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Shire Hall, Shinfield Park
The Shire Hall is a former municipal building at Shinfield Park just south of Reading, Berkshire. It was the headquarters of Berkshire County Council from 1981 to 1998. History For much of the 20th century the administration of Berkshire County Council had been carried out in the old Shire Hall in The Forbury while meetings of the full council had taken place in the assize courts next door. Following implementation of the Local Government Act 1972, which increased the responsibilities of the county council, county leaders chose to procure a new purpose-built county headquarters: the site they initially selected was at Abbey Wharf off King's Road, but after considerable debate, they opted for a site which would be easier to develop on open land on the southern part of the Shinfield Park estate. The new Shire Hall, which was designed in the Brutalist style and built at a cost of £27.5 million, was completed in 1981. The design involved seven low-rise octagonal shaped build ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shinfield
Shinfield is a village and civil parish in the English county of Berkshire, just south of Reading. It contains and is administered by the unitary authority of Wokingham District. Shinfield Park is the northern part of the parish, becoming physically separated from Reading when the M4 motorway was constructed in 1971. Geography The parish includes the roadside hamlets of Ryeish Green, Spencers Wood, Three Mile Cross, Shinfield Village and Grazeley and the southern portion of the suburb of Reading called Shinfield Rise. It is surrounded on its eastern and southern boundary by the River Loddon. The M4 motorway runs west–east through the northern portion of the parish, near the former Berkshire County Council's Shire Hall, now the offices of the John Wood Group; the part to the north of the M4 corresponds closely with the part known as Shinfield Park. The main road through the village, running north–south, is the former A327, running between Reading and Aldershot, wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Octagon
In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a hexadecagon, . A 3D analog of the octagon can be the rhombicuboctahedron with the triangular faces on it like the replaced edges, if one considers the octagon to be a truncated square. Properties of the general octagon The sum of all the internal angles of any octagon is 1080°. As with all polygons, the external angles total 360°. If squares are constructed all internally or all externally on the sides of an octagon, then the midpoints of the segments connecting the centers of opposite squares form a quadrilateral that is both equidiagonal and orthodiagonal (that is, whose diagonals are equal in length and at right angles to each other).Dao Thanh Oai (2015), "Equilatera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buildings And Structures In Reading, Berkshire
A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the term ''building'' compare the list of nonbuilding structures. Buildings serve several societal needs – primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical division of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) and the ''outside'' (a place that at times may be harsh and harmful). Ever since the first cave paintings, buildings have also become objects or canvasses of much artistic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Wood Group
John Wood Group plc, commonly known as Wood, is a British multinational engineering and consulting business with headquarters in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange as well as being a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History The business was founded by Ian Wood in 1982, when it split away from JW Holdings, the largest fishing company in Scotland. JW Holdings had diversified into the energy services business at the outset of the North Sea oil industry in the early 1970s. The company acquired Mustang Engineering Inc, an engineering business based in Houston, Texas in September 2000. In 2002 the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange. In March 2017, the company announced it would acquire its rival, Amec Foster Wheeler, in an all stock deal, valued at approximately £2.2 billion. The transaction was completed on 9 October 2017. In 2020 the nuclear business, mostly decommissioning work at Sellafield, was sold for £250 million to the US Jacob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foster Wheeler
Foster Wheeler AG (formerly Foster Wheeler Inc.) was a Swiss global engineering conglomerate with its principal executive offices in Reading, UK and its registered office in Baar, Canton of Zug, Switzerland. Foster Wheeler was added to the NASDAQ-100 on 12 July 2007. On 13 November 2014 Foster Wheeler merged with Amec plc to form Amec Foster Wheeler. The resultant company was acquired by and merged into Wood Group in October 2017. History Foster Wheeler was formed in 1927 from a merger of the Power Specialty Company (which replaced American Water Works Supply Company, created by Pell and Ernest Foster in 1884) and the Wheeler Condenser & Engineering Company, which was created by Frederick Merriam Wheeler in 1891. It was originally based in New York City but later moved to Livingston, New Jersey and stayed there for nearly a quarter century before relocating to Clinton, New Jersey in 1987. In 2000, Foster Wheeler moved its incorporation to Bermuda; in 2008, it moved its incorporat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unitary Authorities
A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national government. Typically unitary authorities cover towns or cities which are large enough to function independently of a council or other authority. An authority can be a unit of a county or combined authority. Canada In Canada, each province creates its own system of local government, so terminology varies substantially. In certain provinces (e.g. Alberta, Nova Scotia) there is ''only'' one level of local government in that province, so no special term is used to describe the situation. British Columbia has only one such municipality, Northern Rockies Regional Municipality, which was established in 2009. In Ontario the term single-tier municipalities is used, for a similar concept. Their character varies, and while most function as cities with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Local Government Commission For England (1992)
The Local Government Commission for England was the body responsible for reviewing the structure of local government in England from 1992 to 2002. It was established under the Local Government Act 1992, replacing the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. The Commission could be ordered by the Secretary of State to undertake "structural reviews" in specified areas and recommend the creation of unitary authorities in the two-tier shire counties of England. The Commission, chaired by John Banham, conducted a review of all the non-metropolitan counties of England from 1993 to 1994, making various recommendations on their future. After much political debate and several legal challenges, the Commission's proposals resulted in the abolition of Berkshire county council and the counties of Avon, Cleveland, Hereford and Worcester and Humberside (created in 1974). Combined with a second wave of reviews in 1995, under the chairmanship of David Cooksey, the Commissio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during her lifetime, and was head of state of 15 realms at the time of her death. Her reign of 70 years and 214 days was the longest of any British monarch and the longest verified reign of any female monarch in history. Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother). Her father acceded to the throne in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother Edward VIII, making the ten-year-old Princess Elizabeth the heir presumptive. She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In November 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, a former prince ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Attack
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time and can have a long-lasting radiological result. A major nuclear exchange would likely have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to secondary effects, such as "nuclear winter", nuclear famine and societal collapse. A global thermonuclear war with Cold War-era stockpiles, or even with the current smaller stockpiles, may lead to various scenarios including the extinction of the human race. To date, the only use of nuclear weapons in armed conflict occurred in 1945 with the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. On August 6, 1945, a uranium gun-type device (code name "Little Boy") was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RAF Shinfield Park
RAF Shinfield Park was a Royal Air Force administrative site in the south of Reading, Berkshire. It served as the Met Office residential training college from 1971 until 2002. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts was built on part of the site in 1978. History The site is adjacent to the west side of the A327 road in the south of the Reading area, near the current roundabout with the B3270. Adjacent to the south is the former Shire Hall of Berkshire County Council, and the M4. Adjacent to the north is the independent Crosfields School, built on a former part of the RAF site. To the west is Whitley Wood. Although it was built as a part of Berkshire, the current site is in the civil parish of Shinfield, in the Borough of Wokingham. The RAF station was built on the Shinfield Lodge Estate. The site had been owned by Ebenezer Maitland in the 1700s. RAF Flying Training Command For many years it was the headquarters of RAF Flying Training Command (HQFTC) from 27 May ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reading, Berkshire
Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, Southeast England, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers River Thames, Thames and River Kennet, Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway serve the town. Reading is east of Swindon, south of Oxford, west of London and north of Basingstoke. Reading is a major commercial centre, especially for information technology and insurance. It is also a regional retail centre, serving a large area of the Thames Valley with its shopping centre, the The Oracle, Reading, Oracle. It is home to the University of Reading. Every year it hosts the Reading and Leeds Festivals, Reading Festival, one of England's biggest music festivals. Reading has a professional association football team, Reading F.C., and participates in many other sports. Reading dates from the 8th century. It was an important trading and ecclesiastical centre in the Middle Ages, the site of Reading Abbey, one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ebenezer Maitland
Ebenezer Fuller Maitland FRS (23 April 1780 – 1 November 1858) was an English landowner and politician. Origins Maitland was the only son of Ebenezer Maitland (1752-1834), a London businessman and Bank of England director, and his wife Mary, daughter of John Winter. In 1807 he changed his name to Ebenezer Fuller Maitland in accordance with the bequest of his wife's unmarried aunt, Sarah Fuller, who left him her fortune in 1810. Career In 1804 Maitland served as a lieutenant-colonel in the Reading Volunteers. He was elected Member of Parliament for Lostwithiel in 1807, for Wallingford in 1812 and for Chippenham in 1826, holding the latter seat until 1830 when he unsuccessfully sought election at . He was appointed Sheriff of Berkshire for 1825–26 and Sheriff of Breconshire for 1831–32. Fuller Maitland was a director of the South Sea Company from 1815 until his death and in 1829 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. As well as two large London houses, he owned country ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
