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Chiseldon Camp Railway Station
Chiseldon Camp Halt was a small railway station on the Midland and South Western Junction Railway line, south of Swindon in Wiltshire, England. History Chiseldon village was provided with a station when the line opened as the Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway in 1881, and during the First World War a long siding was built from the station to the military camp at Draycot Foliat. In 1930, with the M&SWJR having been taken over by the Great Western Railway and with greater competition from road transport, a halt was opened on the main line itself about half a mile from the camp. The station was a single platform with a shelter, and it was unstaffed and run from Chiseldon station. In the Second World War the Americans were stationed in large numbers at the then-named Chiseldon Camp and the line was extensively used for military transportation, as it linked the Midlands to the south. But traffic on the M&SWJR fell steeply after the War and the line closed to passengers i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chiseldon
Chiseldon is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It takes its name from the Old English cisel dene, or gravel valley, being noted in the Domesday Book as ''Chiseldene''. The village lies on the edge of the Marlborough Downs, a mile south of junction 15 of the M4 motorway, on the A346 between Swindon and Marlborough. The large village of Wroughton is to the east. The parish includes the hamlets of Badbury. Badbury Wick, Draycot Foliat, Hodson, and Ridgeway View; the ancient manor of Burderop is also within the parish. History Settlements in the area date back to prehistoric and Roman times, but Chiseldon itself was started by the Saxons. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded a large settlement of 70 households at ''Chiseldene''. At one point the nearby hamlet of Draycot Foliat was larger than Chiseldon. Chiseldon lies on one of the country's oldest highways, the Icknield Way, although this section of the road is more commonly known as Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the northeast and Berkshire to the east. The county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the county town of Trowbridge. Within the county's boundary are two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, governed respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles (which together are a UNESCO Cultural and World Heritage site) and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its medieval cathedral. Swindon is the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ordnance Survey National Grid
The Ordnance Survey National Grid reference system (OSGB) (also known as British National Grid (BNG)) is a system of geographic grid references used in Great Britain, distinct from latitude and longitude. The Ordnance Survey (OS) devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data, and in maps based on those surveys, whether published by the Ordnance Survey or by commercial map producers. Grid references are also commonly quoted in other publications and data sources, such as guide books and government planning documents. A number of different systems exist that can provide grid references for locations within the British Isles: this article describes the system created solely for Great Britain and its outlying islands (including the Isle of Man); the Irish grid reference system was a similar system created by the Ordnance Survey of Ireland and the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland for the island of Ireland. The Universal Transverse Merca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838 with the initial route completed between London and Bristol in 1841. It was engineered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who chose a broad gauge of —later slightly widened to —but, from 1854, a series of amalgamations saw it also operate standard-gauge trains; the last broad-gauge services were operated in 1892. The GWR was the only company to keep its identity through the Railways Act 1921, which amalgamated it with the remaining independent railways within its territory, and it was finally merged at the end of 1947 when it was nationalised and became the Western Region of British Railways. The GWR was called by some "God's Wonderful Railway" and by others the "Great Way Round" but it was famed as the "Holiday ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midland And South Western Junction Railway
The Midland and South Western Junction Railway (M&SWJR) was an independent railway built to form a north–south link between the Midland Railway and the London and South Western Railway in England, allowing the Midland and other companies' trains to reach the port of Southampton. The M&SWJR was formed in 1884 from the amalgamation of the Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway and the Swindon and Cheltenham Extension Railway. The line was absorbed by the Great Western Railway at the 1923 grouping of the railways, and became part of British Railways on nationalisation in 1948. The railway closed to passengers in 1961, and to goods between 1964 and 1970. A small part of it has been reopened as the heritage Swindon and Cricklade Railway. First proposals By 1845 the Great Western Railway (GWR) had established itself as the dominant railway company controlling west to east trunk routes from Bristol and the West of England to London. The GWR was a broad gauge railway and it soug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population of 233,410 as of 2021. Located in South West England, the town lies between Bristol, 35 miles (56 kilometres) to its west, and Reading, Berkshire, Reading, equidistant to its east. Recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as ''Suindune'', it was a small market town until the mid-19th century, when it was selected as the principal site for the Great Western Railway's repair and maintenance Swindon Works, works, leading to a marked increase in its population. The new town constructed for the railway workers produced forward-looking amenities such as the UK’s first lending library and a ‘cradle-to-grave' health care centre that was later used as a blueprint for the National Health Service, NHS. After the W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chiseldon Railway Station
Chiseldon railway station was on the Midland and South Western Junction Railway in Wiltshire. History The station opened on 27 July 1881 on the Swindon Town to Marlborough section of the Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway. In 1883, a northwards extension, the Swindon and Cheltenham Extension Railway, opened from Swindon Town to Cirencester, with further northward extension to a junction with the Great Western Railway's Cheltenham to Banbury at Andoversford opening in 1891, enabling through trains from the Midlands to the south, through Chiseldon. The SM&AR and the S&CER had in 1884 amalgamated to form the M&SWJR.''Wiltshire Railway Stations'', Mike Oakley, Dovecote Press, Wimborne, 2004, Chiseldon was sited on a curved section of track in the middle of the village of Chiseldon, and was for many years busy with both goods traffic, primarily agricultural, and passengers. In the First World War a long siding was built to a nearby army camp, then called Draycott (though th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Draycot Foliat
Draycot Foliat is a hamlet in Wiltshire, England, on the back road between Chiseldon to the north and Ogbourne St. George to the south. The nearest major town is Swindon which is about north. A notable feature is the small airstrip with its model helicopter instruction centre. There is one smallholding, called Draycot Farm, and a larger farm, Sheppard's Farm, which comprises some 750 acres (300 hectares). Attached to Sheppard's farm is a small set of industrial buildings, most notably the Intellectual Property Law offices of Berry Davies LLP. In addition there are between ten and twenty other houses. The Og, a tributary of the River Kennet (itself a tributary of the Thames), flows for about half of the year down the centre of the hamlet, forcing the road into a sharp hairpin bend. History In 1086 it was recorded that Draycot had enough land for six ploughs, and at the time, there were two ploughs and a serf on five hides held in the demesne while there were three ploughs, four ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Cycle Network
The National Cycle Network (NCN) is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, which was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the charity Sustrans who were aided by a £42.5 million National Lottery grant. However Sustrans themselves only own around 2% of the paths on the network, these rest being made of existing public highways and rights of way, and permissive paths negotiated by Sustrans with private landowners, which Sustrans have then labelled as part of their network. In 2017, the Network was used for over 786 million cycling and walking trips, made by 4.4 million people. In 2020, around a quarter the NCN was scrapped on safety grounds, leaving of signed routes. These are made up of of traffic-free paths with the remaining on-road. It uses shared use paths, disused railways, minor roads, canal towpaths and traffic-calmed routes in towns and cit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
