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A417
The A417 is a main road in England, running from Streatley, Berkshire to Hope under Dinmore, Herefordshire. It is best known for its section between Cirencester and Gloucester where it has primary status and forms part of the link between the major settlements of Swindon and Gloucester. History When the A417 was first designated in 1922, it ran only from Streatley to Cirencester. In 1935 it was extended to Gloucester, on the former route of the A419, and on to Ledbury and Hope under Dinmore. There have been numerous upgrades and bypasses, particularly on the primary section. At Faringdon, its traditional route over Folly Hill and down through the market place has been blocked by the more recent development of the A420 and the road has been diverted to the south. The Birdlip bypass, opened in 1988, avoided a steep (16%) gradient as the road descended the Cotswold Edge escarpment to Brockworth. On 31 December 2022, the 200-year old Air Balloon pub at the roadside near Bi ...
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The Air Balloon, Birdlip
The Air Balloon is a road junction and former pub in Birdlip, Gloucestershire, England. The junction is on the A417 at a significant congestion point. The pub was open from the late 18th century to 2022, when it closed as part of road improvements, and was subsequently demolished. Location The pub stood next to a roundabout junction on the A417, a major road between Swindon and Gloucester via Cirencester. The A436 meets the A417 at this point; the two roads together form a de facto bypass of Cheltenham between Oxford and Gloucester. History The pub opened in 1784 and was probably named after one of the first British balloon flights: the launching of a small hydrogen balloon by Edward Jenner on 2 September of that year, which flew from Berkeley Castle to Kingscote and then on to a field near Birdlip. This was the year after the pioneering flights of the Montgolfier brothers' hot air balloon and Jacques Charles's hydrogen balloon in Paris. It was known as the Balloon by 1796 a ...
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A419 Road
The A419 road is a primary route between Chiseldon near Swindon at junction 15 of the M4 with the A346 road, and Whitminster in Gloucestershire, England near the M5 motorway. The A419 is managed and maintained by a private company, Road Management Group, on behalf of the UK Department for Transport. Route From the M4 to Cirencester it is a dual carriageway road, which generally follows the course of the Roman road Ermin Way, but dualling work completed in the late 1990s, and the bypass of Cirencester, has taken it off-course in some places. East of Cirencester the A417 continues straight ahead as the major road and the A419 separates through Cirencester and Stroud, becoming mainly single carriageway. West of Cirencester the road loses its primary status; it crosses the M5 at junction 13 close to a former Little Chef restaurant, then finishes further west at a roundabout with the A38. A419 Road Bridge The A419 Road Bridge is a modern bridge carrying the Crick ...
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Cirencester
Cirencester ( , ; see #Pronunciation, below for more variations) is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold District of Gloucestershire, England. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames. It is the List of settlements in Gloucestershire by population, eighth largest settlement in Gloucestershire and the largest town within the Cotswolds. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural University, the oldest agricultural college in the English-speaking world, founded in 1840. The town had a population of 20,229 in 2021. The town is northwest of Swindon, southeast of Gloucester, west of Oxford and northeast of Bristol. The Roman name for the town was Corinium, which is thought to have been associated with the ancient British tribe of the ''Dobunni'', having the same root word as the River Churn. The earliest known reference to the town was by Ptolemy in AD 150. The town's Corinium Museum has an extensive Roman Britain, Roman collection. Cirences ...
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M5 Motorway
The M5 is a motorway in England linking the Midlands with the South West England, South West. It runs from junction 8 of the M6 motorway, M6 at West Bromwich near Birmingham to Exeter in Devon. Heading south-west, the M5 runs east of West Bromwich and west of Birmingham through Sandwell Valley. It continues past Bromsgrove (and from Birmingham and Bromsgrove is part of the Birmingham Motorway Box), Droitwich Spa, Worcester, England, Worcester, Tewkesbury, Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud, Bristol, Portishead, Somerset, Portishead, Clevedon, Weston-super-Mare, Bridgwater, Taunton, Tiverton, Devon, Tiverton, Cullompton, before terminating at junction 31 to the south of Exeter. At a total length of 163 miles (262 km), the M5 is the 4th longest motorway in the UK. Route The M5 quite closely follows the route of the A38 road. The two deviate slightly around Bristol and the area south of Bristol from junctions 16 to the Sedgemoor services north of junction 22. The A38 goes straight ...
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Wantage
Wantage () is a historic market town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of Oxfordshire since 1974. The town is on Letcombe Brook, south-west of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, Abingdon, north-west of Reading, Berkshire, Reading, south-west of Oxford and north-west of Newbury, Berkshire, Newbury. It was the birthplace of Alfred the Great, King Alfred the Great in 849. History Wantage was a small Roman Britain, Roman settlement but the origin of the Toponymy, toponym is somewhat uncertain. It is generally thought to be from an Old English phrase meaning "decreasing river". King Alfred the Great was born at the royal palace there in the 9th century, in what was originally known as Wanating. Wantage appears in the Domesday Book of 1086. Its value was £61 and it was in the king's ownership until R ...
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Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city, non-metropolitan district and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West England, South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west; it is sited from Monmouth, from Bristol, and east of the England and Wales border, border with Wales. Gloucester has a population of around 132,000, including suburban areas. It is a port, linked via the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal to the Severn Estuary. Gloucester was founded by the Roman Empire, Romans and became an important city and ''Colonia (Roman), colony'' in AD 97, under Nerva, Emperor Nerva as ''Glevum, Colonia Glevum Nervensis''. It was granted its first charter in 1155 by Henry II of England, Henry II. In 1216, Henry III of England, Henry III, aged only nine years, was crowned with a gilded iron ring in the Chapter House of Gloucester Cathedral. Gloucester's significance in the Middle Ages is unde ...
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Birdlip
Birdlip is a village and civil parish, in the Cotswold district, in the county of Gloucestershire, England. It is in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty south of Cheltenham and south east of Gloucester. History Some fine pre-Roman bronze art, including the famous Birdlip Mirror, from around AD 50, was found at Barrow Wake near Birdlip. The village was once on the main road between Gloucester and Cirencester, now the A417. The building of a bypass, which opened in December 1988, moved the main route away from the village. Black Horse Ridge is a 17th-century building that until 1900 was a public house.Verey, 1970, page 112 A lodge adjacent to Black Horse Ridge was designed by Richard Pace and built in 1822. Birdlip's remaining pub is The Royal George Hotel, which was built in the 19th century. Birdlip House is a Georgian house built late in the 18th century. The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary burned down in 1897, and was replaced in 1957 by a ne ...
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A420 Road
The A420 is a road between Bristol and Oxford in England. Between Swindon and Oxford it is a primary route. Route Since the opening of the M4 motorway in the 1970s, the road has been in two sections. The first section begins on Old Market Street near the centre of Bristol and passes through Kingswood before leaving the city on the east side. From here it travels eastward over the southern part of the Cotswolds, to the north of Bath, to Chippenham in Wiltshire. The second section begins at a junction with the A419 east of Swindon. It then travels under the Great Western Main Line at the twin-arch Acorn Bridge (the second arch was originally used by the Wilts & Berks Canal) and past Shrivenham and Watchfield (both bypassed in the 1980s), then on towards Faringdon in the Vale of White Horse. A further by-pass section, opened in 1979, avoids the centre of Faringdon, passing just south of Folly Hill and crossing the A417. The A420 then travels the corallian limestone ri ...
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Roman Roads In Britannia
Roman roads in Roman Britain, Britannia were initially designed for military use, created by the Roman army during the nearly four centuries (AD 43–410) that Britannia was a Roman Province, province of the Roman Empire. It is estimated that about of paved trunk roads (surfaced roads running between two towns or cities) were constructed and maintained throughout the province. Most of the known network was complete by 180. The primary function of the network was to allow rapid movement of troops and military supplies, but it subsequently provided vital infrastructure for commerce, trade and the transportation of goods. A considerable number of Roman roads remained in daily use as core trunk roads for centuries after the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410. Some routes are now part of the Great Britain road numbering scheme, UK's national road network. Others have been lost or are of archeological and historical interest only. After the Romans departed, systematic const ...
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Cotswolds
The Cotswolds ( ) is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jurassic limestone that creates a type of grassland habitat that is quarry, quarried for the golden-coloured Cotswold stone. It lies across the boundaries of several English counties: mainly Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire, and parts of Wiltshire, Somerset, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire. The highest point is Cleeve Hill, Gloucestershire, Cleeve Hill at , just east of Cheltenham. The predominantly rural landscape contains stone-built villages, towns, stately homes and gardens featuring the local stone. A large area within the Cotswolds has been designated as a Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, National Landscape (formerly known as Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, or AONB) since 1966. The designation covers , with boundaries rou ...
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Ledbury
Ledbury is a market town and civil parish in the county of Herefordshire, England, lying east of Hereford, and west of the Malvern Hills. It has a significant number of Tudor style timber-framed structures, in particular along Church Lane and High Street. One of the most outstanding is Ledbury Market Hall, built in 1617, located in the town centre. Other notable buildings include the parish church of St. Michael and All Angels, the Painted Room (containing sixteenth-century frescoes), the Old Grammar School, the Barrett-Browning memorial clock tower (designed by Brightwen Binyon and opened in 1896 to house the library until 2015), nearby Eastnor Castle and the St. Katherine's Hospital site. Founded , this is a rare surviving example of a hospital complex, with hall, chapel, a Master's House (fully restored and opened in March 2015 to house the Library), almshouses and a timber-framed barn. History Ledbury is a borough whose origins date to around AD 690. In the Domesday ...
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East Challow
East Challow is a village and civil parish about west of Wantage in the Vale of White Horse, England. Historically it was part of the ecclesiastical parish of Letcombe Regis, but since 1852 East and West Challow have formed their own single ecclesiastical parish. The civil parish was part of Berkshire until the 1974 boundary changes transferred the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire. Etymology The place-name ''Challow'' is first attested in a charter from 947 (though the earliest surviving copy of the charter is from the 12th century), in the Old English phrase "to Ceawan Hlewe", which can be translated as "to Ceawa's burial mound",Victor Watts, ''The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 124. where ''Ceawa'' is a personal name attested only here and in the place-name ''Chawridge''.Richard Coates,On Some Controversy Surrounding ''Gewissae'' / ''Gewissei'', '' ...
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