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Widham
Widham is a hamlet now encompassed within the village and parish of Purton, Wiltshire, England. Originally, Widham consisted of a few houses north of Purton along the Cricklade road, parts of Witts Lane, and the toll house at Collins Lane, with Widham Common in the centre. In time, Purton engulfed the hamlet, and only one small area remained as Widham. This, in turn, was divided in the mid-19th century by the railway line between Swindon and Gloucester. A related place name, Widhill, in the parish of Cricklade, can be found approximately 4 miles to the north near the A419 at Blunsdon. During the period of the Enclosure Acts, the common at Widham was awarded to the Earls of Shaftesbury along with 'foot rights' to the cottages around the common to the highway (which had been a private road with tolls collected at the toll house). The highway then became a public road. Tolls, however, continued to be collected into the late 19th century. Pincocks Orchard, one of the last remaini ...
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Purton
Purton is a large village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about northwest of the centre of Swindon. The parish includes the village of Purton Stoke and the hamlets of Bentham, Hayes Knoll, Purton Common, Restrop, The Fox and Widham. The River Key, a tributary of the Thames, crosses the parish near Purton Stoke. The village is a linear settlement along the old road between the historic market towns of Cricklade, to the north, and Royal Wootton Bassett, to the south. It is now on a minor road, from junction 16 of the M4 motorway. The village is on the brow of a hill, with views across to Cricklade and the Thames floodplain. Nearby, Bradon Forest stretches out to Minety in the west. The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin is unusual in having two towers, one with a spire. History The toponym Purton is derived from the Old English ''pirige'' for "pear" and ''tun'' for "enclosure" or "homestead". Early history Ringsbury Camp has eviden ...
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The Ghost Train - Geograph
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pr ...
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Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the northeast and Berkshire to the east. The county town was originally Wilton, after which the county is named, but Wiltshire Council is now based in the county town of Trowbridge. Within the county's boundary are two unitary authority areas, Wiltshire and Swindon, governed respectively by Wiltshire Council and Swindon Borough Council. Wiltshire is characterised by its high downland and wide valleys. Salisbury Plain is noted for being the location of the Stonehenge and Avebury stone circles (which together are a UNESCO Cultural and World Heritage site) and other ancient landmarks, and as a training area for the British Army. The city of Salisbury is notable for its medieval cathedral. Swindon is ...
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Cricklade
Cricklade is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in north Wiltshire, England, midway between Swindon and Cirencester. It is the first downstream town on the Thames. The parish population at the 2011 census was 4,227. History Cricklade was founded in the 9th century by the Anglo-Saxons, at the point where the Ermin Way Roman road crossed the River Thames. It was the home of a royal mint from 979 to 1100; there are some Cricklade coins in the town museum.Christopher Winn: ''I Never Knew That about the River Thames'' (London: Ebury Press, 2010), p. 6. The Domesday Book of 1086 records a settlement at ''Crichelade'', with a church, and at the centre of a hundred of the same name. Anglo-Saxon fortification Cricklade is one of thirty burhs (boroughs, i.e. fortresses or fortified towns) recorded in the Burghal Hidage document, which describes a system of fortresses and fortified towns built around Wessex by King Alfred. Recent research suggests these burhs were built in th ...
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Common Land
Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect wood, or to cut turf for fuel. A person who has a right in, or over, common land jointly with another or others is usually called a commoner. In the New Forest, the New Forest Commoner is recognised as a minority cultural identity as well as an agricultural vocation, and members of this community are referred to as Commoners. In Great Britain, common land or former common land is usually referred to as a common; for instance, Clapham Common and Mungrisdale Common. Due to enclosure, the extent of common land is now much reduced from the millions of acres that existed until the 17th century, but a considerable amount of common land still exists, particularly in upland areas. There are over 8,000 registered commons in England alone. Origins Originally in medieval England the common ...
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Swindon
Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon unitary authority area had a population of 233,410 as of 2021. Located in South West England, the town lies between Bristol, 35 miles (56 kilometres) to its west, and Reading, equidistant to its east. Recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book as ''Suindune'', it was a small market town until the mid-19th century, when it was selected as the principal site for the Great Western Railway's repair and maintenance works, leading to a marked increase in its population. The new town constructed for the railway workers produced forward-looking amenities such as the UK’s first lending library and a ‘cradle-to-grave' health care centre that was later used as a blueprint for the NHS. After the Second World War, the town expanded dramatically again, as industry and people moved out f ...
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Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east of the border with Wales. Including suburban areas, Gloucester has a population of around 132,000. It is a port, linked via the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal to the Severn Estuary. Gloucester was founded by the Romans and became an important city and ''colony'' in AD 97 under Emperor Nerva as '' Colonia Glevum Nervensis''. It was granted its first charter in 1155 by Henry II. In 1216, 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 underlined by the fact that it had a number of monastic establishments, including: St Peter's Abbey founded in 679 (later Gloucester Cathedral), the nearby St Oswald's Priory, Glouce ...
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A419
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 Cricklade by-p ...
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Blunsdon
Blunsdon is a civil parish in the Borough of Swindon, in Wiltshire, England, about north of the centre of Swindon, with the A419 forming its southern boundary. Its main settlement is the village of Broad Blunsdon, with Lower Blunsdon nearby; the hamlet of Broadbush is now contiguous with Broad Blunsdon. Blunsdon is the eastern half of the former Blunsdon St Andrew civil parish. In April 2017, that parish was divided and the western half became a new St Andrews parish. History Blunsdon dates from Roman times: it was discovered that a Roman travellers’ resting place existed on the site of the present-day Cold Harbour public house. The main A419 road follow the course of a Roman road known as Ermin Street that linked the historic Roman towns of Gloucester (Glevum) and Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum), via Cirencester ( Corinium). The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded three estates at ''Bluntesdone'', with altogether ten households. Widhill Widhill, land lying north of Blunsdon ...
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Enclosure Act
The Inclosure Acts, which use an archaic spelling of the word now usually spelt "enclosure", cover enclosure of open fields and common land in England and Wales, creating legal property rights to land previously held in common. Between 1604 and 1914, over 5,200 individual enclosure acts were passed, affecting 28,000 km2. History Before the enclosures in England, a portion of the land was categorized as "common" or "waste". "Common" land was under the control of the lord of the manor, but certain rights on the land such as pasture, pannage, or estovers were held variously by certain nearby properties, or (occasionally) ''in gross'' by all manorial tenants. "Waste" was land without value as a farm strip – often very narrow areas (typically less than a yard wide) in awkward locations (such as cliff edges, or inconveniently shaped manorial borders), but also bare rock, and so forth. "Waste" was not officially used by anyone, and so was often farmed by landless peasants. The ...
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Earls Of Shaftesbury
Earl of Shaftesbury is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1672 for Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Baron Ashley, a prominent politician in the Cabal then dominating the policies of King Charles II. He had already succeeded his father as second Baronet of Rockbourne in 1631 and been created Baron Ashley, of Wimborne St Giles in the County of Dorset, in 1661, and he was made Baron Cooper, of Paulett in the County of Somerset, at the same time he was given the earldom. These titles are also in the Peerage of England. Baron Ashley is used as a courtesy title by the Earl's eldest son and heir apparent. The Baronetcy, of Rockbourne in the County of Southampton, was created in the Baronetage of England in 1622 for the Earl's father John Cooper. He sat as Member of Parliament for Poole. History The first Earl was succeeded by his son, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 2nd Earl of Shaftesbury. He represented Melcombe Regis and Weymouth in the House of Commons. His son, Anthony ...
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Greengage
The greengages are a group of cultivars of the common European plum. The first true greengage came from a green-fruited wild plum ( fa , گوجه‌سبز, Gowjehsabz) which originated in Iran (Persia). Greengages are grown in temperate areas and are known for the rich, confectionery flavour. They are considered to be among the finest dessert plums. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' regards "gage" and "greengage" as synonyms. However, not all gages are green, and some horticulturists make a distinction between the two words, with greengages as a variety of the gages, scientifically named '' Prunus domestica'' (subsp. ''italica'' var. ''claudiana''.)Andrew F. Smith The gages otherwise include the large and usually purple to blackish but occasionally bright yellow round plums as well as the ancient and little-known Austrian varieties ''Punze'' (var. ''rotunda'') and ''Weinkriech'' (var. ''vinaria''). Description Greengage fruit are identified by their round-oval shape and smo ...
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