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Oswestry
Oswestry ( ; ) is a market town, civil parish and historic railway town in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483 and A495 roads. The town was the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Oswestry until that was abolished in 2009. Oswestry is the third-largest town in Shropshire, following Telford and Shrewsbury. At the 2011 Census, the population was 17,105. The town is five miles (8 km) from the Welsh border and has a mixed English and Welsh heritage. Oswestry is the largest settlement within the Oswestry Uplands, a designated natural area and national character area. Toponym The name ''Oswestry'' is first attested in 1191, as ''Oswaldestroe''. This Middle English name transparently derives from the Old English personal name Ōswald and the word ''trēow'' ('tree'). Thus the name seems once to have meant 'tree of a man called Ōswald'.A. D. Mills, ''A Dictionary of English Place Names'' (Oxford: Oxford University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oswestry Uplands
The Oswestry Uplands are a small natural region in the English county of Shropshire on the border with Wales. The Oswestry Uplands have been designated as Natural Area No. 41 and National Character Area No. 63 by Natural England and its predecessor bodies. The area is much more closely linked by culture and language to Wales than other parts of Shropshire. The Uplands are characterized by an undulating landscape of Carboniferous Limestone hills with calcareous grasslands and rocky outcrops with steep wooded valleys; marshes and fens occupying the valley bottoms. The Uplands have a total area of 9,981 hectares and occupy a salient running from Pant to Chirk on the Anglo-Welsh border which takes in the town of Oswestry and village of Gobowen Gobowen is a village in Shropshire, England, about 3 miles north of Oswestry. The population according to the 2011 census was 3,270. History The village was previously called ''Bryn-y-Castell'' ("Hill of the Castle" in English) after th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shropshire (district)
Shropshire is a district with the status of a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is named after the historic county of Shropshire. It covers the former districts of Bridgnorth, North Shropshire, Oswestry, Shrewsbury and Atcham and South Shropshire. These were merged into the modern-day unitary authority of Shropshire. The large town of Telford was not affected by this as it has been a unitary authority since 1996 under Telford and Wrekin borough. It contains 188 civil parishes. History The district was created on the 1 April 2009, following the merger of the former districts, and upon the formation of Shropshire Council, which replaced the district councils and also Shropshire County Council. Geography The district covers the towns of Oswestry, Church Stretton, Craven Arms, Ellesmere, Wem, Whitchurch, Much Wenlock, Shifnal, Bridgnorth, Broseley, Clun, Knighton (part), Bishop's Castle, Cleobury Mortimer, Mark ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English period. Scholarly opinion varies, but the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' specifies the period when Middle English was spoken as being from 1150 to 1500. This stage of the development of the English language roughly followed the High to the Late Middle Ages. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography. Writing conventions during the Middle English period varied widely. Examples of writing from this period that have survived show extensive regional variation. The more standardized Old English language became fragmented, localized, and was, for the most part, being improvised. By the end of the period (about 1470) and aided by the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 14 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-Saxon Monarchs
The Heptarchy were the seven petty kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England that flourished from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century until they were consolidated in the 8th century into the four kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria, Wessex and East Anglia. The term 'Heptarchy' (from the Greek , ; from , : "seven"; , : "reign, rule" and the suffix , ) is used because of the traditional belief that there had been seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, usually described as East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex, and Wessex. The first known written reference to the historiographical traditional belief that there were these 'seven kingdoms' was in Henry of Huntingdon’s 12th century work, ''Historia Anglorum''; the term ''Heptarchy'' is not known to have been used to describe them until the 16th century. History By convention, the Heptarchy period lasted from the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 5th century, until most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms came under the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
King Arthur
King Arthur ( cy, Brenin Arthur, kw, Arthur Gernow, br, Roue Arzhur) is a legendary king of Britain, and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain. In the earliest traditions, Arthur appears as a leader of the post-Roman Britons in battles against Saxon invaders of Britain in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. He appears in two early medieval historical sources, the ''Annales Cambriae'' and the ''Historia Brittonum'', but these date to 300 years after he is supposed to have lived, and most historians who study the period do not consider him a historical figure.Tom Shippey, "So Much Smoke", ''review'' of , ''London Review of Books'', 40:24:23 (20 December 2018) His name also occurs in early Welsh poetic sources such as ''Y Gododdin''. The character developed through Welsh mythology, appearing either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guinevere
Guinevere ( ; cy, Gwenhwyfar ; br, Gwenivar, kw, Gwynnever), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in popular literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a villainous and opportunistic traitor to a fatally flawed but noble and virtuous lady. Many records of the legend also feature the variably recounted story of her abduction and rescue as a major part of the tale. The earliest datable appearance of Guinevere is in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudo-historical British chronicle ''Historia Regum Britanniae'', in which she is seduced by Mordred during his ill-fated rebellion against Arthur. In a later medieval Arthurian romance tradition from France, a prominent story arc is the queen's tragic love affair with her husband's chief knight ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hill Forts In Britain
Hillforts in Britain refers to the various hillforts within the island of Great Britain. Although the earliest such constructs fitting this description come from the Neolithic British Isles, with a few also dating to later Bronze Age Britain, British hillforts were primarily constructed during the British Iron Age. Some of these were apparently abandoned in the southern areas that were a part of Roman Britain, although at the same time, those areas of northern Britain that remained free from Roman occupation saw an increase in their construction. Some hillforts were reused in the Early Middle Ages, and in some rarer cases, into the Later Medieval period as well. By the early modern period, these had essentially all been abandoned, with many being excavated by archaeologists in the nineteenth century onward. There are around 3,300 structures that can be classed as hillforts or similar "defended enclosures" within Britain. Most of these are clustered in certain regions: south and sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Oswestry
Old Oswestry () is a large early Iron Age hill fort in the Welsh Marches near Oswestry in north west Shropshire, England. The earthworks, which remain one of the best preserved hill forts in the UK, have been described as "The Stonehenge of the Iron Age Period". After the hill fort was abandoned, it was incorporated into Wat's Dyke by the Mercians during the Early Medieval period. The hill fort was designated as a scheduled monument in 1934. The site is now managed by English Heritage. The accessible hill fort gives panoramic views across North and Mid Wales, Cheshire and Shropshire. History The earliest occupation of the site began in the 8th century BC and continued up until the Roman conquest of Britain. Its inhabitants were either from the tribes of the Cornovii or Ordovices. The complexity of defences suggests there have been several phases of development. In the earliest period, a few round huts were sited on the undefended hillock. Subsequently these were enclosed by a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cynddylan
Cynddylan (Modern Welsh pronunciation: /kən'ðəlan/), or Cynddylan ap Cyndrwyn was a seventh-century Prince of Powys associated with Pengwern. Cynddylan is attested only in literary sources: unlike many kings from Brittonic post-Roman Britain, he does not appear in the early Welsh genealogies or other historical sources. The son of King Cyndrwyn, Cynddylan is described in the probably seventh-century poem ''Marwnad Cynddylan'' (''Elegy for Cynddylan'') and seems to have been a chieftain in Powys. Historical context Some understanding of the historical context in which Cynddylan must have lived is afforded by Bede's ''Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum'', the ''Historia Brittonum'', and early Welsh genealogies. With the collapse of the Roman Empire and the invasion of the Saxons, the remains of the civitas of the Cornovii held on to their lands in the lowland border regions of Wales (Herefordshire and Shropshire). By the beginning of the seventh century King Cystennin was th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pengwern
Pengwern was a Brythonic settlement of sub-Roman Britain situated in what is now the English county of Shropshire, adjoining the modern Welsh border. It is generally regarded as being the early seat of the kings of Powys before its establishment at Mathrafal, further west, but the theory that it may have been an early kingdom (or a sub-kingdom of Powys itself) has also been postulated. Its precise location is uncertain. History and legend Nothing is known about the foundation of Pengwern, although according to Welsh tradition it was part of the Welsh kingdom of Powys in the early Middle Ages. Early Powys, much larger in extent than the later medieval kingdom, seems to have ''roughly'' coincided with the territory of the Celtic Cornovii tribe whose ''civitas'' capital or administrative centre was ''Viroconium Cornoviorum'' (now Wroxeter). The exploits of Cynddylan, as imagined around the ninth century, are told in the Old Welsh ''Canu Heledd'' (a cycle of poems named after Cyn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Vyrnwy
The River Vyrnwy ( cy, Afon Efyrnwy, ) is a river which flows through northern Powys, Wales, and Shropshire, England. The name derives from Severn, the river of which it is a tributary. Course The river used to be sourced from the many rivers and streams running off the mountains surrounding the Vyrnwy valley. However, since the Lake Vyrnwy dam was built in the 1880s, the river has flowed directly from the base of the dam. The river runs for , and the last form part of the Welsh/English border between Powys and Shropshire. It eventually joins the River Severn near the village of Melverley. Recreational The river is paddled frequently by kayakers and canoeists, with the upper reaches of the river being predominantly ''Grade II'' white water with a few '' Grade III'' sections, most notably the Vyrnwy Gorge near the village of Dolanog. The other most prominent feature of the upper river is Dolanog Falls, a man-made weir that requires a portage by both kayaks and canoes. Much of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Offa's Dyke
Offa's Dyke ( cy, Clawdd Offa) is a large linear earthwork that roughly follows the border between England and Wales. The structure is named after Offa, the Anglo-Saxon king of Mercia from AD 757 until 796, who is traditionally believed to have ordered its construction. Although its precise original purpose is debated, it delineated the border between Anglian Mercia and the Welsh kingdom of Powys. The earthwork, which was up to wide (including its flanking ditch) and high, traversed low ground, hills and rivers. Today it is protected as a scheduled monument. Some of its route is followed by the Offa's Dyke Path, a long-distance footpath that runs between Liverpool Bay in the north and the Severn Estuary in the south. Although the Dyke has conventionally been dated to the Early Middle Ages of Anglo-Saxon England, research in recent decades – using techniques such as radioactive carbon dating – has challenged the conventional historiography and theories about the earth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
