Beith (ward)
Beith is a small town in the Garnock Valley, North Ayrshire, Scotland approximately south-west of Glasgow. The town is situated on the crest of a hill and was known originally as the "''Hill o' Beith''" (hill of the birches) after its ''Court Hill''. History Name Beith's name is thought to emanate from Ogham, which is sometimes referred to as the "''Celtic Tree Alphabet''", ascribing names of trees to individual letters. ''Beithe'' in Old Irish means ''Birch-tree'' (cognate to Latin ''betula''). There is reason to believe that the whole of the district was covered with woods. The town of Beith itself was once known as 'Hill of Beith' as this was the name of the feudal barony and was itself derived from the Court Hill near Hill of Beith Castle. Alternatively, Beith may be derived from Cumbric ''*baɣeδ'', 'boar' (Welsh ''baedd''). The local pronunciation of the name would favour this theory. The Wood of Beit, now the 'Moor of Beith', has been identified as an Arthurian si ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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North Ayrshire And Arran (UK Parliament Constituency)
North Ayrshire and Arran is a constituency of the British House of Commons, located in the south-west of Scotland within the North Ayrshire council area. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) at least once every five years using the first-past-the-post voting system of voting. Once a longtime Conservative seat, the area had been represented by Labour MPs from 1987 until 2015. Patricia Gibson, has held the seat as an SNP member since 2015. It contains the towns of Largs, Fairlie and West Kilbride to the north, as well as the towns of Ardrossan, Kilbirnie, the Garnock Valley, Kilwinning, Saltcoats and Stevenston to the south. The Isle of Arran and Great Cumbrae are also within the constituency. Boundaries The constituency is entirely within the North Ayrshire council area. Part of the same council area is covered by the Central Ayrshire constituency. The boundaries of North Ayrshire and Arran extend to, and include, Skelmorlie in the north of the council area, Irvi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hermit
A hermit, also known as an eremite (adjectival form: hermitic or eremitic) or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions. Description In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament (i.e., the 40 years wandering in the desert that was meant to bring about a change of heart). In the Christian tradition the eremitic life is an early form of monastic living that preceded the monastic life in the cenobium. In chapter 1, the Rule of St Benedict lists hermits among four kinds of monks. In the Roman Catholic Church, in addition to hermits who are members of religious institutes, the Canon law (canon 603) recognizes also diocesan hermits under the direction of their bishop as members of the consecrated life. The same is true in many parts of the Anglican Communion, including the Episcopal Church in the Un ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most-populous city, and Fairfax County is the most-populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population was over 8.65million, with 36% of them living in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607, the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent English colony in the New World. Virginia's state nickname, the Old Dominion, is a reference to this status. Slave labor and land acquired from displaced native tribes fueled the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ethnic Groups Of Africa
The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each population generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo, and Nilo-Saharan populations. The official population count of the various ethnic groups in Africa is highly uncertain, both due to limited infrastructure to perform censuses and due to the rapid population growth. There have also been accusations of deliberate misreporting in order to give selected ethnicities numerical superiority (as in the case of Nigeria's Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo peoples). A 2009 genetic clustering study, which genotyped 1327 polymorphic markers in various African populations, identified six ancestral clusters. The clustering corresponded closely with ethnicity, culture and language. A 2018 whole genome sequencing study of the world's populations observed similar clusters among the populations in Africa. At K=9, distinct ance ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Paterson (journalist)
James Paterson (18 May 1805 – 6 May 1876) was a Scottish journalist on numerous newspapers, writer and antiquary. His works are popular history, rather than scholarly. Life He was the son of James Paterson, farmer at Struthers, Ayrshire, where he was born on 18 May 1805; his father then had money troubles and gave up his farm. Paterson received an education, and then was apprenticed to a printer at the office of the Kilmarnock ''Mirror''. Subsequently he was transferred to the ''Courier'' office in Ayr. On completing his apprenticeship, Paterson went to Glasgow, where he joined the ''Scots Times''. In 1826 he returned to Kilmarnock, took a shop as stationer and printer, and in partnership with other gentlemen started the Kilmarnock ''Chronicle''. Its first number appeared on 4 May 1831, during the agitation for the Great Reform Bill, and the paper closed in May 1832. In 1835 Paterson left Kilmarnock for Dublin, where for some time he acted as correspondent of the Glasgow ''Li ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ley Tunnel
Mysterious tunnels or "secret passages" are a common element of the local folklore tradition in Europe. Such tunnels are said to physically link prominent places such as country houses, castles, churches, ancient monuments and other, often medieval, buildings. Legends about the existence of secret tunnels usually involve improbably long subterranean passages, sometimes running under major obstacles such as rivers and lakes to reach their destinations. Religious buildings, monks and the landed gentry are particularly common elements in many tunnel stories. It is unlikely that many of the recorded tunnels exist physically, for this is a characteristic of their very nature; their significance lies in the number of similar legends of tunnels that have arisen and in connection with the more esoteric notions of channels or paths of earth energy, and such. The origins of secret passage myths Underground structures have a fascination due to their being hidden from view and their ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paisley, Renfrewshire
Paisley ( ; sco, Paisley, gd, Pàislig ) is a large town situated in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. Located north of the Gleniffer Braes, the town borders the city of Glasgow to the east, and straddles the banks of the White Cart Water, a tributary of the River Clyde. Paisley serves as the administrative centre for the Renfrewshire council area, and is the largest town in the historic county of the same name. It is often cited as "Scotland's largest town" and is the fifth largest settlement in the country, although it does not have city status. The town became prominent in the 12th century, with the establishment of Paisley Abbey, an important religious hub which formerly had control over other local churches. By the 19th century, Paisley was a centre of the weaving industry, giving its name to the Paisley shawl and the Paisley pattern. The town's associations with political radicalism were highlighted by its involvement in the Radical War of 1820, with striking ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Smuggling
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are various motivations to smuggle. These include the participation in illegal trade, such as in the drug trade, illegal weapons trade, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, exotic wildlife trade, art theft, heists, chop shops, illegal immigration or illegal emigration, tax evasion, import/export restrictions, providing contraband to prison inmates, or the theft of the items being smuggled. Smuggling is a common theme in literature, from Bizet's opera ''Carmen'' to the James Bond spy books (and later films) '' Diamonds Are Forever'' and '' Goldfinger''. Etymology The verb ''smuggle'', from Low German ''smuggeln'' or Dutch ''smokkelen'' (="to transport (goods) illegally"), apparently a frequentative formation of a word meaning "to sneak ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sonnet
A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's invention, and the Sicilian School of poets who surrounded him then spread the form to the mainland. The earliest sonnets, however, no longer survive in the original Sicilian language, but only after being translated into Tuscan dialect. The term "sonnet" is derived from the Italian word ''sonetto'' (lit. "little song", derived from the Latin word ''sonus'', meaning a sound). By the 13th century it signified a poem of fourteen lines that followed a strict rhyme scheme and structure. According to Christopher Blum, during the Renaissance, the sonnet became the "choice mode of expressing romantic love". During that period, too, the form was taken up in many other European language areas and eventually any subject was considered acceptable for writers o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Middle Scots
Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 15th century, its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English. Subsequently, the orthography of Middle Scots differed from that of the emerging Modern English standard. Middle Scots was fairly uniform throughout its many texts, albeit with some variation due to the use of Romance forms in translations from Latin or French, turns of phrases and grammar in recensions of southern texts influenced by southern forms, misunderstandings and mistakes made by foreign printers. History The now established Stewart identification with the lowland language had finally secured the division of Scotland into two parts, the Gaelic Highlands and the Anglic Lowlands. The adherence of many Highlanders to the Catholic faith during the Reformation led to the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gateside, North Ayrshire
Gateside is a small village in North Ayrshire, Scotland about east of Beith on the B777. The village Gateside Primary School was opened in 1903, and nowadays it has 74 pupils (2009). The school has an extension built in 1998 which provided indoor toilets and a school hall, which is used by the nursery, PE classes, and for school dinners and assemblies. Another extension is to be built soon. The school is very environmentally aware and has achieved its Green Flag Award (2009). Spier's school stood nearby and the grounds are now a public park used by the Gateside and Beith communities. The Isabel Patrick Memorial Hall is a building in the Gothic Revival architecture, Gothic style. Trearne House stood near Gateside, but it was demolished and the site is now a large worked out limestone quarry. A field behind the primary school was given to the community by the Marshall family who were the village blacksmiths for many years. The meaning of Powgree, Gateside's burn, is suggested as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hessilhead
Hessilhead is in Beith, North Ayrshire, Scotland. Hessilhead used to be called Hazlehead or Hasslehead. The lands were part of the Lordship of Giffen, and the Barony of Hessilhead, within the Baillerie of Cunninghame and the Parish of Beith. The castle was situated at . Hessilhead Castle In the late 19th century, the castle was described as "now roofless and ruinous, is an oblong structure, built at two periods, measuring some by 38½ feet. The old west part was apparently a 15th-17th century keep; the east addition was built by Francis Montgomerie, who bought the estate in 1680. Both old and new parts are vaulted on the ground floor; the upper parts are too ruinous to describe. The mansion was allowed to become ruinous about 1776."MacGibbon and Ross, D and T (1887 - 92), ''The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Centuries'', 5 V, Edinburgh, Vol. 3, pp. 375–7. It was noted by Pont as a strong old building, surrounded with lar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |