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.A heritage walk to Kashmiri Gate this Sunday morning was a different and a special experience for we got a chance to know and explore one of the busiest areas of the Delhi City. The area which is frequently visited yet less ‘known’, the area which hides various traces of Indian history but is only termed as congested and filthy.
We all know how rapidly urban spaces change. It was seems incredible, but our first stop, Nicholson’s Cemetery, was located in the area which was a battleground for British and the Indian rebels during the 1857 revolt. The cemetery has both British & Indian burials. If Brigadier General John Nicholson was known for his excellent military skills then Master Yasudas Ramachandra was popular for his intellectual excellence. Our next stop was, the remains of one of the magnificent gates of old Delhi-the Kashmiri Gate. The road through it led to Kashmir and so gave it this name; likewise it also lent the name to the neighborhood around it. In close vicinity to the gate were the remains of the wall of the walled city of Shahjahanabad. It is important to note that not only was the city evolving but also its wall and the people nearby saw various ups and downs in their life time as the city transformed. Not to be ignored is the Bengali Club located at the Kashmiri Gate? Once it was a hub for promoting Bengali culture, customs, traditions and festivals but sadly it is in a forgotten state. We then proceeded to a place called Bada Bazaar which is known to have houses of various Mughal Nobles and British officials before the bazaar came up. None of us could miss the charm of Lal Masjid, also known as Fakhr-ul-Masajid, projecting itself amidst the old archaic surrounding architecture. Our heritage trail then proceeds towards the old buildings of two famous colleges of Delhi University, St. Stephens and the Hindu college. Former was started by the missionaries to spread the English western education while the latter by Indians in opposition to British ideas. Right in front of us was elegant building of the St. James Church, whose property was looted and stolen by the rebels during 1857. A canteen and a field hospital were established here by the rebels. The church was established by James Skinner & the churchyard has the Skinner family burial ground as well as the grave of his good friend, William Fraser. Next in our stop was the bungalow of William Fraser, a majestic colonial building which is known to be built on the basement Ali Mardan Khan’s (important Mughal noble) residence. Now, passing by the old buildings of the city we reached an Archaeological Museum which was once an important Mughal and British building. Called the Dara Shukoh Library, it was later made into the British Residency. This is where David Ochterlony lampooned as ‘Loony Akhtar’ lived. A few steps ahead is the Telegraph Memorial and remains of British Magazine, both memorials for the British; the loyal and faithful service of their officials, whose important deeds resulted in controlling the uprising. We finally reached the end of our walk at the Lothian Road Cemetery, the first British cemetery in Delhi. Our journey was an attempt to unravel the story of bravery and loyalty, tracing both sides of the story.
(posted by Niti Deoliya & Kanika Singh, team members, Delhi Heritage Walks)
Army childcare expands programs to meet Kaiserslautern community needs
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – Childcare for Ingrid Duty often meant hectic mornings, driving more than 30 miles before work to drop off her two daughters at separate care centers.
Duty, a government civilian, spent more than 45 minutes fighting congested autobahn traffic, driving from her Mehlingen home across town to Landstuhl, then back into Kaiserslautern. But that’s changed, thanks to a new school age services at Sembach Elementary School – one of a few Army childcare programs in Kaiserslautern growing to meet the community demands.
On Oct. 14, Lt. Col. Kevin Hutchison, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern, cut a ceremonial ribbon – officially opening the Sembach program center. Now, at Sembach, Duty’s daughters are both just four miles from home.
“When this came up, it was a blessing,” Duty said. “This is awesome.”
Duty has more time for herself, her girls and her husband, a Soldier who commutes 50 miles north to Wiesbaden, she said. In other words, there’s more time for breakfast.
“It’s a whole lot better now. I come and pick my daughters up and they don’t want to leave,” Duty said. “It’s great, they love it.”
Offering childcare at Sembach kaserne is among several ways that the garrison’s Child, Youth and School Services program is working to meet the demands of a growing community, said Elena Smeltz, acting CYSS coordinator.
“The community here has been growing faster than the infrastructure, so childcare is a big issue in the community,” Smeltz said.
In Landstuhl, finishing touches are underway on a child development center, creating more space for kids in kindergarten and younger. A CDC already at Landstuhl provides care for up to 126 children in that age group.
“An additional CDC was important, because there was great demand,” Smeltz said.
Set to open in January, the new center will allow another 76 children, from infants to kindergarten, to receive care. The project moved faster than originally planned due to the garrison’s commitment to the Army Family Covenant, an Army-wide program that includes a guarantee of quality CYS support to Soldiers and their families, she said.
Roughly, 920 Soldiers have children enrolled in CYS. But in Kaiserslautern’s joint service community, Army CYS also serves more than 675 children of Air Force personnel and roughly 20 children from Navy and Marine families. Serving so many, CYS works with parents to find space in childcare programs often near capacity.
At Kleber kaserne, CYS recently made space for 17 more CDC children. By mid-2011, they hope to open expand Kleber’s capacity, once minor construction is undertaken.
On Oct. 1, U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern
officially assumed oversight of the former Air Force base, now known as Sembach kaserne. When school started on Aug. 30, the Army garrison began offering onsite childcare, before and after school, to Sembach students.
“We have two rooms inside the elementary school that we have converted into our school age program,” Smeltz said. “So, the children simply have to walk from their classrooms down to ours.”
The new program is also more convenient for parents who, in the past, would often drive across Kaiserslautern to pick up their kids after work.
It was a relief to Lt. Col Roy Manauis, a father of two whose family faced their share of childcare challenges over the past two years. Now, both children go to the Sembach center. Knowing his children are cared for eases his mind, Manauis said.
“That’s imperative, that Soldiers and their families are looked after,” Manauis said. “This is a great example of the Army doing that.”
For more information on Kaiserslautern Child, Youth & School Services, call 0631-3406-4516 or visit their website at www.mwrgermany.com/KL/KLCYS
Cleared for public release. (Photos by Rick Scavetta, U.S. Army Garrison, Kaiserslautern)
The flowering head of textile onion, Allium textile, has more congested flowers and remains erect compared to the later flowering nodding onion, Allium cernuum. This site occurs in the mountain big sagebrush steppe of Burke Park, Bozeman Montana.
The Q25 Bus, picking up passengers on Main Street, Flushing. The Q (for Queens) 25 Bus operates between Jamaica and College Point.
In smelly (garlic, turmeric...) and congested Posta Bazaar (Kolkata's wholesale market) is the Vaikunthnath Temple. The Dravidian gopuram is not a common feature in West Bengal. A nor'wester was brewing in the background.
Mr Noah, a local resident, complained about how the congested housing and waste disposal pollutes the local air.
The Turks in Istanbul jam themselves into their rail trains-- it goes without saying that with that many people, the majority of them stand. So get in, hold on and make sure you don't lose your balance and step on the snake-skin shoes of the guy next to you! They don't like that.
Photo by Ferrari_Fan.
One of the longest flyovers in the city through some of the most congested areas.
These are the plans to fix the freeway on ramps and off ramps to give better access to Valley Fair and Santana Row as well as better ways for people to change freeways without having to deal with the crowds going to Valley Fair and Santana Row. It is suppose to be one of the most expenisve projects to occur, costing around 150 million dollars to do. I think they should of thought about upgrading this area before Valley Fair expanded and before Santana Row was built, of course they'd bring a lot of traffic.
VTA website about the project
www.vta.org/projects/280_880_stevens_creek_blvd_improveme...
Here is another article about it that was in the Mr. Roadshow section of the Mercury News
Andy Jordan recently returned from Bangkok, Thailand where he was treated with Vescell stem cell treatment for his coronary artery disease, angina, and congestive heart failure. Andy wanted to avoid a heart transplant and it looks like he may have already accomplished that goal. One month after he was treated with his own adult stem cells, his ejection fraction has gone up from 19% to 37%. Andy has become the latest one of our patient volunteers and you are welcome to call or email Andy for more information about Vescell adult stem cell therapy for heart disease and peripheral artery disease. Andy Jordan's contact info is email: ajordan142@gmail.com and his phone number is 615-449-2898
Another view of the old Mahatma Phule Mandai wet market in the western Indian city of Pune (Poona). (Pune/ Poona, Nov 2010)
Army childcare expands programs to meet Kaiserslautern community needs
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – Childcare for Ingrid Duty often meant hectic mornings, driving more than 30 miles before work to drop off her two daughters at separate care centers.
Duty, a government civilian, spent more than 45 minutes fighting congested autobahn traffic, driving from her Mehlingen home across town to Landstuhl, then back into Kaiserslautern. But that’s changed, thanks to a new school age services at Sembach Elementary School – one of a few Army childcare programs in Kaiserslautern growing to meet the community demands.
On Oct. 14, Lt. Col. Kevin Hutchison, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern, cut a ceremonial ribbon – officially opening the Sembach program center. Now, at Sembach, Duty’s daughters are both just four miles from home.
“When this came up, it was a blessing,” Duty said. “This is awesome.”
Duty has more time for herself, her girls and her husband, a Soldier who commutes 50 miles north to Wiesbaden, she said. In other words, there’s more time for breakfast.
“It’s a whole lot better now. I come and pick my daughters up and they don’t want to leave,” Duty said. “It’s great, they love it.”
Offering childcare at Sembach kaserne is among several ways that the garrison’s Child, Youth and School Services program is working to meet the demands of a growing community, said Elena Smeltz, acting CYSS coordinator.
“The community here has been growing faster than the infrastructure, so childcare is a big issue in the community,” Smeltz said.
In Landstuhl, finishing touches are underway on a child development center, creating more space for kids in kindergarten and younger. A CDC already at Landstuhl provides care for up to 126 children in that age group.
“An additional CDC was important, because there was great demand,” Smeltz said.
Set to open in January, the new center will allow another 76 children, from infants to kindergarten, to receive care. The project moved faster than originally planned due to the garrison’s commitment to the Army Family Covenant, an Army-wide program that includes a guarantee of quality CYS support to Soldiers and their families, she said.
Roughly, 920 Soldiers have children enrolled in CYS. But in Kaiserslautern’s joint service community, Army CYS also serves more than 675 children of Air Force personnel and roughly 20 children from Navy and Marine families. Serving so many, CYS works with parents to find space in childcare programs often near capacity.
At Kleber kaserne, CYS recently made space for 17 more CDC children. By mid-2011, they hope to open expand Kleber’s capacity, once minor construction is undertaken.
On Oct. 1, U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern
officially assumed oversight of the former Air Force base, now known as Sembach kaserne. When school started on Aug. 30, the Army garrison began offering onsite childcare, before and after school, to Sembach students.
“We have two rooms inside the elementary school that we have converted into our school age program,” Smeltz said. “So, the children simply have to walk from their classrooms down to ours.”
The new program is also more convenient for parents who, in the past, would often drive across Kaiserslautern to pick up their kids after work.
It was a relief to Lt. Col Roy Manauis, a father of two whose family faced their share of childcare challenges over the past two years. Now, both children go to the Sembach center. Knowing his children are cared for eases his mind, Manauis said.
“That’s imperative, that Soldiers and their families are looked after,” Manauis said. “This is a great example of the Army doing that.”
For more information on Kaiserslautern Child, Youth & School Services, call 0631-3406-4516 or visit their website at www.mwrgermany.com/KL/KLCYS
Cleared for public release. (Photos by Rick Scavetta, U.S. Army Garrison, Kaiserslautern)
A couple of A-10's make passes on arrival at EAA Airventure July 31, 2009. Always entertaining to watch these guys even if they are limited in what they can do by the congested airspace.
One more night in Memphis and we took another look at Beale Street. This time a lot less congested and a lot less intimidating. Altogether a much better experience. Ate in the Hard Rock Cafe. I know not very adventurous but it was decent. And a stroll along Beale Street led to BB Kings where we were thoroughly entertained by one Patrick Dodd. Amaze-ing!!! Terrific blues and made Beale Street feel so much more worthwhile. This guy is awesome. He's on facebook, so check him out and if he's ever in your neck of the woods and if you love blues you will defy love this guy... www.facebook.com/patrickdoddmusic
Before leaving Memphis for Nashville I wanted to visit the Lorraine Motel, the scene of Martin Luther King's assasination as I read it was a civil right museum. When we got there we met the most incredible woman Ms Jacqueline Smith. She has bee protesting there for over 22 years. I got chatting to her and decided not to visit the museum after all. Read her story she is an amazing woman. And I got a wee kiss from her too!!! :D www.fulfillthedream.net/
Next stop Nashville wooooohooooo! (At last!!!)
Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Reis Dwarf' (Joe Reis, NY 1970s) 2020 photo - Common Name: Dwarf Hinoki Cypress, Size at 10 years: 4x2ft., tight, twisted, congested tufts of bright green foliage, USDA Hardiness Zone 4, In Garden Bed HR-VC for 7.9 YEARS (HLG). Planted in 2012.
ACS: Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Reis Dwarf' is a narrow, irregular-upright dwarf selection of Hinoki cypress that features tight, twisted, congested tufts of bright green foliage. Older plants tend to regularly shed dried brown foliage throughout the growing season, meaning it looks best when cleaned out by hand, snipping off the dead branches with small shears. The result, over time, is a very desirable “pom pom” effect that can be quite eye-catching in a formal setting or Japanese garden. Snipping off the whip-like leaders of lateral shoots will encourage this effect. The plant works well in containers and can make an interesting Bonsai subject.
After 10 years of growth, a mature specimen will measure 4 feet (1.3 m) tall by 2 feet (60 cm) wide, an annual growth rate of 4 to 6 inches (10 - 15 cm). Plants that are allowed to grow "free range" rather than take part in a routine shearing/pruning program will grow much larger and somewhat rangier. 'Reis Dwarf' is definitely best for the "hands-on" gardener.
This cultivar originated as a seedling selected in the mid-1970s by Joe Reis of Merritt, Long Island, New York.
Location: Michigan State University, Hidden Lake Gardens, Tipton, MI. Harper Collection of Rare & Dwarf Conifers. 42°01'47.9"N 84°06'38.7"W
pruh-nuhn-see-ey-shuh n: kam-ee -SIPP-ur-iss ub-TOO-zuh (hi-NOH-kee)
#Chamaecyparis #HinokiCypress
Additional photos of this plant:
www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=50697352%40N00&sort=da...
Satellite View using Google Maps: www.google.com/maps/place/42%C2%B001'47.9%22N+84%C2%B006'...
Other plants in Garden HR-VC: www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=50697352%40N00&sort=da...
Jammed northbound Guadalupe freeway (middle) merging with congested Highway-101 during the morning commute near the San Jose airport, California.
I ran across this on a website and found that it belongs to a fellow flickrer.. flickr.com/photos/n28ive1/ It is NOT my photo. I will be receiving one of these this Monday 8/27. The docs said I have an irregular heartbeat, and could suffer sudden cardiac death without it. I'll only be in the hospital overnight if there are no complications. I'll be around for the rest of the weekend, only a couple of hours a day though. I have no AC anymore and my computer is old, she just runs too hard in the heat. I'm online in the mornings, then cut it off early afternoon. Anyway, I'd appreciate all the prayers you can send my way.
That was what few people were saying. Not really! The congested cramped old wooden house are always at risk of fire.
Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Reis Dwarf' (Joe Reis, NY 1970s) 2020 photo - Common Name: Dwarf Hinoki Cypress, Size at 10 years: 4x2ft., tight, twisted, congested tufts of bright green foliage, USDA Hardiness Zone 4, In Garden Bed HR-VC for 7.9 YEARS (HLG). Planted in 2012.
ACS: Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Reis Dwarf' is a narrow, irregular-upright dwarf selection of Hinoki cypress that features tight, twisted, congested tufts of bright green foliage. Older plants tend to regularly shed dried brown foliage throughout the growing season, meaning it looks best when cleaned out by hand, snipping off the dead branches with small shears. The result, over time, is a very desirable “pom pom” effect that can be quite eye-catching in a formal setting or Japanese garden. Snipping off the whip-like leaders of lateral shoots will encourage this effect. The plant works well in containers and can make an interesting Bonsai subject.
After 10 years of growth, a mature specimen will measure 4 feet (1.3 m) tall by 2 feet (60 cm) wide, an annual growth rate of 4 to 6 inches (10 - 15 cm). Plants that are allowed to grow "free range" rather than take part in a routine shearing/pruning program will grow much larger and somewhat rangier. 'Reis Dwarf' is definitely best for the "hands-on" gardener.
This cultivar originated as a seedling selected in the mid-1970s by Joe Reis of Merritt, Long Island, New York.
Location: Michigan State University, Hidden Lake Gardens, Tipton, MI. Harper Collection of Rare & Dwarf Conifers. 42°01'47.9"N 84°06'38.7"W
pruh-nuhn-see-ey-shuh n: kam-ee -SIPP-ur-iss ub-TOO-zuh (hi-NOH-kee)
#Chamaecyparis #HinokiCypress
Additional photos of this plant:
www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=50697352%40N00&sort=da...
Satellite View using Google Maps: www.google.com/maps/place/42%C2%B001'47.9%22N+84%C2%B006'...
Other plants in Garden HR-VC: www.flickr.com/search/?user_id=50697352%40N00&sort=da...
In 2001 I was looking for a second Chihuahua, which was to be a birthday gift from Pete and Stephen. I was working at a dog-training school, and a few of the customers who signed up for classes told me of a breeder in San Jose who “has nice dogs”. I called her and found out she would have puppies available soon. After they were born, I arranged to see the dogs, but I had to cancel the appointment. When I called again to reschedule, I was told that all four puppies in the litter had been sold. I was disappointed, but I figured we would find another dog somewhere else. Then, a week or so later, the breeder called to tell me that a woman who had bought one of the puppies discovered she was pregnant, and decided it would be best not to get a dog at that time. We immediately drove to San Jose and met the tiny, one-pound puppy who would become Chato. He was truly meant to be ours.
Chato was most frequently described as a “character”: he was very intelligent and had a happy, loving personality but he also possessed a naughty, mischievous streak, as well as some eccentricities. He invented a strange game where he pushed a golf ball around on the floor with his cheek, and barked at it. It took him a while to trust people, but once he did, he loved them wholeheartedly. He accepted new dog and cat additions to the household quickly, and he was a devoted friend. Oversized at nine pounds (he didn’t fit the two-to-six-pound Chihuahua breed standard) and far from show quality, Chato was a big dog in a small body; he liked to wrestle and play and guard the house, often patrolling the back yard for hours. He was the most curious, interactive dog I have ever known, and he was interested and involved with whatever I was doing. From the day that we brought him home at seven weeks of age he was a ‘working breed’: he accompanied me to my various jobs until he died. He also went many other places—on walks, to parties, the homes of friends and family, some out of town shows that my band played, my family’s cabin in the mountains, even on a road trip to Nevada and the studios where The Tantrums recorded. He loved riding in cars, watching TV (looking out the front window of the house), playing with his toys, going to the dog park, cuddling with his people and the other dogs, and sitting in the sun on the back porch. We were not aware of how serious his condition was because he never lost his puppy energy— he was chasing a cat in the backyard and playing fetch the weekend before he passed away. In true Chato style, he went out with a bang. I hope he knew how much he was loved, and how important he was to us. I am immensely grateful that we had such a wonderful, amusing, interesting, adorable, loving, loyal and unique friend for over ten years. He brought us all so much life and happiness, I don’t know how I am supposed to go on without him. And I didn’t know it was possible to be this sad.
Item Number:5560-6
Document Title:MAP OF CONGESTED DISTRICT/ OF/ NIAGARA FALLS, NY/ NIAGARA FALLS, NY. PKS/ ; SCALE 1"= 200'
Project:05560; Niagara Falls; Niagara Falls Park System; Niagara Falls; New York; 01 Parks, Parkways & Recreation Areas; 31 PLANS ()
Location:Olmsted National Historic Site, Brookline, MA
Category:PLAN
Purpose:TOPO (Topographical)
Physical Characteristics:25.3 x 21.3 lith pos color ink --graphite paper/cloth
Dates:1914
Notes:OB, st. recto/ Rec'd from Sanborn Map Co. NYC. by Express, P/I/ (Includes key to type of bldg.)/ Rec'd 10-May-1915, st. recto/
Please credit: Courtesy of the United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.
The sidewalks become congested at class change time. Photo by Kevin Bain/University Communications Photography
.
A heritage walk to Kashmiri Gate this Sunday morning was a different and a special experience for we got a chance to know and explore one of the busiest areas of the Delhi City. The area which is frequently visited yet less ‘known’, the area which hides various traces of Indian history but is only termed as congested and filthy.
We all know how rapidly urban spaces change. It was seems incredible, but our first stop, Nicholson’s Cemetery, was located in the area which was a battleground for British and the Indian rebels during the 1857 revolt. The cemetery has both British & Indian burials. If Brigadier General John Nicholson was known for his excellent military skills then Master Yasudas Ramachandra was popular for his intellectual excellence. Our next stop was, the remains of one of the magnificent gates of old Delhi-the Kashmiri Gate. The road through it led to Kashmir and so gave it this name; likewise it also lent the name to the neighborhood around it. In close vicinity to the gate were the remains of the wall of the walled city of Shahjahanabad. It is important to note that not only was the city evolving but also its wall and the people nearby saw various ups and downs in their life time as the city transformed. Not to be ignored is the Bengali Club located at the Kashmiri Gate? Once it was a hub for promoting Bengali culture, customs, traditions and festivals but sadly it is in a forgotten state. We then proceeded to a place called Bada Bazaar which is known to have houses of various Mughal Nobles and British officials before the bazaar came up. None of us could miss the charm of Lal Masjid, also known as Fakhr-ul-Masajid, projecting itself amidst the old archaic surrounding architecture. Our heritage trail then proceeds towards the old buildings of two famous colleges of Delhi University, St. Stephens and the Hindu college. Former was started by the missionaries to spread the English western education while the latter by Indians in opposition to British ideas. Right in front of us was elegant building of the St. James Church, whose property was looted and stolen by the rebels during 1857. A canteen and a field hospital were established here by the rebels. The church was established by James Skinner & the churchyard has the Skinner family burial ground as well as the grave of his good friend, William Fraser. Next in our stop was the bungalow of William Fraser, a majestic colonial building which is known to be built on the basement Ali Mardan Khan’s (important Mughal noble) residence. Now, passing by the old buildings of the city we reached an Archaeological Museum which was once an important Mughal and British building. Called the Dara Shukoh Library, it was later made into the British Residency. This is where David Ochterlony lampooned as ‘Loony Akhtar’ lived. A few steps ahead is the Telegraph Memorial and remains of British Magazine, both memorials for the British; the loyal and faithful service of their officials, whose important deeds resulted in controlling the uprising. We finally reached the end of our walk at the Lothian Road Cemetery, the first British cemetery in Delhi. Our journey was an attempt to unravel the story of bravery and loyalty, tracing both sides of the story.
(posted by Niti Deoliya & Kanika Singh, team members, Delhi Heritage Walks)
www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/gallery/stories-behi...
This is possible the best known of the stairs around Newcastle’s old Castle Garth and Quayside areas.
Apparently, and perhaps disappointingly, they weren’t named after a dog which leapt down the stairs but possibly because the curve of the stairs resembled the shape of a dog’s hind legs!
Dog Leap Stair, also known as ‘Dog Loup’ stair is an historic stone stair leading from Castle Garth to Side. The name refers to ‘a narrow slip of ground between houses’. In 1772 Baron Eldon, later Lord Chancellor of England, eloped with Bessie Surtees. The couple made their escape on horseback up Dog Leap Stair. Dog Leap Stair is mentioned in the 1978 song ‘Down to the Waterline’ by Dire Straits.
Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the River Tyne's northern bank, opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.
Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius, the settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. It was one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres during the industrial revolution. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it separated and formed a county of itself. In 1974, Newcastle became part of Tyne and Wear. Since 2018, the city council has been part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.
The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.
Roman settlement
The history of Newcastle dates from AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at that point. The bridge was called Pons Aelius or 'Bridge of Aelius', Aelius being the family name of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was responsible for the Roman wall built across northern England along the Tyne–Solway gap. Hadrian's Wall ran through present-day Newcastle, with stretches of wall and turrets visible along the West Road, and at a temple in Benwell. Traces of a milecastle were found on Westgate Road, midway between Clayton Street and Grainger Street, and it is likely that the course of the wall corresponded to present-day Westgate Road. The course of the wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort at Wallsend, with the fort of Arbeia down-river at the mouth of the Tyne, on the south bank in what is now South Shields. The Tyne was then a wider, shallower river at this point and it is thought that the bridge was probably about 700 feet (210 m) long, made of wood and supported on stone piers. It is probable that it was sited near the current Swing Bridge, due to the fact that Roman artefacts were found there during the building of the latter bridge. Hadrian himself probably visited the site in 122. A shrine was set up on the completed bridge in 123 by the 6th Legion, with two altars to Neptune and Oceanus respectively. The two altars were subsequently found in the river and are on display in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.
The Romans built a stone-walled fort in 150 to protect the river crossing which was at the foot of the Tyne Gorge, and this took the name of the bridge so that the whole settlement was known as Pons Aelius. The fort was situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the new bridge, on the site of the present Castle Keep. Pons Aelius is last mentioned in 400, in a Roman document listing all of the Roman military outposts. It is likely that nestling in the shadow of the fort would have been a small vicus, or village. Unfortunately, no buildings have been detected; only a few pieces of flagging. It is clear that there was a Roman cemetery near Clavering Place, behind the Central station, as a number of Roman coffins and sarcophagi have been unearthed there.
Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street running from Eboracum (York) through Corstopitum (Corbridge) and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum, being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and more populous than Pons Aelius.
Anglo-Saxon development
The Angles arrived in the North-East of England in about 500 and may have landed on the Tyne. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement on or near the site of Pons Aelius during the Anglo-Saxon age. The bridge probably survived and there may well have been a small village at the northern end, but no evidence survives. At that time the region was dominated by two kingdoms, Bernicia, north of the Tees and ruled from Bamburgh, and Deira, south of the Tees and ruled from York. Bernicia and Deira combined to form the kingdom of Northanhymbra (Northumbria) early in the 7th century. There were three local kings who held the title of Bretwalda – 'Lord of Britain', Edwin of Deira (627–632), Oswald of Bernicia (633–641) and Oswy of Northumbria (641–658). The 7th century became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe. The greatness of this period was based on its generally Christian culture and resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels amongst other treasures. The Tyne valley was dotted with monasteries, with those at Monkwearmouth, Hexham and Jarrow being the most famous. Bede, who was based at Jarrow, wrote of a royal estate, known as Ad Murum, 'at the Wall', 12 miles (19 km) from the sea. It is thought that this estate may have been in what is now Newcastle. At some unknown time, the site of Newcastle came to be known as Monkchester. The reason for this title is unknown, as we are unaware of any specific monasteries at the site, and Bede made no reference to it. In 875 Halfdan Ragnarsson, the Danish Viking conqueror of York, led an army that attacked and pillaged various monasteries in the area, and it is thought that Monkchester was also pillaged at this time. Little more was heard of it until the coming of the Normans.
Norman period
After the arrival of William the Conqueror in England in 1066, the whole of England was quickly subjected to Norman rule. However, in Northumbria there was great resistance to the Normans, and in 1069 the newly appointed Norman Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Comines and 700 of his men were killed by the local population at Durham. The Northumbrians then marched on York, but William was able to suppress the uprising. That same year, a second uprising occurred when a Danish fleet landed in the Humber. The Northumbrians again attacked York and destroyed the garrison there. William was again able to suppress the uprising, but this time he took revenge. He laid waste to the whole of the Midlands and the land from York to the Tees. In 1080, William Walcher, the Norman bishop of Durham and his followers were brutally murdered at Gateshead. This time Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William's half brother, devastated the land between the Tees and the Tweed. This was known as the 'Harrying of the North'. This devastation is reflected in the Domesday Book. The destruction had such an effect that the North remained poor and backward at least until Tudor times and perhaps until the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle suffered in this respect with the rest of the North.
In 1080 William sent his eldest son, Robert Curthose, north to defend the kingdom against the Scots. After his campaign, he moved to Monkchester and began the building of a 'New Castle'. This was of the "motte-and-bailey" type of construction, a wooden tower on top of an earthen mound (motte), surrounded by a moat and wooden stockade (bailey). It was this castle that gave Newcastle its name. In 1095 the Earl of Northumbria, Robert de Mowbray, rose up against the king, William Rufus, and Rufus sent an army north to recapture the castle. From then on the castle became crown property and was an important base from which the king could control the northern barons. The Northumbrian earldom was abolished and a Sheriff of Northumberland was appointed to administer the region. In 1091 the parish church of St Nicholas was consecrated on the site of the present Anglican cathedral, close by the bailey of the new castle. The church is believed to have been a wooden building on stone footings.
Not a trace of the tower or mound of the motte and bailey castle remains now. Henry II replaced it with a rectangular stone keep, which was built between 1172 and 1177 at a cost of £1,444. A stone bailey, in the form of a triangle, replaced the previous wooden one. The great outer gateway to the castle, called 'the Black Gate', was built later, between 1247 and 1250, in the reign of Henry III. There were at that time no town walls and when attacked by the Scots, the townspeople had to crowd into the bailey for safety. It is probable that the new castle acted as a magnet for local merchants because of the safety it provided. This in turn would help to expand trade in the town. At this time wool, skins and lead were being exported, whilst alum, pepper and ginger were being imported from France and Flanders.
Middle Ages
Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was England's northern fortress, the centre for assembled armies. The Border war against Scotland lasted intermittently for several centuries – possibly the longest border war ever waged. During the civil war between Stephen and Matilda, David 1st of Scotland and his son were granted Cumbria and Northumberland respectively, so that for a period from 1139 to 1157, Newcastle was effectively in Scottish hands. It is believed that during this period, King David may have built the church of St Andrew and the Benedictine nunnery in Newcastle. However, King Stephen's successor, Henry II was strong enough to take back the Earldom of Northumbria from Malcolm IV.
The Scots king William the Lion was imprisoned in Newcastle, in 1174, after being captured at the Battle of Alnwick. Edward I brought the Stone of Scone and William Wallace south through the town and Newcastle was successfully defended against the Scots three times during the 14th century.
Around 1200, stone-faced, clay-filled jetties were starting to project into the river, an indication that trade was increasing in Newcastle. As the Roman roads continued to deteriorate, sea travel was gaining in importance. By 1275 Newcastle was the sixth largest wool exporting port in England. The principal exports at this time were wool, timber, coal, millstones, dairy produce, fish, salt and hides. Much of the developing trade was with the Baltic countries and Germany. Most of the Newcastle merchants were situated near the river, below the Castle. The earliest known charter was dated 1175 in the reign of Henry II, giving the townspeople some control over their town. In 1216 King John granted Newcastle a mayor[8] and also allowed the formation of guilds (known as Mysteries). These were cartels formed within different trades, which restricted trade to guild members. There were initially twelve guilds. Coal was being exported from Newcastle by 1250, and by 1350 the burgesses received a royal licence to export coal. This licence to export coal was jealously guarded by the Newcastle burgesses, and they tried to prevent any one else on the Tyne from exporting coal except through Newcastle. The burgesses similarly tried to prevent fish from being sold anywhere else on the Tyne except Newcastle. This led to conflicts with Gateshead and South Shields.
In 1265, the town was granted permission to impose a 'Wall Tax' or Murage, to pay for the construction of a fortified wall to enclose the town and protect it from Scottish invaders. The town walls were not completed until early in the 14th century. They were two miles (3 km) long, 9 feet (2.7 m) thick and 25 feet (7.6 m) high. They had six main gates, as well as some smaller gates, and had 17 towers. The land within the walls was divided almost equally by the Lort Burn, which flowed southwards and joined the Tyne to the east of the Castle. The town began to expand north of the Castle and west of the Lort Burn with various markets being set up within the walls.
In 1400 Henry IV granted a new charter, creating a County corporate which separated the town, but not the Castle, from the county of Northumberland and recognised it as a "county of itself" with a right to have a sheriff of its own. The burgesses were now allowed to choose six aldermen who, with the mayor would be justices of the peace. The mayor and sheriff were allowed to hold borough courts in the Guildhall.
Religious houses
During the Middle Ages a number of religious houses were established within the walls: the first of these was the Benedictine nunnery of St Bartholomew founded in 1086 near the present-day Nun Street. Both David I of Scotland and Henry I of England were benefactors of the religious house. Nothing of the nunnery remains now.
The friary of Blackfriars, Newcastle (Dominican) was established in 1239. These were also known as the Preaching Friars or Shod Friars, because they wore sandals, as opposed to other orders. The friary was situated in the present-day Friars Street. In 1280 the order was granted royal permission to make a postern in the town walls to communicate with their gardens outside the walls. On 19 June 1334, Edward Balliol, claimant to be King of Scotland, did homage to King Edward III, on behalf of the kingdom of Scotland, in the church of the friary. Much of the original buildings of the friary still exist, mainly because, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries the friary of Blackfriars was rented out by the corporation to nine of the local trade guilds.
The friary of Whitefriars (Carmelite) was established in 1262. The order was originally housed on the Wall Knoll in Pandon, but in 1307 it took over the buildings of another order, which went out of existence, the Friars of the Sac. The land, which had originally been given by Robert the Bruce, was situated in the present-day Hanover Square, behind the Central station. Nothing of the friary remains now.
The friary of Austinfriars (Augustinian) was established in 1290. The friary was on the site where the Holy Jesus Hospital was built in 1682. The friary was traditionally the lodging place of English kings whenever they visited or passed through Newcastle. In 1503 Princess Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England, stayed two days at the friary on her way to join her new husband James IV of Scotland.
The friary of Greyfriars (Franciscans) was established in 1274. The friary was in the present-day area between Pilgrim Street, Grey Street, Market Street and High Chare. Nothing of the original buildings remains.
The friary of the Order of the Holy Trinity, also known as the Trinitarians, was established in 1360. The order devoted a third of its income to buying back captives of the Saracens, during the Crusades. Their house was on the Wall Knoll, in Pandon, to the east of the city, but within the walls. Wall Knoll had previously been occupied by the White Friars until they moved to new premises in 1307.
All of the above religious houses were closed in about 1540, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries.
An important street running through Newcastle at the time was Pilgrim Street, running northwards inside the walls and leading to the Pilgrim Gate on the north wall. The street still exists today as arguably Newcastle's main shopping street.
Tudor period
The Scottish border wars continued for much of the 16th century, so that during that time, Newcastle was often threatened with invasion by the Scots, but also remained important as a border stronghold against them.
During the Reformation begun by Henry VIII in 1536, the five Newcastle friaries and the single nunnery were dissolved and the land was sold to the Corporation and to rich merchants. At this time there were fewer than 60 inmates of the religious houses in Newcastle. The convent of Blackfriars was leased to nine craft guilds to be used as their headquarters. This probably explains why it is the only one of the religious houses whose building survives to the present day. The priories at Tynemouth and Durham were also dissolved, thus ending the long-running rivalry between Newcastle and the church for control of trade on the Tyne. A little later, the property of the nunnery of St Bartholomew and of Grey Friars were bought by Robert Anderson, who had the buildings demolished to build his grand Newe House (also known as Anderson Place).
With the gradual decline of the Scottish border wars the town walls were allowed to decline as well as the castle. By 1547, about 10,000 people were living in Newcastle. At the beginning of the 16th century exports of wool from Newcastle were more than twice the value of exports of coal, but during the century coal exports continued to increase.
Under Edward VI, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, sponsored an act allowing Newcastle to annexe Gateshead as its suburb. The main reason for this was to allow the Newcastle Hostmen, who controlled the export of Tyne coal, to get their hands on the Gateshead coal mines, previously controlled by the Bishop of Durham. However, when Mary I came to power, Dudley met his downfall and the decision was reversed. The Reformation allowed private access to coal mines previously owned by Tynemouth and Durham priories and as a result coal exports increase dramatically, from 15,000 tons in 1500 to 35,000 tons in 1565, and to 400,000 tons in 1625.
The plague visited Newcastle four times during the 16th century, in 1579 when 2,000 people died, in 1589 when 1700 died, in 1595 and finally in 1597.
In 1600 Elizabeth I granted Newcastle a charter for an exclusive body of electors, the right to elect the mayor and burgesses. The charter also gave the Hostmen exclusive rights to load coal at any point on the Tyne. The Hostmen developed as an exclusive group within the Merchant Adventurers who had been incorporated by a charter in 1547.
Stuart period
In 1636 there was a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in Newcastle. There had been several previous outbreaks of the disease over the years, but this was the most serious. It is thought to have arrived from the Netherlands via ships that were trading between the Tyne and that country. It first appeared in the lower part of the town near the docks but gradually spread to all parts of the town. As the disease gained hold the authorities took measures to control it by boarding up any properties that contained infected persons, meaning that whole families were locked up together with the infected family members. Other infected persons were put in huts outside the town walls and left to die. Plague pits were dug next to the town's four churches and outside the town walls to receive the bodies in mass burials. Over the course of the outbreak 5,631 deaths were recorded out of an estimated population of 12,000, a death rate of 47%.
In 1637 Charles I tried to raise money by doubling the 'voluntary' tax on coal in return for allowing the Newcastle Hostmen to regulate production and fix prices. This caused outrage amongst the London importers and the East Anglian shippers. Both groups decided to boycott Tyne coal and as a result forced Charles to reverse his decision in 1638.
In 1640 during the Second Bishops' War, the Scots successfully invaded Newcastle. The occupying army demanded £850 per day from the Corporation to billet the Scottish troops. Trade from the Tyne ground to a halt during the occupation. The Scots left in 1641 after receiving a Parliamentary pardon and a £4,000,000 loan from the town.
In 1642 the English Civil War began. King Charles realised the value of the Tyne coal trade and therefore garrisoned Newcastle. A Royalist was appointed as governor. At that time, Newcastle and King's Lynn were the only important seaports to support the crown. In 1644 Parliament blockaded the Tyne to prevent the king from receiving revenue from the Tyne coal trade. Coal exports fell from 450,000 to 3,000 tons and London suffered a hard winter without fuel. Parliament encouraged the coal trade from the Wear to try to replace that lost from Newcastle but that was not enough to make up for the lost Tyneside tonnage.
In 1644 the Scots crossed the border. Newcastle strengthened its defences in preparation. The Scottish army, with 40,000 troops, besieged Newcastle for three months until the garrison of 1,500 surrendered. During the siege, the Scots bombarded the walls with their artillery, situated in Gateshead and Castle Leazes. The Scottish commander threatened to destroy the steeple of St Nicholas's Church by gunfire if the mayor, Sir John Marley, did not surrender the town. The mayor responded by placing Scottish prisoners that they had captured in the steeple, so saving it from destruction. The town walls were finally breached by a combination of artillery and sapping. In gratitude for this defence, Charles gave Newcastle the motto 'Fortiter Defendit Triumphans' to be added to its coat of arms. The Scottish army occupied Northumberland and Durham for two years. The coal taxes had to pay for the Scottish occupation. In 1645 Charles surrendered to the Scots and was imprisoned in Newcastle for nine months. After the Civil War the coal trade on the Tyne soon picked up and exceeded its pre-war levels.
A new Guildhall was completed on the Sandhill next to the river in 1655, replacing an earlier facility damaged by fire in 1639, and became the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council. In 1681 the Hospital of the Holy Jesus was built partly on the site of the Austin Friars. The Guildhall and Holy Jesus Hospital still exist.
Charles II tried to impose a charter on Newcastle to give the king the right to appoint the mayor, sheriff, recorder and town clerk. Charles died before the charter came into effect. In 1685, James II tried to replace Corporation members with named Catholics. However, James' mandate was suspended in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution welcoming William of Orange. In 1689, after the fall of James II, the people of Newcastle tore down his bronze equestrian statue in Sandhill and tossed it into the Tyne. The bronze was later used to make bells for All Saints Church.
In 1689 the Lort Burn was covered over. At this time it was an open sewer. The channel followed by the Lort Burn became the present day Dean Street. At that time, the centre of Newcastle was still the Sandhill area, with many merchants living along the Close or on the Side. The path of the main road through Newcastle ran from the single Tyne bridge, through Sandhill to the Side, a narrow street which climbed steeply on the north-east side of the castle hill until it reached the higher ground alongside St Nicholas' Church. As Newcastle developed, the Side became lined with buildings with projecting upper stories, so that the main street through Newcastle was a narrow, congested, steep thoroughfare.
In 1701 the Keelmen's Hospital was built in the Sandgate area of the city, using funds provided by the keelmen. The building still stands today.
Eighteenth century
In the 18th century, Newcastle was the country's largest print centre after London, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Literary and Philosophical Society of 1793, with its erudite debates and large stock of books in several languages predated the London Library by half a century.
In 1715, during the Jacobite rising in favour of the Old Pretender, an army of Jacobite supporters marched on Newcastle. Many of the Northumbrian gentry joined the rebels. The citizens prepared for its arrival by arresting Jacobite supporters and accepting 700 extra recruits into the local militia. The gates of the city were closed against the rebels. This proved enough to delay an attack until reinforcements arrived forcing the rebel army to move across to the west coast. The rebels finally surrendered at Preston.
In 1745, during a second Jacobite rising in favour of the Young Pretender, a Scottish army crossed the border led by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Once again Newcastle prepared by arresting Jacobite supporters and inducting 800 volunteers into the local militia. The town walls were strengthened, most of the gates were blocked up and some 200 cannon were deployed. 20,000 regulars were billeted on the Town Moor. These preparations were enough to force the rebel army to travel south via the west coast. They were eventually defeated at Culloden in 1746.
Newcastle's actions during the 1715 rising in resisting the rebels and declaring for George I, in contrast to the rest of the region, is the most likely source of the nickname 'Geordie', applied to people from Tyneside, or more accurately Newcastle. Another theory, however, is that the name 'Geordie' came from the inventor of the Geordie lamp, George Stephenson. It was a type of safety lamp used in mining, but was not invented until 1815. Apparently the term 'German Geordie' was in common use during the 18th century.
The city's first hospital, Newcastle Infirmary opened in 1753; it was funded by public subscription. A lying-in hospital was established in Newcastle in 1760. The city's first public hospital for mentally ill patients, Wardens Close Lunatic Hospital was opened in October 1767.
In 1771 a flood swept away much of the bridge at Newcastle. The bridge had been built in 1250 and repaired after a flood in 1339. The bridge supported various houses and three towers and an old chapel. A blue stone was placed in the middle of the bridge to mark the boundary between Newcastle and the Palatinate of Durham. A temporary wooden bridge had to be built, and this remained in use until 1781, when a new stone bridge was completed. The new bridge consisted of nine arches. In 1801, because of the pressure of traffic, the bridge had to be widened.
A permanent military presence was established in the city with the completion of Fenham Barracks in 1806. The facilities at the Castle for holding assizes, which had been condemned for their inconvenience and unhealthiness, were replaced when the Moot Hall opened in August 1812.
Victorian period
Present-day Newcastle owes much of its architecture to the work of the builder Richard Grainger, aided by architects John Dobson, Thomas Oliver, John and Benjamin Green and others. In 1834 Grainger won a competition to produce a new plan for central Newcastle. He put this plan into effect using the above architects as well as architects employed in his own office. Grainger and Oliver had already built Leazes Terrace, Leazes Crescent and Leazes Place between 1829 and 1834. Grainger and Dobson had also built the Royal Arcade at the foot of Pilgrim Street between 1830 and 1832. The most ambitious project covered 12 acres 12 acres (49,000 m2) in central Newcastle, on the site of Newe House (also called Anderson Place). Grainger built three new thoroughfares, Grey Street, Grainger Street and Clayton Street with many connecting streets, as well as the Central Exchange and the Grainger Market. John Wardle and George Walker, working in Grainger's office, designed Clayton Street, Grainger Street and most of Grey Street. Dobson designed the Grainger Market and much of the east side of Grey Street. John and Benjamin Green designed the Theatre Royal at the top of Grey Street, where Grainger placed the column of Grey's Monument as a focus for the whole scheme. Grey Street is considered to be one of the finest streets in the country, with its elegant curve. Unfortunately most of old Eldon Square was demolished in the 1960s in the name of progress. The Royal Arcade met a similar fate.
In 1849 a new bridge was built across the river at Newcastle. This was the High Level Bridge, designed by Robert Stephenson, and slightly up river from the existing bridge. The bridge was designed to carry road and rail traffic across the Tyne Gorge on two decks with rail traffic on the upper deck and road traffic on the lower. The new bridge meant that traffic could pass through Newcastle without having to negotiate the steep, narrow Side, as had been necessary for centuries. The bridge was opened by Queen Victoria, who one year later opened the new Central Station, designed by John Dobson. Trains were now able to cross the river, directly into the centre of Newcastle and carry on up to Scotland. The Army Riding School was also completed in 1849.
In 1854 a large fire started on the Gateshead quayside and an explosion caused it to spread across the river to the Newcastle quayside. A huge conflagration amongst the narrow alleys, or 'chares', destroyed the homes of 800 families as well as many business premises. The narrow alleys that had been destroyed were replaced by streets containing blocks of modern offices.
In 1863 the Town Hall in St Nicholas Square replaced the Guildhall as the meeting place of Newcastle Town Council.
In 1876 the low level bridge was replaced by a new bridge known as the Swing Bridge, so called because the bridge was able to swing horizontally on a central axis and allow ships to pass on either side. This meant that for the first time sizeable ships could pass up-river beyond Newcastle. The bridge was built and paid for by William Armstrong, a local arms manufacturer, who needed to have warships access his Elswick arms factory to fit armaments to them. The Swing Bridge's rotating mechanism is adapted from the cannon mounts developed in Armstrong's arms works. In 1882 the Elswick works began to build ships as well as to arm them. The Barrack Road drill hall was completed in 1890.
Industrialisation
In the 19th century, shipbuilding and heavy engineering were central to the city's prosperity; and the city was a powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. Newcastle's development as a major city owed most to its central role in the production and export of coal. The phrase "taking coals to Newcastle" was first recorded in 1538; it proverbially denotes bringing a particular commodity to a place that has more than enough of it already.
Innovation in Newcastle and surrounding areas included the following:
George Stephenson developed a miner's safety lamp at the same time that Humphry Davy developed a rival design. The lamp made possible the opening up of ever deeper mines to provide the coal that powered the industrial revolution.
George and his son Robert Stephenson were hugely influential figures in the development of the early railways. George developed Blücher, a locomotive working at Killingworth colliery in 1814, whilst Robert was instrumental in the design of Rocket, a revolutionary design that was the forerunner of modern locomotives. Both men were involved in planning and building railway lines, all over this country and abroad.
Joseph Swan demonstrated a working electric light bulb about a year before Thomas Edison did the same in the USA. This led to a dispute as to who had actually invented the light bulb. Eventually the two rivals agreed to form a mutual company between them, the Edison and Swan Electric Light Company, known as Ediswan.
Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine, for marine use and for power generation. He used Turbinia, a small, turbine-powered ship, to demonstrate the speed that a steam turbine could generate. Turbinia literally ran rings around the British Fleet at a review at Spithead in 1897.
William Armstrong invented a hydraulic crane that was installed in dockyards up and down the country. He then began to design light, accurate field guns for the British army. These were a vast improvement on the existing guns that were then in use.
The following major industries developed in Newcastle or its surrounding area:
Glassmaking
A small glass industry existed in Newcastle from the mid-15th century. In 1615 restrictions were put on the use of wood for manufacturing glass. It was found that glass could be manufactured using the local coal, and so a glassmaking industry grew up on Tyneside. Huguenot glassmakers came over from France as refugees from persecution and set up glasshouses in the Skinnerburn area of Newcastle. Eventually, glass production moved to the Ouseburn area of Newcastle. In 1684 the Dagnia family, Sephardic Jewish emigrants from Altare, arrived in Newcastle from Stourbridge and established glasshouses along the Close, to manufacture high quality flint glass. The glass manufacturers used sand ballast from the boats arriving in the river as the main raw material. The glassware was then exported in collier brigs. The period from 1730 to 1785 was the highpoint of Newcastle glass manufacture, when the local glassmakers produced the 'Newcastle Light Baluster'. The glassmaking industry still exists in the west end of the city with local Artist and Glassmaker Jane Charles carrying on over four hundred years of hot glass blowing in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Locomotive manufacture
In 1823 George Stephenson and his son Robert established the world's first locomotive factory near Forth Street in Newcastle. Here they built locomotives for the Stockton and Darlington Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, as well as many others. It was here that the famous locomotive Rocket was designed and manufactured in preparation for the Rainhill Trials. Apart from building locomotives for the British market, the Newcastle works also produced locomotives for Europe and America. The Forth Street works continued to build locomotives until 1960.
Shipbuilding
In 1296 a wooden, 135 ft (41 m) long galley was constructed at the mouth of the Lort Burn in Newcastle, as part of a twenty-ship order from the king. The ship cost £205, and is the earliest record of shipbuilding in Newcastle. However the rise of the Tyne as a shipbuilding area was due to the need for collier brigs for the coal export trade. These wooden sailing ships were usually built locally, establishing local expertise in building ships. As ships changed from wood to steel, and from sail to steam, the local shipbuilding industry changed to build the new ships. Although shipbuilding was carried out up and down both sides of the river, the two main areas for building ships in Newcastle were Elswick, to the west, and Walker, to the east. By 1800 Tyneside was the third largest producer of ships in Britain. Unfortunately, after the Second World War, lack of modernisation and competition from abroad gradually caused the local industry to decline and die.
Armaments
In 1847 William Armstrong established a huge factory in Elswick, west of Newcastle. This was initially used to produce hydraulic cranes but subsequently began also to produce guns for both the army and the navy. After the Swing Bridge was built in 1876 allowing ships to pass up river, warships could have their armaments fitted alongside the Elswick works. Armstrong's company took over its industrial rival, Joseph Whitworth of Manchester in 1897.
Steam turbines
Charles Algernon Parsons invented the steam turbine and, in 1889, founded his own company C. A. Parsons and Company in Heaton, Newcastle to make steam turbines. Shortly after this, he realised that steam turbines could be used to propel ships and, in 1897, he founded a second company, Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company in Wallsend. It is there that he designed and manufactured Turbinia. Parsons turbines were initially used in warships but soon came to be used in merchant and passenger vessels, including the liner Mauretania which held the blue riband for the Atlantic crossing until 1929. Parsons' company in Heaton began to make turbo-generators for power stations and supplied power stations all over the world. The Heaton works, reduced in size, remains as part of the Siemens AG industrial giant.
Pottery
In 1762 the Maling pottery was founded in Sunderland by French Huguenots, but transferred to Newcastle in 1817. A factory was built in the Ouseburn area of the city. The factory was rebuilt twice, finally occupying a 14-acre (57,000 m2) site that was claimed to be the biggest pottery in the world and which had its own railway station. The pottery pioneered use of machines in making potteries as opposed to hand production. In the 1890s the company went up-market and employed in-house designers. The period up to the Second World War was the most profitable with a constant stream of new designs being introduced. However, after the war, production gradually declined and the company closed in 1963.
Expansion of the city
Newcastle was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835: the reformed municipal borough included the parishes of Byker, Elswick, Heaton, Jesmond, Newcastle All Saints, Newcastle St Andrew, Newcastle St John, Newcastle St Nicholas, and Westgate. The urban districts of Benwell and Fenham and Walker were added in 1904. In 1935, Newcastle gained Kenton and parts of the parishes of West Brunton, East Denton, Fawdon, Longbenton. The most recent expansion in Newcastle's boundaries took place under the Local Government Act 1972 on 1 April 1974, when Newcastle became a metropolitan borough, also including the urban districts of Gosforth and Newburn, and the parishes of Brunswick, Dinnington, Hazlerigg, North Gosforth and Woolsington from the Castle Ward Rural District, and the village of Westerhope.
Meanwhile Northumberland County Council was formed under the Local Government Act 1888 and benefited from a dedicated meeting place when County Hall was completed in the Castle Garth area of Newcastle in 1910. Following the Local Government Act 1972 County Hall relocated to Morpeth in April 1981.
Twentieth century
In 1925 work began on a new high-level road bridge to span the Tyne Gorge between Newcastle and Gateshead. The capacity of the existing High-Level Bridge and Swing Bridge were being strained to the limit, and an additional bridge had been discussed for a long time. The contract was awarded to the Dorman Long Company and the bridge was finally opened by King George V in 1928. The road deck was 84 feet (26 m) above the river and was supported by a 531 feet (162 m) steel arch. The new Tyne Bridge quickly became a symbol for Newcastle and Tyneside, and remains so today.
During the Second World War, Newcastle was largely spared the horrors inflicted upon other British cities bombed during the Blitz. Although the armaments factories and shipyards along the River Tyne were targeted by the Luftwaffe, they largely escaped unscathed. Manors goods yard and railway terminal, to the east of the city centre, and the suburbs of Jesmond and Heaton suffered bombing during 1941. There were 141 deaths and 587 injuries, a relatively small figure compared to the casualties in other industrial centres of Britain.
In 1963 the city gained its own university, the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, by act of parliament. A School of Medicine and Surgery had been established in Newcastle in 1834. This eventually developed into a college of medicine attached to Durham University. A college of physical science was also founded and became Armstrong College in 1904. In 1934 the two colleges merged to become King's College, Durham. This remained as part of Durham University until the new university was created in 1963. In 1992 the city gained its second university when Newcastle Polytechnic was granted university status as Northumbria University.
Newcastle City Council moved to the new Newcastle Civic Centre in 1968.
As heavy industries declined in the second half of the 20th century, large sections of the city centre were demolished along with many areas of slum housing. The leading political figure in the city during the 1960s was T. Dan Smith who oversaw a massive building programme of highrise housing estates and authorised the demolition of a quarter of the Georgian Grainger Town to make way for Eldon Square Shopping Centre. Smith's control in Newcastle collapsed when it was exposed that he had used public contracts to advantage himself and his business associates and for a time Newcastle became a byword for civic corruption as depicted in the films Get Carter and Stormy Monday and in the television series Our Friends in the North. However, much of the historic Grainger Town area survived and was, for the most part, fully restored in the late 1990s. Northumberland Street, initially the A1, was gradually closed to traffic from the 1970s and completely pedestrianised by 1998.
In 1978 a new rapid transport system, the Metro, was built, linking the Tyneside area. The system opened in August 1980. A new bridge was built to carry the Metro across the river between Gateshead and Newcastle. This was the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, commonly known as the Metro Bridge. Eventually the Metro system was extended to reach Newcastle Airport in 1991, and in 2002 the Metro system was extended to the nearby city of Sunderland.
As the 20th century progressed, trade on the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides gradually declined, until by the 1980s both sides of the river were looking rather derelict. Shipping company offices had closed along with offices of firms related to shipping. There were also derelict warehouses lining the riverbank. Local government produced a master plan to re-develop the Newcastle quayside and this was begun in the 1990s. New offices, restaurants, bars and residential accommodation were built and the area has changed in the space of a few years into a vibrant area, partially returning the focus of Newcastle to the riverside, where it was in medieval times.
The Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a foot and cycle bridge, 26 feet (7.9 m) wide and 413 feet (126 m) long, was completed in 2001. The road deck is in the form of a curve and is supported by a steel arch. To allow ships to pass, the whole structure, both arch and road-deck, rotates on huge bearings at either end so that the road deck is lifted. The bridge can be said to open and shut like a human eye. It is an important addition to the re-developed quayside area, providing a vital link between the Newcastle and Gateshead quaysides.
Recent developments
Today the city is a vibrant centre for office and retail employment, but just a short distance away there are impoverished inner-city housing estates, in areas originally built to provide affordable housing for employees of the shipyards and other heavy industries that lined the River Tyne. In the 2010s Newcastle City Council began implementing plans to regenerate these depressed areas, such as those along the Ouseburn Valley.
- A street congested with traffic as refugees flee in automobiles to Saigon near the end of the Vietnam War. --- Image by © Nik Wheeler/CORBIS
These are the plans to fix the freeway on ramps and off ramps to give better access to Valley Fair and Santana Row as well as better ways for people to change freeways without having to deal with the crowds going to Valley Fair and Santana Row. It is suppose to be one of the most expenisve projects to occur, costing around 150 million dollars to do. I think they should of thought about upgrading this area before Valley Fair expanded and before Santana Row was built, of course they'd bring a lot of traffic.
VTA website about the project
www.vta.org/projects/280_880_stevens_creek_blvd_improveme...
Here is another article about it that was in the Mr. Roadshow section of the Mercury News
After a small clearing that serves as an intersection for three roads, the road severely narrows once again. It would be fascinating to walk through there, but neither my sister or I were really inclined. (Poona/ Pune, June 2011)
Transit Police direct congested traffic around a derailed MBTA green line (B-train) trolley in the middle of the intersection of Commonwealth and Chestnut Hill Aves.
Army childcare expands programs to meet Kaiserslautern community needs
KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany – Childcare for Ingrid Duty often meant hectic mornings, driving more than 30 miles before work to drop off her two daughters at separate care centers.
Duty, a government civilian, spent more than 45 minutes fighting congested autobahn traffic, driving from her Mehlingen home across town to Landstuhl, then back into Kaiserslautern. But that’s changed, thanks to a new school age services at Sembach Elementary School – one of a few Army childcare programs in Kaiserslautern growing to meet the community demands.
On Oct. 14, Lt. Col. Kevin Hutchison, commander of U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern, cut a ceremonial ribbon – officially opening the Sembach program center. Now, at Sembach, Duty’s daughters are both just four miles from home.
“When this came up, it was a blessing,” Duty said. “This is awesome.”
Duty has more time for herself, her girls and her husband, a Soldier who commutes 50 miles north to Wiesbaden, she said. In other words, there’s more time for breakfast.
“It’s a whole lot better now. I come and pick my daughters up and they don’t want to leave,” Duty said. “It’s great, they love it.”
Offering childcare at Sembach kaserne is among several ways that the garrison’s Child, Youth and School Services program is working to meet the demands of a growing community, said Elena Smeltz, acting CYSS coordinator.
“The community here has been growing faster than the infrastructure, so childcare is a big issue in the community,” Smeltz said.
In Landstuhl, finishing touches are underway on a child development center, creating more space for kids in kindergarten and younger. A CDC already at Landstuhl provides care for up to 126 children in that age group.
“An additional CDC was important, because there was great demand,” Smeltz said.
Set to open in January, the new center will allow another 76 children, from infants to kindergarten, to receive care. The project moved faster than originally planned due to the garrison’s commitment to the Army Family Covenant, an Army-wide program that includes a guarantee of quality CYS support to Soldiers and their families, she said.
Roughly, 920 Soldiers have children enrolled in CYS. But in Kaiserslautern’s joint service community, Army CYS also serves more than 675 children of Air Force personnel and roughly 20 children from Navy and Marine families. Serving so many, CYS works with parents to find space in childcare programs often near capacity.
At Kleber kaserne, CYS recently made space for 17 more CDC children. By mid-2011, they hope to open expand Kleber’s capacity, once minor construction is undertaken.
On Oct. 1, U.S. Army Garrison Kaiserslautern
officially assumed oversight of the former Air Force base, now known as Sembach kaserne. When school started on Aug. 30, the Army garrison began offering onsite childcare, before and after school, to Sembach students.
“We have two rooms inside the elementary school that we have converted into our school age program,” Smeltz said. “So, the children simply have to walk from their classrooms down to ours.”
The new program is also more convenient for parents who, in the past, would often drive across Kaiserslautern to pick up their kids after work.
It was a relief to Lt. Col Roy Manauis, a father of two whose family faced their share of childcare challenges over the past two years. Now, both children go to the Sembach center. Knowing his children are cared for eases his mind, Manauis said.
“That’s imperative, that Soldiers and their families are looked after,” Manauis said. “This is a great example of the Army doing that.”
For more information on Kaiserslautern Child, Youth & School Services, call 0631-3406-4516 or visit their website at www.mwrgermany.com/KL/KLCYS
Cleared for public release. (Photos by Rick Scavetta, U.S. Army Garrison, Kaiserslautern)
This cycle path follows the route of an old railway line between Bristol and Bath. It can get quite congested at weekends - especially if the sun is shining.
A Pilot is a mariner who guides ships through dangerous or congested waters, such as harbours or river mouths. Pilots are expert shiphandlers who possess detailed knowledge of local waterways. Pilots are responsible under the law and maritime custom for conducting the safe navigation of the vessel. With the exception of the Panama Canal, the pilot is only an advisor, as the captain remains in legal command of the vessel.
Pilotage is one of the oldest, least-known professions, it is as old as sea travel itself. The oldest recorded history dates back to the 7th century BC yet it is one of the most important in maritime safety. The economic and environmental risk from today's large cargo ships makes the role of the pilot essential.
This is one of the Algeciras Pilot vessels (Corporación de Prácticos del Puerto Bahía de Algeciras).
Here is their website detailing contact and boarding procedures to the followed.
Boarding a container ship from the pilot vessel can be very dangerous:
www.practicosalgeciras.es/English/Main.php
This vessel is an Interceptor 48 named 'Getares' manufactured by Safehaven Marine in 2012. It is fitted with a pair of Volvo D13 500hp engines.
Safehaven is a Irish company based near Cork. They build Pilot boats, Search & rescue vessels, Naval and patrol craft, Wind farm support catamarans, Hydrographic survey vessels & Commercial work boats.
More about Maritime Pilots here:
Commuting on a motorcycle up and down the busiest and most congested freeway in the United States, the 405 in Los Angeles.
One more night in Memphis and we took another look at Beale Street. This time a lot less congested and a lot less intimidating. Altogether a much better experience. Ate in the Hard Rock Cafe. I know not very adventurous but it was decent. And a stroll along Beale Street led to BB Kings where we were thoroughly entertained by one Patrick Dodd. Amaze-ing!!! Terrific blues and made Beale Street feel so much more worthwhile. This guy is awesome. He's on facebook, so check him out and if he's ever in your neck of the woods and if you love blues you will defy love this guy... www.facebook.com/patrickdoddmusic
Before leaving Memphis for Nashville I wanted to visit the Lorraine Motel, the scene of Martin Luther King's assasination as I read it was a civil right museum. When we got there we met the most incredible woman Ms Jacqueline Smith. She has bee protesting there for over 22 years. I got chatting to her and decided not to visit the museum after all. Read her story she is an amazing woman. And I got a wee kiss from her too!!! :D www.fulfillthedream.net/
Next stop Nashville wooooohooooo! (At last!!!)
I am on a boat sailing through the Kompong Phluk floating village on the mighty Tonle Sap lake. I was amazed at the sheer size of the village, which simply seemed to keep going on and on. We are actually headed out of the village and onto the open waters of the Tonle Sap, but the village simple seems to go on forever! (or maybe I was simply taking too many pictures!). We now hit a particularly congested part of Kompong Phluk, So consequently, this then is yet another view of us sailing past rows of houses of Kompong Phluk. Ours was a fairly large boat, with seating on plastic chairs, and I was the solo passenger. Barring my tuktuk driver-guide and our boatman or course. My tuk tuk driver guide enjoys some down time, while the boat pilot- his rather juvenile son who seemed barely old enough to have outgrown his nappies, slikfully manoeuvres our rather large craft through all the obstacles and road blocks. Detailed notes about Kompong Phluk and the Tonle Sap lake appeared earlier in this album. (see previous pictures). (Kompong Phluk floating village on the Tonle Sap lake, near Siem Reap, Cambodia, Oct. 2008)
Today was one of those days where I woke up so tired that I was a little bit afraid to drive, especially with my equilibrium so off because I am sick and disgustingly congested. I drove anyways, I had to drop off my brother at school and pick my sister up, plus she promised me an everything bagel.
I finally paid my "Failure to yield to traffic signals" and "Failure to provide proof of insurance" tickets today. $118, still owe $83 by January 13th. I am the worst best driver. I have received way to many tickets. Not good. My goal is to not get any before I leave for Chicago (on January 5th!!!!!)
I went to the beach with Andy, he was in town. That was fun, I've known him since I was 16 and he always has a thousand jokes up his sleeve that I'm always laughing. I got color, weird. I like it. Also came to conclusion that I am REALLY bad at throwing/catching/having anything to do with a football.
I called Melanie today, I really missed her. I told her this about seven times. We went to Dales, my favorite restaurant in the whole world. I don't really eat or cook meat but I will get down on there pulled pork sandwiches forever. It was nice to see her and talk, she has a good head on her shoulders whether she realizes it or not. I am really excited at the idea of her coming up to Chicago and moving it, it would be amazing if it worked out.
We went back to my Mom's house and hung out there. I love my Mom, point blank. She always knows how to give me a headache but gol-dang, I love her. She was happy to see Melanie.
Our trip to Goodwill...... so freaking successful. I got a Konica 35 EF, a King Tut tee, a satchel, and a skirt for $3.59. All because my bgurl, Carissa, hooked us up with a discount on my $5 budget.
I baked Halloween cookies and actually got really legit with the frosting and making it colored. (ALL FROM SCRATCH, BY THE WAY <- AWESOME).
I had to fill the role of DD tonight for my friend. I'm glad he asked because I hate it when people drive drunk. It was actually fun, I guess. At one point on his bar crawl, we met up with Mackenzie and Jodie at the "Rockstar Lounge" where 40 year old men played REALLY bad music and a VERY drunk groupie old girl tried to fondle my breasts and mack on all of us. So awkward. So so so awkward.
Successful day, definitely.
On a side note: It was kind of weird that you were trying for "it". Never saw that as a component of our friendship but I guess, whatevs. It was funny.
The Lothian Country Buses (previously East Lothian Buses) service 113 runs every 40 mins between the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh and Pencaitland in East Lothian. The service is quite popular on the city centre to Tranent section of the route as people use it as a faster alternative to the slower services 26 and 44.
This week I started a small project to show some of the locations of the service 113.
Here is 195 heading out of normal for the festival congested Queensferry Street on the service 113 to Pencaitland.
These are the plans to fix the freeway on ramps and off ramps to give better access to Valley Fair and Santana Row as well as better ways for people to change freeways without having to deal with the crowds going to Valley Fair and Santana Row. It is suppose to be one of the most expenisve projects to occur, costing around 150 million dollars to do. I think they should of thought about upgrading this area before Valley Fair expanded and before Santana Row was built, of course they'd bring a lot of traffic.
VTA website about the project
www.vta.org/projects/280_880_stevens_creek_blvd_improveme...
Here is another article about it that was in the Mr. Roadshow section of the Mercury News
My sis in law finally yields to the temptation of glass bangles in Amritsar, and here she is, smiling triumphantly after bagging her prize catch! Despite the several stores we had seen earlier, which seemed to specialize in glass bangles (earlier in this album- see previous pictures), our tuk tuk driver recommended this store, for the best deals and better quality of the product on offer. It was a bit isolated, away from the main cluster of shops in the congested old city quarter. (Amritsar, Punjab, northern India, Nov. 2017)
A Highly Congested local island of the Maldives
Over population is a major issue on some islands.
Is this "so called" democracy fair??
Some islands have been highly favored by the current regime & have been rewarded for there support by building harbours, schools, medical centeres etc etc..., Unfortunately this is a minority and most islands are left unaided & in abject poverty due to there lack of support to the government. In some cases schools have been closed etc... to pressure residence to leave the island.
Vote for Change
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was published by The Muchmore Art Co. of 92 & 93, Great Russell Street, London W.C. The card was printed in England.
In the space for the stamp it states 'Postage Inland, ½d., Foreign 1d.' Inland postal rates for postcards were raised to 1d. in June 1918 in order to help pay for the Great War, therefore the card was published prior to this date.
The publishers have provided some information about the bridge on the divided back of the card:
'London Bridge.
Completed in 1831 at a cost of
about £2,000,000, was designed
by John Rennie, and has recently
been greatly improved by widening:
the total breadth now is 65 feet,
while the footways are each 15 feet
wide.
The lamp-posts on the bridge were
cast from French cannon taken in
the Peninsular War.'
-- The Sale and Removal of the Bridge
By 1896 the bridge was the busiest point in London, and one of its most congested, with 8,000 pedestrians and 900 vehicles crossing every hour. To designs by engineer Edward Cruttwell, it was widened in 1904 by 13 feet (4.0 m), using granite corbels.
However subsequent surveys showed that the bridge was sinking an inch (about 2.5 cm) every eight years, and by 1924 the east side had sunk some three to four inches (about 9 cm) lower than the west side. It was concluded that the bridge would have to be removed and replaced.
Council member Ivan Luckin put forward the idea of selling the bridge, and recalled:
"They all thought I was completely
crazy when I suggested we should
sell London Bridge when it needed
replacing."
Subsequently, in 1968, Council placed the bridge on the market and began to look for potential buyers. On the 18th. April 1968, Rennie's bridge was purchased by the Missourian entrepreneur Robert P. McCulloch of McCulloch Oil for $2,460,000.
The claim that McCulloch believed mistakenly that he was buying the more impressive Tower Bridge was denied by Ivan Luckin in a newspaper interview.
Before the bridge was taken apart, each granite facing block was marked for later reassembly. The blocks were taken to Merrivale Quarry at Princetown in Devon, where 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 in) were sliced off the inner faces of many, in order to facilitate their fixing.
Stones left behind were sold in an online auction when the quarry was abandoned and flooded in 2003. 10,000 tons of granite blocks were shipped via the Panama Canal to California, then trucked from Long Beach to Arizona.
They were used to face a new, purpose-built hollow core steel-reinforced concrete structure, ensuring that the bridge would support the weight of modern traffic. The bridge was reconstructed at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, and was re-dedicated on the 10th. October 1971 in a ceremony attended by London's Lord Mayor and celebrities.
The bridge carries the McCulloch Boulevard and spans the Bridgewater Channel, an artificial, navigable waterway that leads from the Uptown area of Lake Havasu City.
Terror Attacks on London Bridge and Nearby
There have been four terror attacks on or near London Bridge dating back to 1884. They are as follows:
(1) The 1884 London Bridge Terror Attack
On Saturday 13th. December 1884, two American-Irish Republicans carried out a dynamite attack on London Bridge as part of the Fenian dynamite campaign.
The bomb went off prematurely while the men were in a boat attaching it to a bridge pier at 5.45 pm during the evening rush hour. There was little damage to the bridge, and no casualties other than the bombers.
However, there was considerable collateral damage, and hundreds of windows were shattered on both banks of the Thames. The men's boat was so completely destroyed that the police initially thought the bombers had fled.
On the 25th. December 1884 the mutilated remains of one of the bombers were found. The body of the other man was never recovered, but the police were later able to identify the dead men as two Americans, William Mackey Lomasney, and John Fleming.
The men were identified after a landlord reported to police that dynamite had been found in the rented premises of two American gentlemen who had disappeared after the 13th. December, enabling police to piece together who was responsible for the attack.
The men had already been under surveillance by the police in both America and Great Britain.
(2) The 1992 London Bridge Bombing
On Friday the 28th. February 1992, the Provisional IRA exploded a bomb inside London Bridge station during the morning rush hour, causing extensive damage and wounding 29 people. It was one of many bombings carried out by one of the IRA's London active service units. It occurred just over a year after a bomb at Victoria station.
-- The 1992 Bombing
At around 8:20 am, someone rang Ulster Television's London office warning that a bomb was going to explode in a London station, without saying which one.
About ten minutes later, the bomb detonated, which made debris fly almost 50 feet (15 m) away from the blast area. Twenty nine people were hurt in the explosion, most of them from flying glass and other bits of debris; four were seriously hurt, but nobody was killed.
The victims were treated at Guy's Hospital.
-- Aftermath of the 1992 Explosion
The head of Scotland Yard's anti terrorist squad, George Churchill-Coleman, said that the 2 lb (910 g) bomb of high explosives was "clearly designed to kill."
Investigations suggested that the bomb had been placed in the men's restrooms. Churchill-Coleman added that the IRA's warning was "deliberately vague," and was given too late to act upon.
Prime Minister John Major said that the bombing would not change British policy in Northern Ireland:
"It was pointless. It was cowardly. It was
directed against innocent people and it
will make absolutely no difference to
our policy -- no difference at all."
Fearing additional IRA attacks on public transport, the security services warned commuters "more than ever" to stay on guard at all times. The next day, another bomb went off in London, by the Crown Prosecution Service office, injuring two more people and bringing the total injured to 31 in the space of just over 24 hours.
This was one of dozens of bombs that detonated in London that year, the biggest of which was the Baltic Exchange bombing, killing three people and causing almost £1 billion worth of damage.
The IRA maintained this pressure, bombing mainland Britain and especially the City of London as much as possible until the ceasefire of 1994.
(3) The 2017 London Bridge Attack
On the 3rd. June 2017, a terrorist vehicle-ramming and stabbing took place in London when a van was deliberately driven into pedestrians on London Bridge, and then crashed on Borough High Street, just south of the River Thames.
The van's three occupants then ran to the nearby Borough Market area and began stabbing people in and around restaurants and pubs. They were shot dead by Metropolitan and City of London Police authorised firearms officers, and were found to be wearing fake explosive vests.
Eight people were killed and 48 were injured, including members of the public and four unarmed police officers who attempted to stop the assailants. British authorities described the perpetrators as radical Islamic terrorists.
The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack.
-- Background to the 2017 Attack
In March 2017, five people had been killed in a combined vehicle and knife attack at Westminster. In late May, a suicide bomber killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena.
After the Manchester bombing, the UK's terror threat level was raised to "critical", its highest level, until the 27th. May 2017, when it was lowered to severe.
-- The 2017 Attack
The attack was carried out using a white Renault Master hired earlier on the same evening in Harold Hill, by Khuram Butt. He had intended to hire a 7.5 tonne lorry, but was refused due to his failure to provide payment details.
The attackers were armed with 12-inch (30 cm) kitchen knives with ceramic blades, which they tied to their wrists with leather straps. They also prepared fake explosive belts by wrapping water bottles in grey tape.
At 21:58 on the 3rd. June 2017, the van travelled south across London Bridge, and returned six minutes later, crossing over the bridge northbound, making a U-turn at the northern end and then driving southbound across the bridge.
It mounted the pavement three times and hit multiple pedestrians, killing two. Witnesses said the van was travelling at high speed. 999 emergency calls were first recorded at 22:07. The van was later found to contain 13 wine bottles containing flammable liquid with rags stuffed in them, along with blow torches.
The van crashed on Borough High Street after crossing the central reservation. The van's tyres were destroyed by the central reservation, and the three attackers, armed with knives, abandoned the vehicle.
Then they ran down the steps to Green Dragon Court, where they killed five people outside and near the Boro Bistro pub. The attackers then went back up the steps to Borough High Street and attacked three bystanders.
Police tried to fight the attackers, but were stabbed, and Ignacio Echeverría helped them by striking the terrorist Redouane and possibly Zaghba with his skateboard. Echeverría was later killed outside Lobos Meat and Tapas.
Members of the public threw bottles and chairs at the attackers. Witnesses reported that the attackers were shouting:
"This is for Allah".
People in and around a number of other restaurants and bars along Stoney Street were also attacked. During the attack, an unknown man was spared by Rachid Redouane, but despite many efforts the man was never found.
A Romanian baker hit one of the attackers over the head with a crate before giving shelter to 20 people inside a bakery inside Borough Market.
One man fought the three attackers with his fists in the Black and Blue steakhouse, shouting:
"F*** you, I'm Millwall."
His actions gave members of the public who were in the restaurant the opportunity to run away. He was stabbed eight times in the hands, chest and head. He underwent surgery at St Thomas' Hospital, and was taken off the critical list on the 4th. June.
A British Transport Police officer armed with a baton also took on the attackers, receiving multiple stab wounds and temporarily losing sight in his right eye as a consequence.
Off-duty Metropolitan police constables Liam Jones and Stewart Henderson rendered first aid to seriously injured members of the public before protecting over 150 people inside the Thameside Inn and evacuating them by Metropolitan marine support unit and RNLI boats to the north shore of the Thames.
The three attackers were then shot dead by armed officers from the City of London and Metropolitan police Specialist Firearms Command eight minutes after the initial emergency call was made.
CCTV footage showed the three attackers in Borough Market running at the armed officers; the attackers were shot dead 20 seconds later. A total of 46 rounds were fired by three City of London and five Metropolitan Police officers.
-- Aftermath of the 2017 Attack
The Metropolitan Police issued 'Run, Hide, Tell' notices via social media during the attack, and asked the public to remain calm and vigilant.
All buildings within the vicinity of London Bridge were evacuated, and London Bridge, Borough and Bank Underground stations were closed at the request of the police.
The mainline railway stations at London Bridge, Waterloo East, Charing Cross and Cannon Street were also closed. The Home Secretary approved the deployment of a military counter terrorist unit from the Special Air Service (SAS).
The helicopters carrying the SAS landed on London Bridge to support the Metropolitan Police because of concerns that there might be more attackers at large.
The Metropolitan Police Marine Policing Unit dispatched boats on the River Thames, with assistance from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), to contribute to the evacuation of the area and look for any casualties who might have fallen from the bridge.
A stabbing incident took place in Vauxhall at 23:45, causing Vauxhall station to be briefly closed; this was later confirmed to be unrelated to the attack.
At 01:45 on the 4th. June, controlled explosions took place of the attackers' bomb vests, which were found to be fake.
An emergency COBR meeting was held on the morning of the 4th. June. London Bridge mainline railway and underground stations remained closed throughout the 4th. June. A cordon was established around the scene of the attack. London Bridge station reopened at 05:00 on Monday the 5th. June.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said that there was a surge of hate crimes and islamophobic incidents following the attack.
New security measures were implemented on eight central London bridges following the attack, to reduce the likelihood of further vehicle attacks, with concrete barriers being installed. The barriers have been criticised for causing severe congestion in cycle lanes during peak hours.
Borough Market reopened on the 14th. June.
-- Casualties of the 2017 Attack
Eight civilians died in the attack: one Spaniard, one Briton, two Australians, one Canadian and three French citizens were killed by the attackers, and the three attackers themselves were killed by armed police.
Two of the civilian fatalities were caused in the initial vehicle-ramming attack, while the remaining six were stabbed to death. One body was recovered from the Thames near Limehouse several days after the attack.
48 people were injured in the attack, including one New Zealander, two Australians, two Germans and four French citizens.
Of the 48 people admitted to hospital, 21 were initially reported to be in a critical condition.
Four police officers were among those injured in the attack. A British Transport Police officer was stabbed, and suffered serious injuries to his head, face and neck. An off-duty Metropolitan Police officer was seriously injured when he was stabbed.
Two other Metropolitan Police officers received head and arm injuries. As a result of police gunfire, a bystander received an accidental gunshot wound, which was not critical.
-- The 2017 Attackers
On the 4th. June the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, said that:
"We are confident about the fact that
they were radical Islamic terrorists, the
way they were inspired, and we need
to find out more about where this
radicalisation came from."
Amaq News Agency, an online outlet associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), said the attackers were ISIS fighters.
On the 5th. June, two of the attackers were identified as Khuram Shazad Butt and Rachid Redouane. The third of the three attackers, Youssef Zaghba, was identified the following day.
(a) Khuram Shazad Butt
Butt (born 20th. April 1990) was a Pakistan-born British citizen whose family came from Jhelum. He grew up in Great Britain, living in Plaistow.
He had a wife and two children. Neighbours told the BBC that Butt had been reported to police for attempting to radicalise children; he had also expressed disgust at the way women dressed.
He was known to police as a "heavyweight" member of the banned extremist group al-Muhajiroun. A BBC interviewee said he had a verbal confrontation with Butt in 2013 on the day after another Al-Muhajiroun follower had murdered Fusilier Lee Rigby.
Butt was part of an al-Muhajiroun campaign in 2015 to intimidate Muslims who planned to vote in the UK general elections of that year, on the basis that it was forbidden in Islam.
He was known for holding extreme views, having been barred from two local mosques. He appeared on a 2016 Channel 4 Television documentary, The Jihadis Next Door, which showed him arguing with police over the unfurling of an ISIL black flag in Regent's Park.
According to a friend, he had been radicalised by the YouTube videos of the American Muslim hate preacher Ahmad Musa Jibril. Butt was known to have taken drugs before he became radicalised.
After radicalisation, Butt started to stop his neighbours on the street and ask them whether they had been to the mosque.
Butt had worked for a man accused of training Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the July 2005 London bombing. The police and MI5 knew of Butt, and he was investigated in 2015. The investigation was later "moved into the lower echelons", and his file was classed as low priority.
Butt sometimes manned the desk of the Ummah Fitness Centre gym, where he prayed regularly. CCTV footage was released of Butt, Redouane and Zaghba meeting outside the gym days before the attack. A senior figure at a local mosque had reported the gym to police.
The New York Times said that Butt and his brother were part of the UK government's Prevent programme, which aims to stop people from becoming terrorists, and which reports suspected radicals to police programmes.
At the time of the attack he was on police bail following an allegation of fraud, though the police had intended to take no further action due to a lack of evidence. He had previously been cautioned by police for fraud in 2008 and common assault in 2010.
(b) Rachid Redouane
Redouane (born 31 July 1986) was a failed asylum seeker in the UK, whose application was denied in 2009, and not previously known to police. He had claimed to be either Moroccan or Libyan.
Redouane worked as a pastry chef, and in 2012 he married an Irish woman in a ceremony in Ireland. He beat and bullied his wife.
He used to drink alcohol. He lived variously in Rathmines, a suburb of Dublin, also in Morocco and the UK. According to his wife, Redouane was most likely radicalised in Morocco. Later the couple stayed in the UK on an EU residency card where they had a daughter in 2015.
The couple separated in 2016 and she divorced him after he tried to force his extremist beliefs on her.
At the time of the attack, he was living in Dagenham, East London.
(c) Youssef Zaghba
Zaghba (born 1995 in Fez, Morocco) was at the time of the attack living in east London where he worked in a fast-food outlet. He also worked for an Islamic television channel in London.
Zaghba was born to a Moroccan Muslim father and an Italian Catholic Christian mother who had converted to Islam when she married. Zaghba had dual Moroccan and Italian nationality.
When his parents divorced, he went to Italy with his mother. In 2016, Zaghba was stopped at Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport by Italian officers who found ISIS-related materials on his mobile phone; he was stopped from continuing his journey to Istanbul.
Italian authorities said Zaghba was monitored continuously while in Italy and that the UK was informed about him. Giuseppe Amato, an Italian prosecutor, said:
"We did our best. We could just monitor
and surveil Zaghba and send a note to
the British authorities, that's all we could
do and we did it.
Since he moved to London, he came back
to Italy once in a while for a total of 10 days.
And during those 10 days we never let him
out of our sight."
According to The New York Times, the Italian branch of Al-Muhajiroun had introduced Butt to Zaghba.
-- Investigation of the 2017 Attack
On the morning of the 4th. June, police made 12 arrests following raids in flats in the Barking area of east London, where one of the attackers lived; controlled explosions were carried out during the raids.
Those held included five males aged between 27 and 55, arrested at one address in Barking, and six females aged between 19 and 60, arrested at a separate Barking address. One of the arrested males was subsequently released without charge.
Four properties in all were searched, including two in Newham in addition to the two in Barking. Further raids and arrests were made at properties in Newham and Barking early on the morning of the 5th. June.
On the 6th. June, a man was arrested in Barking, and another in Ilford the following day. By the 16th. June, all those arrested had been released without charge.
-- The Inquest Into the 2017 Attack
On the 7th. May 2019, an inquest into the deaths of the victims opened at the Old Bailey in London. Judge Mark Lucraft QC, Chief Coroner of England and Wales, presided, and people related to the dead gave accounts of what happened and who they had lost.
The inquest concluded on the 16th. July 2019 that all three attackers had been lawfully killed.
(4) The 2019 London Bridge Stabbing
On the 29th. November 2019, five people were stabbed, two fatally, in Central London. The attacker, Briton Usman Khan, had been released from prison in 2018 on licence after serving a sentence for terrorist offences.
Khan was attending an offender rehabilitation conference in Fishmongers' Hall when he threatened to detonate what turned out to be a fake suicide vest.
He started to attack people with two knives taped to his wrists, killing two of the conference participants by stabbing them in the chest.
Several people fought back, some attacking Khan with a fire extinguisher, a pike and a narwhal tusk as he fled the building and emerged on to London Bridge, where he was partially disarmed by a plain-clothes police officer.
He was restrained by members of the public until additional police officers arrived, pulled away those restraining him, and shot him.
-- Background to the 2019 Attack
A conference on offender rehabilitation was held on the 29th. November 2019 in Fishmongers' Hall, at the northern end of London Bridge, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Learning Together. This is a programme run by the Cambridge Institute of Criminology to help offenders reintegrate into society following their release from prison.
Learning Together was set up in 2014 by University of Cambridge academics Ruth Armstrong and Amy Ludlow from the Faculty of Law and Institute of Criminology:
"To bring together people in criminal justice
and higher education institutions to study
alongside each other in inclusive and
transformative learning communities."
The programme served to enable students and prisoners to work together.
Former prisoner Usman Khan had been invited to the conference as a previous participant in the programme, and although banned from entering London under the terms of his release, he was granted a one-day exemption to attend.
-- The 2019 Attack
At 13:58 on the 29th. November, the police were called to Fishmongers' Hall after Khan, wearing a fake suicide vest, threatened to blow up the hall. The police reported that there had been no prior intelligence of the attack.
Holding two kitchen knives taped to his wrists, Khan began stabbing people inside the building. Several fought back, including a South African-born Londoner, Darryn Frost, who grabbed a 1.5-metre-long (4.9 ft) narwhal tusk from the wall to use as a weapon, former prisoner John Crilly, and Steven Gallant, a convicted murderer attending the conference on day release from prison.
Khan fled and began stabbing pedestrians outside on the north side of the bridge.
Several people were injured before members of the public, including a tour guide and a plain-clothes British Transport Police officer, later seen walking away with a knife, restrained and disarmed Khan on the bridge.
One of the people who stepped in to fight the attacker drove him back by spraying a fire extinguisher.
Armed officers of the City of London Police arrived at 14:03 and surrounded the attacker, who at the time was being restrained by a Ministry of Justice communications worker attending the rehabilitation meeting.
The officers pulled this person away to provide a clear shot, before one fired twice. Around 10 minutes after this, Khan started to get up; he was then shot 9 further times by 6 firearms officers. Khan had not been secured after the initial shooting due to the suicide vest. Khan died at the scene.
A Transport for London bus which had stopped adjacent to the site of the shooting was found to have damage to both its front and rear windows, possibly caused, according to the Metropolitan Police, by a ricocheting bullet.
-- The Victims of the 2019 Attack
Three of the victims were associated with Cambridge University's Learning Together prison-rehabilitation programme; two died and one was injured.
The two who died from their stab wounds were Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones.
Merritt was a 25-year-old law and criminology graduate from Cottenham, Cambridgeshire who had studied at the Universities of Manchester and Cambridge. He worked as a University of Cambridge administration officer, and was a course coordinator for Learning Together.
Jones was a 23 year old former Anglia Ruskin University and University of Cambridge student from Stratford-upon-Avon.
Funeral services for Merritt and Jones were conducted on the 20th. December 2019.
Two other women were seriously injured, while a chef who was working at the event was stabbed but had less serious injuries.
-- The Terrorist Usman Khan
Usman Khan was a 28-year-old British national from Stoke-on-Trent, of Pakistani descent. Khan appears to have left school with no qualifications after spending part of his late teens in Pakistan.
He was known to police, and had links to Islamist extremist groups. In December 2018 he had been automatically released from prison on licence, where he was serving a 16-year sentence for terrorism offences, and was wearing an electronic tag.
Khan had been part of a plot, inspired by Al-Qaeda, to establish a terrorist camp on his family's land in Kashmir and bomb the London Stock Exchange. The plot was disrupted by MI5 and the police, as part of MI5's Operation Guava (police Operation Norbury), and Khan was given an indeterminate sentence.
Of the nine men involved, Khan was the youngest at 19 and according to Mr Justice Wilkie, Khan and two others were “more serious jihadis” than the others.
In 2013, Khan's sentence was revised after an appeal, and he was ordered to serve at least 8 years of his new 16-year sentence, with a 5-year extended licence allowing recall to prison.
According to the anti-extremism group Hope not Hate, Khan was a supporter of Al-Muhajiroun, an extremist group with which scores of terrorists were involved. He was a student and personal friend of Anjem Choudary, an Islamist and terrorism supporter.
Post-mortem examination showed evidence of occasional use of cocaine by Khan.
-- Aftermath of the 2019 Attack
The news of the attack was broken live as it happened on the BBC by one of its reporters, John McManus, who witnessed members of the public fighting Khan as he crossed the bridge, and heard two shots being fired by police officers.
McManus said that he was certain that more than two shots were fired during the incident.
The police, ambulance, and fire services attended the scene, and a major incident was declared. A large police cordon was set up in the area and residents were told to stay away. Police closed both Monument Underground station and London Bridge station after the attack.
The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, returned to Downing Street following the incident, after campaigning in his constituency for the forthcoming general election. Johnson commended the "immense bravery" of the emergency services and members of the public, and claimed that anyone involved in the attack would be hunted down.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, thanked the emergency services and members of the public who helped to restrain the attacker, saying they had shown "breathtaking heroism".
The Conservative Party, Labour Party and Liberal Democrats temporarily suspended campaigning in London for the general election. A parliamentary election hustings event scheduled to be held at Great St. Mary's Church in Cambridge on the 30th. November was cancelled and replaced by a memorial vigil for the victims of the attack.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick made a statement following the attack. She said that there would be an increased police presence on the streets, and that cordons in the London Bridge area would remain in place. An appeal was made for the public to submit any film or picture evidence or information that could assist the investigation.
In Pakistan, publication of Khan's Pakistani origins by the leading newspaper Dawn were deemed unpatriotic and defamatory, and led to demonstrations demanding that the publisher and the editor be hanged.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack. Its news agency, Amaq, claimed Usman Khan was one of its fighters. A janaza prayer for Khan was held at a mosque in Birmingham, and he was buried in his family's ancestral village in Pakistan, following objections to his burial in the UK by local Muslims in his native Stoke.
In 2021, following an inquest, Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation Jonathan Hall QC called for those involved in the planning or preparation of terrorist attacks to be given automatic life sentences. Hall stated:
"It is hard to underestimate
how serious Usman Khan’s
original offence was."
-- Investigations Into the 2019 Attack
London Bridge was closed until the early hours of the following Monday for forensic investigation of the scene. A property in Stafford and one in Stoke-on-Trent were searched by police.
An inquest into the deaths of Merritt and Jones was opened on the 4th. December 2019 at the Central Criminal Court in London, and was subsequently adjourned.
A pre-inquest review hearing took place at the Old Bailey on the 16th. October 2020, before the Chief Coroner of England and Wales, Mark Lucraft QC.
The inquest re-opened on the 12th. April 2021, presided over by Lucraft. On the 28th. May 2021 the jury concluded that the victims had been unlawfully killed.
They further concluded that insufficient monitoring of Khan, unreasonable belief in his rehabilitation, a lack of information sharing between agencies, and inadequate security planning at the event were all contributing factors in their deaths.
Khan's inquest, also overseen by Lucraft, found in June 2021 that Khan was lawfully killed by the police.
-- Royal Prerogative of Mercy for Steven Gallant
Steven Gallant was granted the Royal prerogative of mercy by the Lord Chancellor on behalf of the Queen in October 2020, in order to bring his parole hearing forward by ten months to June 2021.
The Ministry of Justice stated that:
"This is in recognition of his exceptionally
brave actions at Fishmongers’ Hall, which
helped save people's lives despite the
tremendous risk to his own".
Though the parole board still has to decide on whether to release him, it was reported that it would be unlikely for his case to be denied after the Queen's intervention. The families of both Merritt and of Gallant's 2005 murder victim approved the action due to his heroic deeds and efforts to turn his life around since the murder.