|
Reading Council
Reading Borough Council is the local authority for Reading in the county of Berkshire, England. Reading has had a council since at least 1542, which has been reformed on numerous occasions. Since 1998, the council has been a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council. The council has been under Labour majority control since 2012. It is based at the Civic Offices on Bridge Street in the town centre. History The town of Reading was an ancient borough, being described as a borough by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086. The borough was initially controlled by Reading Abbey, but the town gradually gained a degree of independence from the abbey from the thirteenth century onwards. Following the dissolution of the abbey in 1538 the borough was granted a new charter in 1542. The borough was reformed in 1836 to become a municipal borough under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Unitary Authorities Of England
In England, a unitary authority or unitary council is a type of local authority responsible for all local government services in an area. They combine the functions of a non-metropolitan county council and a non-metropolitan district council, which elsewhere in England provide two tiers of local government. The district that is governed by a unitary authority is commonly referred to as a unitary authority area or unitary area. The terms unitary district and, for those which are coterminous with a county, unitary county are also sometimes used. The term unitary authority is also sometimes used to refer to the area governed, such as in the ISO 3166-2:GB standard defining a taxonomy for subdivisions of the UK, and in colloquial usage. Unitary authorities are constituted under the Local Government Act 1992, which amended the Local Government Act 1972 to allow the existence of non-metropolitan counties that do not have multiple districts. Most were established during the 1990s, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domesday Book
Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by the Latin name , meaning "Book of Winchester, Hampshire, Winchester", where it was originally kept in the royal treasury. The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' states that in 1085 the king sent his agents to survey every shire in England, to list his holdings and dues owed to him. Written in Medieval Latin, it was Scribal abbreviation, highly abbreviated and included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The survey's main purpose was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, labour force, and livestock from which the value derived. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century. Richard FitzNeal wrote in the ( 1179) that the book was so called because its de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urban District (England And Wales)
In England and Wales, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council (UDC), which shared local government responsibilities with a county council. In England and Wales, urban districts and rural districts were created in 1894 by the Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) as subdivisions of administrative counties. A similar model of urban and rural districts was also established in Ireland in 1899, which continued separately in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after 1921. They replaced the earlier system of urban and rural sanitary districts (based on poor law unions) whose functions were taken over by the district councils. The district councils also had wider powers over local matters such as parks, cemeteries and local planning. An urban district usually contained a single parish, while a rural district might contain many. Urban districts were conside ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caversham, Reading
Caversham is a village and suburb of Reading in Berkshire, England, located directly north of Reading town centre across the River Thames. Caversham rises from the River Thames, lying on flood plain and the lowest reaches of the Chiltern Hills one of the few places in Berkshire to be considred part of the Chilterns. Two road bridges, including Caversham Bridge, and two footbridges join Caversham to the rest of Reading. Named areas within the village include Emmer Green, Lower Caversham, Caversham Heights and Caversham Park Village. Notable landmarks include Caversham Court, a public park and former country house; Caversham Lakes; and part of the Thames Path national trail. Recorded as early as 1086, Caversham was a village part of the Henley district of Oxfordshire (it is located around south west of Henley). With the exception of the centre of Caversham and Emmer Green, which were traditional villages, much of the development occurred during the 20th century. In 1911, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reading Minster
Reading Minster, or the Minster Church of St Mary the Virgin, is the oldest ecclesiastical foundation in the town of Reading, Berkshire, England. Although eclipsed in importance by the later Reading Abbey, Reading Minster regained its status after the destruction of the Abbey and is now an Anglican parish church. The minster gives its name to the street of St Mary's Butts, on which it stands. The Minster Church of St Mary the Virgin should not be mistaken for the similarly named St Mary's Church, Castle Street, which is only a few yards away. History According to unverified tradition, Saint Birinus founded a small chapel on the site of Reading Minster in the 7th century. Silver coins of the 9th century have been found in the churchyard, dating back to the period when Kings Ethelred and Alfred of Wessex were fighting the Danes at Reading, and also the era in which Reading supplanted Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) as the local centre of importance.Leaflet ''History of Rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Laurence's Church, Reading
St Laurence's Church is a Church of England mission and former parish church in the town of Reading in the English county of Berkshire. It is situated alongside the site of Reading Abbey, formerly bounded by the main Compter Gate to the south and the Hospitium of St John to the north. What was once the private chapel of the latter institution still remains in the north aisle. The church is a Grade I listed building. History St Laurence's was one of the three original parish churches, along with St Mary's and St Giles', serving the medieval borough of Reading. It was built to serve the people of the eastern part of the town. Its location next to the Abbey stimulated trade in that part of the town and St Laurence's soon became surrounded by a large market place which included a pillory and stocks. The church dates from the Norman period but underwent major rebuildings in 1196, in the 15th century and in 1867. The building is of flint with ashlar quoins. The principal feature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Giles' Church, Reading
St Giles' Church is a Church of England Church of England parish church, parish church in the town of Reading, Berkshire, Reading in the England, English county of Berkshire. History St Giles' was one of the three original parish churches, along with Reading Minster, St Mary's and St Laurence's Church, Reading, St Laurence's, serving the Middle Ages, medieval borough of Reading. The church is on Southampton Street, Reading, Southampton Street, just outside the town centre and in the portion of the original borough to the south of the River Kennet. The original church was built in the 12th century to serve the population to the south of the River Kennet, who found it difficult to reach St Mary's during winter floods of the river. Besides the southern section of the medieval borough, its parish also included the hamlet of Whitley, Berkshire, Whitley, which then lay outside the borough boundary. In 1191 Pope Clement III gave the church to Reading Abbey and throughout the Middle Age ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Civil Parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, which for centuries were the principal unit of secular and religious administration in most of England and Wales. Civil and religious parishes were formally split into two types in the 19th century and are now entirely separate. Civil parishes in their modern form came into being through the Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73), which established elected parish councils to take on the secular functions of the parish vestry. A civil parish can range in size from a sparsely populated rural area with fewer than a hundred inhabitants, to a large town with a population in excess of 100,000. This scope is similar to that of municipalities in continental Europe, such as the communes of France. However, unlike their continental Euro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berkshire County Council
Berkshire County Council, also known as the County Council of the Royal County of Berkshire, was the county council for Berkshire in England. It was created in 1889 and abolished in 1998. The council had responsibilities for education, social services, public transport, planning, emergency services and waste disposal. On the abolition of the county council in 1998, the county's six existing district councils also took on county council functions in their areas, making them unitary authorities. Berkshire is therefore now administered by the six councils of Bracknell Forest, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Wokingham. History Elected county councils were created in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over many administrative functions that had previously been performed by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions. The areas covered by the new county councils were called administrative counties. These differed from the historic count ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Local Government Act 1888
The Local Government Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41) was an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales. It came into effect on 1 April 1889, except for the County of London, which came into existence on 21 March at the request of the London County Council. The bill Following the 1886 United Kingdom general election, 1886 general election, a Conservative Party (UK), Conservative administration headed by Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Salisbury was formed. However the Conservatives did not have a majority of seats and had to rely on the support of the Liberal Unionist Party. As part of the price for this support the Liberal Unionists demanded that a bill be introduced placing county government under the control of elected councils, modelled on the borough councils introduced by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. Accordingly, the Loca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Municipal Corporations Act 1835
The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 ( 5 & 6 Will. 4. c. 76), sometimes known as the Municipal Reform Act, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in the incorporated boroughs of England and Wales. The legislation was part of the reform programme of the Whigs and followed the Reform Act 1832, which had abolished most of the rotten boroughs for parliamentary purposes. Royal commission The government of Lord Grey, having carried out reform of parliamentary constituencies, turned its attention to local government. In February 1833 a select committee was appointed "to inquire into the state of the Municipal Corporations in England, Wales, and Ireland; and to report if any, and what abuses existed in them, and what measures, in their opinion, it would be most expedient to adopt, with a view to the correction of those abuses". The committee made their report in June 1833, having inquired into a handful of boroughs. The committee found that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
