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King George's Park
King George's Park is a main park spanning Wandsworth and Southfields, South London. History The park was originally called Southfields Park and was laid out in 1922. It was officially opened by King George V in 1923 and renamed in his honour. The park previously contained a long open-air swimming pool and children's paddling area constructed in 1936 which eventually closed in 1993 and the site redeveloped with an indoor tennis and bowls centre. In the aftermath of World War II nearly 100 prefabricated houses were constructed in the middle of the park, providing homes to roughly 400 people. The buildings remained for 18 years before their eventual removal, at which point the land was returned to the park. In June 1952 officers of Special Branch arrested Soviet agent William Martin Marshall in King George's Park. One of the park's footpaths – Foster's Way – is named in honour of Victoria Cross recipient Edward Foster. Details The park is about long, north–south ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wandsworth Town
Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. Toponymy Wandsworth takes its name from the River Wandle, which enters the Thames at Wandsworth. Wandsworth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Wandesorde'' and ''Wendelesorde''. This means 'enclosure of (a man named) Waendel', whose name is also lent to the River Wandle. To distinguish it from the London Borough of Wandsworth, and historically from the Wandsworth District of the Metropolis and the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth, which all covered larger areas, it is also known as Wandsworth Town. History At the time of the Domesday Book (1086), the manor of Wandsworth was held partly by William, son of Ansculfy, and partly by St Wandrille's Abbey. Its Domesday assets were 12 hides, with ploughs and of meadow. It rendered £9. Since at least the early 16th centu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York Times''. Together with entrepreneur Raoul H. Fleischmann, they established the F-R Publishing Company and set up the magazine's first office in Manhattan. Ross remained the editor until his death in 1951, shaping the magazine's editorial tone and standards. ''The New Yorker''s fact-checking operation is widely recognized among journalists as one of its strengths. Although its reviews and events listings often focused on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' gained a reputation for publishing serious essays, long-form journalism, well-regarded fiction, and humor for a national and international audience, including work by writers such as Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, and Alice Munro. In the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adventure Playground
An adventure playground is a specific type of playground for children. Adventure playgrounds can take many forms, ranging from "natural playgrounds" to "junk playgrounds", and are typically defined by an ethos of unrestricted play, the presence of playworkers (or "wardens"), and the absence of adult-manufactured or rigid play-structures."Play is a process that is freely chosen, personally directed and intrinsically motivated. That is, children and young people determine and control the content and intent of their play, by following their own instincts, ideas and interests, in their own way for their own reasons." Adventure playgrounds are frequently defined in contrast to playing fields, contemporary-design playgrounds made by adult architects, and traditional-equipment play areas containing adult-made rigid play-structures like swings, slides, seesaws, and climbing bars. History Harry Shier, in ''Adventure Playgrounds: An Introduction'' (1984), defines an adventure playgroun ... [...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 Samuel Pepys ( ; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English writer and Tories (British political party), Tory politician. He served as an official in the Navy Board and Member of Parliament (England), Member of Parliament, but is most r ... relates a conversation h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
River Wandle
The River Wandle is a right-bank tributary of the River Thames in south London, England. With a total length of about , the river passes through the London boroughs of London Borough of Croydon, Croydon, London Borough of Sutton, Sutton, London Borough of Merton, Merton and London Borough of Wandsworth, Wandsworth, where it reaches the Thames. A short headwater – the Caterham Bourne – is partially in Surrey, the historic county of the river's catchment. Tributaries of the Wandle include Carshalton Ponds and Norbury Brook. The Wandle Trail follows the course of the river from Croydon to Wandsworth. Toponym The name is thought to derive from a back-formation of Wandsworth ( meaning Wendle's Enclosure). History and boundaries In the pleistocene before the carving of the River Mole#Mole Gap, Mole Gap, water lapped the north of the area between the North Downs and Greensand Hills known as the Vale of Holmesdale taking the Caterham or Coulsdon Bourne routes, to form the muc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pen & Sword
Pen and Sword Books, also stylised as Pen & Sword, is a British publisher which specialises in printing and distributing books in both hardback and softback on military history, militaria and other niche subjects, primarily focused on the United Kingdom. Pen and Sword has over 6,000 titles available in print, and also available as ebook download. Releasing 500 new titles each year on a variety of subjects, it is part of the '' Barnsley Chronicle'' newspaper group. History The first books produced by the company were in response to public demand, following a series of articles first published weekly in the '' Barnsley Chronicle''. ''Dark Peak Aircraft Wrecks'' told the story of crash sites in the Dark Peak area of the Peak District National Park, and a further weekly feature on the history of two Kitchener battalions, known as the Barnsley Pals, aroused a public interest. Over the years these books have been reprinted a number of times. Following on from the success of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Foster (VC)
Edward Foster VC (4 January 1886 – 22 January 1946) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Born in Streatham, London on 4 February 1886, Foster worked for Wandsworth Council in South West London as a dustman. On 27 July 1915, during the First World War, he enlisted in the 13th Battalion (Wandsworth) East Surrey Regiment, British Army, and went to France with the battalion in June 1916. Foster was 31 years old, and a corporal in the 13th East Surreys, when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC. On 24 April 1917 at Villers-Plouich, Nord, France, during an attack, the advance was held up in a portion of the village by two machine-guns which were entrenched and strongly covered by wire entanglements. Corporal Foster, who was in charge of two Lewis guns, succeeded in entering the trench and engaging the enem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Cross
The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious decoration of the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British decorations system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously awarded to service personnel in the broader British Empire (later Commonwealth of Nations), with most successor independent nations now having established their own honours systems and no longer recommending British honours. It may be awarded to a person of any military rank in any service and to civilians under military command. No civilian has received the award since 1879. Since the first awards were presented by Queen Victoria in 1857, two thirds of all awards have been personally presented by the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarch. The investitures are usually held at Buckingham Palace. The VC was introduced on 29 January 1856 by Queen Victoria to honour acts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Branch (Metropolitan Police)
Special Branch was a unit in the Metropolitan Police in London, formed as a counter-terrorism unit in 1883 and merged with another unit to form Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) in 2006. It maintained contact with the Security Service (MI5) and had responsibility for, among other things, personal protection of (non-royal) VIPs and performing the role of examining officer at designated ports and airports, as prescribed by the Terrorism Act 2000. History In response to the escalating terror campaign in Britain carried out by the militant Irish Fenians in the 1880s, the Home Secretary Sir William Harcourt established the first counter-terrorism unit ever in 1883, named Special Irish Branch, to combat Irish republican terrorism through infiltration and subversion. It initially formed a section of the Criminal Investigation Department within the London Metropolitan Police. Harcourt envisioned a permanent unit dedicated to the prevention of politically motivated violence throu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wandsworth Council
Wandsworth London Borough Council, also known as Wandsworth Council, is the local authority for the London Borough of Wandsworth in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in London. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2022. It is based at Wandsworth Town Hall in the centre of Wandsworth. History There has been a Wandsworth local authority since 1856 when the Wandsworth District was created, governed by an elected board. It was one of the lower tier authorities within the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which was established to provide services across the metropolis of London. In 1889 the Metropolitan Board of Works' area was made the County of London. In 1900 the lower tier was reorganised into metropolitan boroughs, each with a borough council, two of which were called Wandsworth (corresponding to the former Wandsworth District) and Battersea. The London Borough of Wandsworth and its council were created under the Lond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prefabs In The United Kingdom
Prefabs (prefabricated homes) were a major part of the delivery plan to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage. They were envisaged by war-time prime minister Winston Churchill in March 1944, and legally outlined in the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944. Taking the details of the public housing plan from the output of the Burt Committee formed in 1942, the wartime coalition government under Churchill proposed to address the need for an anticipated 200,000 shortfall in post-war housing stock, by building 500,000 prefabricated houses, with a planned life of up to 10 years, within five years of the end of the Second World War. The Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944 aimed to deliver 300,000 units within 10 years, within a budget of £150 million. Through use of the wartime production facilities and creation of common standards developed by the Ministry of Works, the programme got off to a good start and, of 1.2 million new houses built bet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
