|
Speenhamland, Berkshire
Speenhamland is an area within modern Newbury, Berkshire. Name and location Its name is probably derived from Old English ''Spen-haema-land'', "land of the inhabitants of Speen", with "Speen" perhaps being formed on a Brittonic root deriving from Latin ''spinis'', "thorns".Coates and Breeze (2000) ''Celtic voices, English places: studies of the Celtic impact on place-names in England'', p. 41. Speenhamland was a tithing, or administrative subdivision, of the parish of Speen, though even in the early 19th century it was contiguous with the suburbs of Newbury.Lysons & Lysons (eds., 1813: ''Magna Britannia'', vol I, part II, London: Cadell & Davies, p. 372. It lies to the north of the River Kennet, between the centre of Newbury and Speen village to the north-west. Poor relief The Speenhamland system of poor relief In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury is a market town in the county of Berkshire, England, and is home to the administrative headquarters of West Berkshire Council. The town centre around its large market square retains a rare medieval Cloth Hall, an adjoining half timbered granary, and the 15th-century St Nicolas Church, along with 17th- and 18th-century listed buildings. As well as being home to Newbury Racecourse, it is the headquarters of Vodafone and software company Micro Focus International. In the valley of the River Kennet, south of Oxford, north of Winchester, southeast of Swindon and west of Reading. Newbury lies on the edge of the Berkshire Downs; part of the North Wessex Downs Area of outstanding natural beauty, north of the Hampshire-Berkshire county boundary. In the suburban village of Donnington lies the part-ruined Donnington Castle and the surrounding hills are home to some of the country's most famous racehorse training grounds (centred on nearby Lambourn). To the south is a narro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th century, and the first Old English literature, Old English literary works date from the mid-7th century. After the Norman conquest of 1066, English was replaced, for a time, by Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman (a langues d'oïl, relative of French) as the language of the upper classes. This is regarded as marking the end of the Old English era, since during this period the English language was heavily influenced by Anglo-Norman, developing into a phase known now as Middle English in England and Early Scots in Scotland. Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian languages, Anglo-Frisian or Ingvaeonic dialects originally spoken by Germanic peoples, Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Sa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brittonic Languages
The Brittonic languages (also Brythonic or British Celtic; cy, ieithoedd Brythonaidd/Prydeinig; kw, yethow brythonek/predennek; br, yezhoù predenek) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family; the other is Goidelic. The name ''Brythonic'' was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word , meaning Ancient Britons as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael. The Brittonic languages derive from the Common Brittonic language, spoken throughout Great Britain during the Iron Age and Roman period. In the 5th and 6th centuries emigrating Britons also took Brittonic speech to the continent, most significantly in Brittany and Britonia. During the next few centuries the language began to split into several dialects, eventually evolving into Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Cumbric, and probably Pictish. Welsh and Breton continue to be spoken as native languages, while a revival in Cornish has led to an increase in speakers of that language. Cumbric and Pictish are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjuga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tithing
A tithing or tything was a historic English legal, administrative or territorial unit, originally ten hides (and hence, one tenth of a hundred). Tithings later came to be seen as subdivisions of a manor or civil parish. The tithing's leader or spokesman was known as a ''tithingman''. Etymology The noun ''tithing'' breaks down as ''ten'' + ''thing'', which is to say, a thing (an assembly) of the households who live in an area that comprises ten hides. Comparable words are Danish ''herredthing'' for a hundred, and English ''husting'' for a single household. Sound changes in the prehistory of English are responsible for the first part of the word looking so different from the word ''ten''. In the West Germanic dialects which became Old English, ''n'' had a tendency to elide when positioned immediately before a ''th''. The noun is not to be confused with the verb ''to tithe'', its present participle ''tithing'', nor the act of ''tithing'', though they partly share the same origin. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speen, Berkshire
Speen is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England. Centred north west of the largest town in the district, Newbury, Speen has clustered settlements, the largest of which is Speen village (which is contiguous with Newbury) and the others are buffered from the town by the A34 road and named Bagnor, Stockcross, Woodspeen and Marsh Benham. Its other land is an approximately even mixture of woodland and agricultural fields (including cultivated crops, hay meadow for livestock feed and pasture) and varies greatly in elevation, having the Reading to Taunton Line alongside the north bank of the River Kennet as its southern boundary and both banks of the River Lambourn in its north with elevated ground in between. Benham Park in the south-west of the area is a listed landscape garden and house. History Speen has the frequently broken-up footpath marking the Ermin Way, the main Roman road from Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester) to Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). The Engl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Kennet
The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which – together with the Avon Navigation, the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Thames – links the cities of Bristol and London. The length from near its sources west of Marlborough, Wiltshire, Marlborough, Wiltshire down to Woolhampton, Berkshire is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). This is primarily from an array of rare plants and animals completely endemism, endemic to chalky watercourses. When Wiltshire had second-tier local authorities, one, Kennet District, took the name of the river. Etymology The pronunciation (and spelling) was as the Kunnit (or Cunnit). This is likely derived from the Roman settlement in the upper valley floor, Cunetio (in the later large village of Mildenhall, Wiltshire, Mildenhall). Lati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria County History
The Victoria History of the Counties of England, commonly known as the Victoria County History or the VCH, is an English history project which began in 1899 with the aim of creating an encyclopaedic history of each of the historic counties of England, and was dedicated to Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria. In 2012 the project was rededicated to Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II in celebration of her Diamond Jubilee year. Since 1933 the project has been coordinated by the Institute of Historical Research in the University of London. History The history of the VCH falls into three main phases, defined by different funding regimes: an early phase, 1899–1914, when the project was conceived as a commercial enterprise, and progress was rapid; a second more desultory phase, 1914–1947, when relatively little progress was made; and the third phase beginning in 1947, when, under the auspices of the Institute of Historical Research, a high academic standard was set, and pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speenhamland System
The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law. It was created as an indirect result of Britain's involvements in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). Operation The system was named after a 1795 meeting in Speenhamland, Berkshire, where local magistrates devised the system as a means to alleviate the distress caused by high grain prices. The increase in the price of grain may have occurred as a result of a poor harvest in the years 1795–96, though at the time this was subject to great debate. Many blamed middlemen and hoarders as the ultimate architects of the shortage. The Speehamland scale read, "When a gallon loaf of bread cost one shilling:... every Poor and Industrious Man should have for his own Support 3s weekly, either produced by his Family's Labour, or an Allowance f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poor Law
In English and British history, poor relief refers to government and ecclesiastical action to relieve poverty. Over the centuries, various authorities have needed to decide whose poverty deserves relief and also who should bear the cost of helping the poor. Alongside ever-changing attitudes towards poverty, many methods have been attempted to answer these questions. Since the early 16th century legislation on poverty enacted by the English Parliament, poor relief has developed from being little more than a systematic means of punishment into a complex system of government-funded support and protection, especially following the creation in the 1940s of the welfare state. Tudor era In the late 15th century, parliament took action on the growing problem of poverty, focusing on punishing people for being "vagabonds" and for begging. In 1495, during the reign of King Henry VII, Parliament enacted the Vagabond Act. This provided for officers of the law to arrest and hold "all such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Speen, Berkshire")
