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Wardown Park
Wardown Park is situated on the River Lea in Luton. The park has various sporting facilities, is home to the Wardown Park Museum and contains formal gardens. The park is located between ''Old Bedford Road'' and the A6, ''New Bedford Road'' and is within walking distance of the town centre. History The area that became Wardown Park was a farmhouse and country residence in the 1800s. The park itself started out as a private estate owned by Richard How. Richard's son, Robert built the first property within the park, called Bramingham Shott, which still stands and now houses the museum. In the early 1870s the estate was taken over by local solicitor, Frank Chapman-Scargill. He rebuilt much of the earlier house in 1879 for a total cost of £10,000. Scargill left Luton and the house and property was let to J Forder who renamed the estate Wardown. Frank Chapman's last surviving son (Jasper Chapman Scargill) died in Ireland 22 October 2012 at the age of 97 (93 years after the death o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suspension Bridge
A suspension bridge is a type of bridge in which the deck is hung below suspension cables on vertical suspenders. The first modern examples of this type of bridge were built in the early 1800s. Simple suspension bridges, which lack vertical suspenders, have a long history in many mountainous parts of the world. Besides the bridge type most commonly called suspension bridges, covered in this article, there are other types of suspension bridges. The type covered here has cables suspended between towers, with vertical ''suspender cables'' that transfer the live and dead loads of the deck below, upon which traffic crosses. This arrangement allows the deck to be level or to arc upward for additional clearance. Like other suspension bridge types, this type often is constructed without the use of falsework. The suspension cables must be anchored at each end of the bridge, since any load applied to the bridge is transformed into a tension in these main cables. The main cables con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luton Museum
Wardown House Museum and Gallery formerly Wardown Park Museum and, before that, the Luton Museum & Art Gallery in Luton, is housed in a large Victorian mansion in Wardown Park on the outskirts of the town centre. The museum collection focuses on the traditional crafts of Bedfordshire, notably lace-making and hat-making. There are samples of Bedfordshire lace from as early as the 17th century. History Robert How built the first property within the park, called Bramingham Shott, which is the current home to the museum. In the early 1870s the estate was taken over by local solicitor, Frank Chapman-Scargill, he rebuilt much of the earlier house in 1879 for a total cost of £10,000. Scargill left Luton in 1893 and the house and property was acquired by lime burner Benjamin John Harfield Forder, who renamed the estate Wardown, after the hill (War Down) behind his family home at Buriton, Hampshire. In 1903, Forder and his partners, Halley Stewart and Sir Malcolm Stewart, who lat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedfordshire County Cricket Club
Bedfordshire County Cricket Club is one of 20 Minor County clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Bedfordshire. The team is currently a member of the Minor Counties Championship Eastern Division and plays in the MCCA Knockout Trophy. Bedfordshire played List A matches occasionally from 1967 until 2005 but is not classified as a List A team. History Cricket had probably reached Bedfordshire by the end of the 17th century. The earliest reference to cricket in the county is a match in August 1741 at Woburn Park between a Bedfordshire XI and a combined Northants and Huntingdonshire XI. Woburn Cricket Club, under the leadership of the Duke of Bedford, became prominent in the 1740s and took part in a number of "great matches" against opponents such as London Cricket Club. A county organisation has been traced back to May 1847 and a Bedfordshire team competed in the first Minor Counties Championship in 1895, with six ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edwardian
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victorian era. Her son and successor, Edward VII, was already the leader of a fashionable elite that set a style influenced by the art and fashions of continental Europe. Samuel Hynes described the Edwardian era as a "leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun really never set on the British flag." The Liberals returned to power in 1906 and made significant reforms. Below the upper class, the era was marked by significant shifts in politics among sections of society that had largely been excluded from power, such as labourers, servants, and the industrial working class. Women started to play more of a role in politics. Roy Hattersley, ''The Edwardians'' (2004). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bowling Green
A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on them. The world's oldest surviving bowling green is the Southampton Old Bowling Green, which was first used in 1299. When the French adopted "boulingrin" in the 17th century, it was understood to mean a sunk geometrically shaped piece of perfect grass, framed in gravel walks, which often formed the centre of a regularly planted wood called a ''bosquet,'' somewhat like a highly formalized glade; it might have a central pool or fountain. The diarist Samuel Pepys relates a conversation he had with the architect Hugh May: Dimensions and other specifications Bowling green specifications for the lawn bowls variation of the sport are stipulated in World Bowls' Laws of the Sport of Bowls. For the variant known as crown green bowls Crow ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sequoia Sempervirens
''Sequoia sempervirens'' ()''Sunset Western Garden Book,'' 1995:606–607 is the sole living species of the genus '' Sequoia'' in the cypress family Cupressaceae (formerly treated in Taxodiaceae). Common names include coast redwood, coastal redwood, and California redwood. It is an evergreen, long-lived, monoecious tree living 1,200–2,200 years or more. This species includes the tallest living trees on Earth, reaching up to in height (without the roots) and up to in diameter at breast height. These trees are also among the oldest living things on Earth. Before commercial logging and clearing began by the 1850s, this massive tree occurred naturally in an estimated along much of coastal California (excluding southern California where rainfall is not sufficient) and the southwestern corner of coastal Oregon within the United States. The name sequoia sometimes refers to the subfamily Sequoioideae, which includes ''S. sempervirens'' along with '' Sequoiadendron'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D-Day
The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of France (and later western Europe) and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. Planning for the operation began in 1943. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allies conducted a substantial military deception, codenamed Operation Bodyguard, to mislead the Germans as to the date and location of the main Allied landings. The weather on D-Day was far from ideal, and the operation had to be delayed 24 hours; a further postponement would have meant a delay of at least two weeks, as the invasion planners had requirements for the phase of the moon, the tides, and the time of day that meant only a few days each month wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkhas, and 28,330 volunteer reserve personnel. The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with antecedents in the English Army and Scots Army that were created during the Restoration in 1660. The term ''British Army'' was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, but the Bill of Rights of 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedford Dunstable Plant
The Bedford Dunstable plant was a truck and bus vehicle assembly plant, located in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England. Developed and opened by Vauxhall Motors in 1942 under instruction from the Ministry of Production as a shadow factory, it was transferred to the Bedford Vehicles unit in the 1950s. Closed after receivership in 1992, it was subsequently demolished and redeveloped as a retail park and associated industrial estate. Background In 1931, the now General Motors owned Vauxhall launched a bus and truck division called Bedford Vehicles. Produced at the companies existing Luton site, the first Bedford's were reworked Chevrolet vehicles. Bedford introduced their first own original design, the Q series lorries and buses, turning itself into a distinctive marque. By the start of World War II, Bedford had become a major supplier to the British Army, with the Q series being used in every possible configuration. Those destined for D-Day were waterproof tested at Wardown P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bedford Vehicles
Bedford Vehicles, usually shortened to just Bedford, was a brand of vehicle manufactured by Vauxhall Motors, then a subsidiary of multinational corporation General Motors. Established in April 1931, Bedford Vehicles was set up to build commercial vehicles. The company was a leading international lorry brand, with substantial export sales of light, medium, and heavy lorries throughout the world. Bedford's core heavy trucks business was divested by General Motors (GM) as AWD Trucks in 1987, whilst the Bedford brand continued to be used on light commercial vehicles and car-derived vans based on Vauxhall/Opel, Isuzu and Suzuki designs. The brand was retired in 1991. The van manufacturing plant of Bedford, now called GM Manufacturing Luton, is now owned and operated by Stellantis, following Vauxhall's acquisition by PSA Group in 2017. History Until 1925, General Motors assembled trucks in Britain from parts manufactured at its Canadian works. This enabled them to import vehicle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
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, massa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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