendered £15.

The ancient settlement of Lambeth Marsh was immediately opposite the Palace of Westminster.   The Archbishop of Canterbury has had his official residence at Lambeth Palace since the 15th century.   The village was home to boatmen serving the City of London and Westminster.

The riverside village had an extensive parish, which stretched for six miles (10 km) south, including the manors of Kennington and Vauxhall. It formed part of Surrey until the creation of the County of London in 1889.  The parish, and the subsequent Metropolitan Borough of Lambeth (1900–1965), included the later settlements at Brixton and Norwood.

Local Plumbers Lambeth Greater London

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Cambridge Cambridgeshire

Approximate Population:  280,305

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England.   It lies about 50 miles (80 km) north of London.   It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen.

Cambridge is best known as the home of the University of Cambridge, one of the world’s premier universities.   The university includes the renowned Cavendish Laboratory, King’s College Chapel, and the Cambridge University Library.   The Cambridge skyline is dominated by the last two buildings, along with the chimney of Addenbrooke’s Hospital in the far south of the city and St John’s College Chapel tower in the north.   The pronunciation of the city’s name is distinct from that of Cambridge in Gloucestershire, England, which is /ˈkæmbrɪdʒ/.

According to the 2001 United Kingdom census, the City’s population was 108,863 (including 22,153 students), and the population of the urban area (which includes parts of South Cambridgeshire district) is estimated to be 130,000. Cambridge is surrounded by many smaller towns and villages.

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Stockport Greater Manchester

Approximate Population: 136,082

Stockport is a large town in Greater Manchester, England.   It lies on elevated ground on the River Mersey at the influx of the rivers Goyt and Tame, 6.1 miles (9.8 km) southeast of the city of Manchester.   Stockport is the largest settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport, and has a population of 136,082, the wider borough being 281,000.

Stockport in the 16th century was known for the cultivation of hemp and rope manufacture and in the 18th century the town had one of the first mechanised silk factories in the United Kingdom.   However, Stockport’s predominant industries of the 19th century were the cotton and allied industries.   Stockport was also at the centre of the country’s hatting industry which by 1884 was exporting more than six million hats a year.   In December 1997 the last Stockport hat works closed. The town’s hatting heritage is preserved at ‘Hat Works - the Museum of Hatting’.

Dominating the western approaches to the town is the Stockport Viaduct. Built in 1840, the viaduct’s 27 brick arches over the River Mersey carry the mainline railways from Manchester to Birmingham and London.   This structure featured as the background in many paintings by L.S. Lowry.

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Greater Manchester

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Swindon Wiltshire

Approximate Population: 155,432

In 1840, Isambard Kingdom Brunel chose Swindon as the site for the railway works he planned for the Great Western Railway.   Eastwards towards London the line was gently graded, while westwards there was a steep descent towards Bath. Swindon was the junction for the proposed line to Gloucester.

Swindon Junction station opened in 1842 and until 1895 every train stopped for at least 10 minutes to change locomotives. As a result, the station hosted the first recorded railway refreshment rooms.   There were three storeys to the station in 1842, with the refreshment rooms on the ground floor, the upper floors housing the station hotel and lounge.   That building was demolished in 1972, and replaced by an office building with a single-storey modern station under it.

The town’s railway works were completed in 1842.   The GWR built a small railway ‘village’ to house some of its workers.   People still live in those houses and several of the buildings that made up the railway works remain, although many are vacant.   The Steam Railway Museum now occupies part of the old works.   In the village were the GWR Medical Fund Clinic at Park House and its hospital, both on Faringdon Road, and 1892’s Health Centre in Milton Road – which housed clinics, a pharmacy, laundries, baths, Turkish baths and swimming pools – was almost opposite.

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Middlesbrough North Yorkshire

Approximate Population: 142,691

In Middlesbrough in 686 a monastic cell was consecrated by St. Cuthbert at the request of St. Hilda Abbess of Whitby and in 1119 Robert Bruce granted and confirmed the church of St. Hilda of Middleburg to Whitby.   Up until its closure on the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1537, the church was maintained by 12 Benedictine monks, many of whom became vicars or rectors of various places in Cleveland.   The importance of the early church at “Middleburg”, later known as Middlesbrough Priory, is indicated by the fact that in 1452 it possessed four altars.

After the Angles the area became home to Viking settlers and it is argued by some that ‘old’ Cleveland has the highest density of Scandinavian parish names in Britain. Names of Viking origin (with the suffix by) are abundant in the area - for example, Thornaby, Ormesby, Stainsby, Lackenby, Maltby and Tollesby were once separate villages that belonged to Vikings called Thormad, Orm, Steinn, Hlakkande, Malti and Toll, but now form suburbs of Middlesbrough.   Lazenby was the village belonging to a Leysingr - a freeman; Normanby, a Norseman’s village and Danby (in neighbouring North Yorkshire), a Dane’s village.   The name Mydilsburgh is the earliest recorded form of Middlesbrough’s name and dates to Anglian times (400 to 1000 AD), while many of the aforementioned villages appear in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Other links persist in the area, often through school and/or road names, to now-outgrown or abandoned local settlements, such as the medieval settlement of Stainsby, deserted by 1757, which amounts to little more today than a series of grassy mounds near the A19 road.  In 1952 Stainsby Secondary Modern School, now renamed Acklam Grange Secondary School, was named for this village.

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Middlesbrough North Yorkshire

Local Plumbers Bristol

Approximate Population: 410,950

Bristol City Council consists of 70 councillors representing 35 wards.   They are elected in thirds with two councillors per ward, each serving a four-year term.   Wards never have both councillors up for election at the same time, so effectively two-thirds of the wards are up each election.  The Council has long been dominated by the Labour Party, but recently the Liberal Democrats have grown strong in the city and as the largest party took minority control of the Council at the 2005 election.

They are no longer in control following Labour and the Conservatives vetoing the Liberal Democrats’ preferred candidate, Steve Comer, in 2007. As a result, Labour rule the council under a minority administration, and the council leader is Helen Holland.   The Lord Mayor is Lib Dem Councillor Chris Davis.

Bristol constituencies in the House of Commons cross the borders with neighbouring authorities, and the city is divided into Bristol West, East, South and North-west and Kingswood.   Northavon also covers some of the suburbs, but none of the administrative county.   At the next General Election, the boundaries will be changed to coincide with the county boundary.   Kingswood will no longer cover any of the county, and a new Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency will include the suburbs in South Gloucestershire.   There are four Labour and one Liberal Democrat Members of Parliament.

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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.

Local Plumbers Southport Merseyside