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Great Dover Road
The A2 is a major road in south-east England, connecting London with the English Channel port of Dover in Kent. This route has always been of importance as a connection between London and sea trade routes to Continental Europe. It was originally known as the Dover Road. The M2 motorway has replaced part of the A2 as the strategic route. Unlike the other single digit A-roads in Great Britain, the A2 does not form a zone boundary. The boundary between Zones 1 and 2 is the River Thames. History of the route The route of the current A2 follows a similar route to that of a Celtic ancient trackway. It was an important route for the Romans linking London with Canterbury and the three Channel ports of Rutupiae (now Richborough), Dubris (now Dover) and Portus Lemanis (in modern Lympne). It had river crossings at Rochester over the River Medway; Dartford (River Darent) and Crayford (River Cray). The Romans paved the road and constructed the first Rochester Bridge across the Medway. Acc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
M25 Motorway
The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major road encircling most of Greater London. The motorway is one of the most important roads in the UK and one of the busiest. Margaret Thatcher opened the final section in 1986, making the M25 the longest ring road in Europe upon opening. The Dartford Crossing completes the orbital route but is not classed as motorway; it is classed as a trunk road and designated as the A282. In some cases, including notable legal contexts such as the Communications Act 2003, the M25 is used as a ''de facto'' alternative boundary for Greater London. In the 1944 ''Greater London Plan'', Patrick Abercrombie proposed an orbital motorway around London. This evolved into the London Ringways project in the early 1960s, and by 1966, planning had started on two projects, London Ringways#Ringway 3, Ringway 3 to the north and London Ringways#Ringway 4, Ringway 4 to the south. By the time the first sections opened in 1975, it was decided the ringways would be com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the period in classical antiquity when large parts of the island of Great Britain were under occupation by the Roman Empire. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. During that time, the territory conquered was raised to the status of a Roman province. Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars. According to Caesar, the Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by other Celtic tribes during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesar's enemies. He received tribute, installed the friendly king Mandubracius over the Trinovantes, and returned to Gaul. Planned invasions under Augustus were called off in 34, 27, and 25 BC. In 40 AD, Caligula assembled 200,000 men at the Channel on the continent, only to have them gather seashells ('' musculi'') according to Suetonius, perhaps as a symbolic gesture to proclaim Caligula's victory over the sea. Three years later, Claudius directed four legi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened within Britain, and the identity was not merely imported. Anglo-Saxon identity arose from interaction between incoming groups from several Germanic peoples, Germanic tribes, both amongst themselves, and with Celtic Britons, indigenous Britons. Many of the natives, over time, adopted Anglo-Saxon culture and language and were assimilated. The Anglo-Saxons established the concept, and the Kingdom of England, Kingdom, of England, and though the modern English language owes somewhat less than 26% of its words to their language, this includes the vast majority of words used in everyday speech. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonine Itinerary
The Antonine Itinerary ( la, Itinerarium Antonini Augusti, "The Itinerary of the Emperor Antoninus") is a famous ''itinerarium'', a register of the stations and distances along various roads. Seemingly based on official documents, possibly from a survey carried out under Augustus, it describes the roads of the Roman Empire. Owing to the scarcity of other extant records of this type, it is a valuable historical record. Almost nothing is known of its date or author. Scholars consider it likely that the original edition was prepared at the beginning of the 3rd century. Although it is traditionally ascribed to the patronage of the 2nd-century Antoninus Pius, the oldest extant copy has been assigned to the time of Diocletian and the most likely imperial patron—if the work had one—would have been Caracalla. ''Iter Britanniarum'' The British section is known as the ''Iter Britanniarum'', and can be described as the 'road map' of Roman Britain. There are 15 such itinerari ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
London Bridge
Several bridges named London Bridge have spanned the River Thames between the City of London and Southwark, in central London. The current crossing, which opened to traffic in 1973, is a box girder bridge built from concrete and steel. It replaced a 19th-century stone-arched bridge, which in turn superseded a 600-year-old stone-built medieval structure. This was preceded by a succession of timber bridges, the first of which was built by the Roman founders of London. The current bridge stands at the western end of the Pool of London and is positioned upstream from previous alignments. The approaches to the medieval bridge were marked by the church of St Magnus-the-Martyr on the northern bank and by Southwark Cathedral on the southern shore. Until Putney Bridge opened in 1729, London Bridge was the only road crossing of the Thames downstream of Kingston upon Thames. London Bridge has been depicted in its several forms, in art, literature, and songs, including the nursery rh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rochester Bridge
Rochester Bridge in Rochester, Medway was for centuries the lowest fixed crossing of the River Medway in South East England. There have been several generations of bridge at this spot, and the current "bridge" is in fact four separate bridges: the "Old" bridge and "New" bridge carrying the A2 road, "Railway" bridge carrying the railway and the "Service" bridge carrying service pipes and cables. The bridge links the towns of Strood and Rochester in Medway. All except the railway bridge are owned and maintained by the Rochester Bridge Trust. History Roman The Romans built a bridge across the River Medway as part of Watling Street, carrying traffic from London to Dover (the port for Continental Europe). This was almost certainly the first bridge at the site as the Romans were the first occupiers to have the necessary technology to bridge such a wide and fierce tidal river. The Roman engineers might have initially built a pontoon bridge to support and supply their invading armie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Cray
The River Cray is the largest tributary of the Darent. It is the prime river of outer, south-east Greater London, rising in Priory Gardens, Orpington, where rainwater percolates through the chalk bedrock of the Downs to form a pond where the eroded ground elevation gives way to impermeable clay. Initially it flows true to form northwards, past industrial and residential St Mary Cray, through St Paul's Cray (where it once powered a paper mill) and through Foots Cray, where it enters the parkland Foots Cray Meadows, flowing under by Five Arches bridge (built in 1781 as part of their designs by Capability Brown). It then flows by restored Loring Hall (c.1760), home of the Lord Castlereagh who took his own life there in 1822. It continues through North Cray and Bexley. It neighbours a restored Gothic (architecture) cold plunge bath house, built around 1766 as part of Vale Mascal Estate. It is then joined by the River Shuttle (a small brook) and then continues through the parkland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crayford
Crayford is a town and electoral ward in South East London, England, within the London Borough of Bexley. It lies east of Bexleyheath and north west of Dartford. Crayford was in the historic county of Kent until 1965. The settlement developed by the river Cray, around a ford that is no longer used. History An Iron Age settlement existed in the vicinity of the present St Paulinus Church between the Julian and Claudian invasions of Britain, from roughly 30 BC to AD 40. Roman ruins have been discovered and Crayford is one of several places proposed as the site of Noviomagus, a place mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary as being on the Roman equivalent of the later Watling Street. Crayford is also plausible as the site of the bloody battle of Crecganford ("Creeksford") in 457 in which Hengist defeated Vortimer to become the supreme sovereign of Kent. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written around 400 years later describes how Hengist and Æsc defeated the "Bret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Darent
The Darent is a Kentish tributary of the River Thames and takes the waters of the River Cray as a tributary in the tidal portion of the Darent near Crayford, as illustrated by the adjacent photograph, snapped at high tide. 'Darenth' is frequently found in the spelling of the river's name in older books and maps, Bartholomew's "Canal's and River of England" being one example. Bartholomew's Gazetteer (1954) demonstrates that ''Darent'' means "clear water" and separately explains the other name. Considering the River Darent runs on a bed of chalk and its springs rise through chalk, this is not surprising. The original purity of the water was a major reason for the development of paper and pharmaceuticals in the area. Darenth Parish (through which the river flows) derives from a Celtic phrase 'stream where oak-trees grow' (Irish: "dair" = 'oak-tree', "abha" = river ) (compare e.g." Derwent"). The landscapes of the valley were painted in a visionary manner by the Victorian artist S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Medway
The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, East Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a total distance of . About of the river lies in East Sussex, with the remainder being in Kent. It has a Drainage basin, catchment area of , the second largest in southern England after the River Thames, Thames. The map opposite shows only the major tributaries: a more detailed map shows the extensive network of smaller streams feeding into the main river. Those tributaries rise from points along the North Downs, the Weald and Ashdown Forest. Tributaries The major tributaries are: * River Eden, Kent, River Eden * River Bourne, Kent, River Bourne, known in the past as the Shode or Busty * River Teise, major sub-tributary River Bewl * River Beult * Loose Stream * River Len Minor tributaries include: * Wateringbury Stream * East Malling St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lympne
Lympne (), formerly also Lymne, is a village on the former shallow-gradient sea cliffs above the expansive agricultural plain of Romney Marsh in Kent. The settlement forms an L shape stretching from Port Lympne Zoo via Lympne Castle facing Lympne Industrial Park then via the main settlement to Newingreen in the north, centred west of Folkestone, west of Hythe and ESE of Ashford. History In Roman times Lympne was known as Portus Lemanis, from which (or from the British eponym of which) the English name is derived in identical written form to one of its Middle English written recorded forms. It lay at the end of the Roman road from Canterbury, known today as Stone Street. It had a Saxon Shore fort, and, according to a fifth-century source was garrisoned by a regiment originally raised in Tournai in northern Gaul. Its remains are at the bottom of the south-facing cliffs; they lie in private land and cannot be visited, though a reasonable view may be obtained fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portus Lemanis
Portus Lemanis, also known as Lemanae, was the Latin name of a Roman Saxon Shore fort, settlement and port in southern Kent. The modern village of Lympne derives its name from the ancient port. History The first documentary mention of the site is found in the late 3rd-century Antonine Itinerary, where it is mentioned as lying 68,000 paces (68 Roman miles) from Londinium (London) and 16,000 paces from the cantonal capital Durovernum Cantiacorum (the modern Canterbury). However, there is archaeological evidence of much earlier use as a naval base: tiles stamped ''CL BR'' have been found indicating that sailors or marines of the fleet, the '' Classis Britannica'', were involved in its construction, as well as an inscription dated to the first third of the 2nd century ('' RIB'' 66) on an altar stone, dedicated to the god Neptune by a Lucius Aufidius Pantera, prefect of the '' Classis Britannica''.''CBA Report 18: The Saxon Shore'', p. 29 According to the 5th-century ''Notitia Dignitat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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