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Westminster Greater London

Approximate Population: 181,766

Westminster is an area of Central London, within the City of Westminster.   It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, southwest of the City of London and 0.5 miles (0.8 km) southwest of Charing Cross.   It has a large concentration of London’s historic and prestigious landmarks and visitor attractions, including Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and much of the West End of London.

Historically a part of Middlesex, the name Westminster was the ancient description for the area around Westminster Abbey–the West Minster, or monastery church, that gave the area its name–which had been the seat of the government of England for almost a thousand years.   Since its construction in the mid-19th century, Westminster has been location of the Palace of Westminster, a UNESCO World Heritage Site which houses the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

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Westminster Greater London

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Stirling Scotland

Approximate Population: 41,243

Standing near the castle, the Church of the Holy Rood (Holy Cross) is one of Stirling’s most historically important buildings.   The Church of the Holy Rude, which was rebuilt in the 1400s after Stirling suffered a catastrophic fire in 1405, is the only surviving church in the United Kingdom apart from Westminster Abbey, to have held a coronation.   On the 29 July 1567 the infant son of Mary Queen of Scots was crowned James VI of Scotland here. Musket shot marks from Cromwell’s troops during the War of the Three Kingdoms are clearly visible on the tower and apse.   Another important historical religious site in the area is Cambuskenneth Abbey.

During the War of the Three Kingdoms, the Battle of Stirling also took place in the centre of Stirling on 12 September 1648.

The fortifications continued to play a strategic military role during the 18th century Jacobite Risings. In 1715, the Earl of Mar failed to take control of the castle.   In January 1746, the army of Bonnie Prince Charlie seized control of the town but failed to take the Castle.   On their consequent retreat northwards, they blew up the church of St. Ninians where they had been storing munitions; only the tower survived and can be seen to this day.

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Watford Hertfordshire

Approximate Population: 79,600

Watford is a major regional centre for the northern home counties.   It is the most westerly of these commercial centres and the only one in Hertfordshire.   Hertfordshire County Council designates Watford and Stevenage to be its major sub-regional centres, heading its list of preferred sites for retail development.  The primary shopping area is the Harlequin Shopping Centre, a large purpose-built indoor mall with over 140 shops, restaurants and cafes built during the 1990s, opened officially in June 1992.

The High Street, running through the town centre, is the main focus of activity at night having a high concentration of the town’s bars, clubs and restaurants.

The head offices of a number of national companies such as Camelot Group, operator of the National Lottery; Iveco, manufacturers of commercial vehicles; Haden Young, the building services division of Balfour Beatty; Bathstore, the largest bathroom retailer in the UK; construction firm Taylor Woodrow; and Mothercare, are located in the town.   The borough is also the UK base of many multi-nationals including Total Oil, Sanyo, TK Maxx, Costco, Vinci, and Beko.

The town was home to the Scammell Lorries Factory from 1922 until its closure in 1988.   The site is now a residential area.  Plans are underway to develop a new Health Campus complete with heliport adjacent to the site of the current Watford General Hospital.

Houses for Sale Watford Hertfordshire

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Derry Northern Ireland

Approximate Population: 83,652

During the 1640s, the city suffered in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which began with the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when the Gaelic Irish insurgents made a failed attack on the city.   In 1649 the city and its garrison, which supported the republican Parliament in London, were besieged by Scottish Presbyterian forces loyal to King Charles I.

The Parliamentarians besieged in Derry were relieved by a strange alliance of Roundhead troops under George Monck and the Irish Catholic general Owen Roe O’Neill.   These temporary allies were soon fighting each other again however, after the landing in Ireland of the New Model Army in 1649.   The war in Ulster was finally brought to an end when the Parliamentarians crushed the Irish Catholic Ulster army at the battle of Scarrifholis in nearby Donegal in 1650.

During the Glorious Revolution, only Londonderry and nearby Enniskillen had a Protestant garrison by November 1688.   An army of around 1,200 men, mostly “Redshanks” (Highlanders), under Alexander Macdonnell, 3rd Earl of Antrim, was slowly organised (they set out on the week William of Orange landed in England).   When they arrived on 7 December 1688 the gates were closed against them and the Siege of Derry began.   In April 1689, King James came to the city and summoned it to surrender. The King was rebuffed and the siege lasted until the end of July with the arrival of a relief ship.

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West Bromwich West Midlands

Approximate Population: 136,940

West Bromwich is famous for its football club, West Bromwich Albion.   The club was founded in 1878 and in 1888 it became one of the twelve founder members of the Football League.   It won the league championship in 1920 and has won the FA Cup five times, most recently in 1968.   The club recently won the Coca Cola Championship in 2008.   Albion were based in and around the centre of West Bromwich during their formative years, but moved further out of the town in 1900 when they switched to their current ground, The Hawthorns.

Engineering and chemicals are important to the town’s economy, as it played a crucial part in the Industrial Revolution during the 19th century and still retains many manufacturing jobs to this day, despite a steady nationwide decline in this sector since the 1970s.

Sandwell General Hospital is located near the town centre.   It is part of the Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, one of the largest NHS teaching trusts in the United Kingdom.  William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth had his seat at Sandwell Hall.   Legge was unusual as an aristocrat of this period by being a Methodist and attending the Wednesbury Methodist meetings, where fellow Methodists – many of them colliers and drovers – knew him as “Brother Earl”.

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West Bromwich West Midlands

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Canterbury Kent

Approximate Population: 43,432

Canterbury lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a local government district of Kent, in South East England.   It lies on the River Stour.

Originally a Brythonic settlement, it was renamed Durovernum Cantiacorum by the Roman conquerors in the first century AD.   After the Jutish settlement it became their chief settlement, whence it gained its English name Canterbury, itself derived from the Old English Cantwareburh (”Kent people’s stronghold”).   After the Kingdom of Kent’s conversion to Christianity in 597, St Augustine founded an episcopal see in the city and became the first Archbishop of Canterbury, a position that now heads the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Thomas Becket’s murder at Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 led to the cathedral becoming a place of pilgrimage for Christians worldwide.   This pilgrimage provided the theme for Geoffery Chaucer’s 14th-century literary classic the Canterbury Tales.   The literary heritage continued with the birth of the playwright Christopher Marlowe in the city in the 16th century.

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Chichester West Sussex

Approximate Population: 23,731

It has been argued that Chichester was a bridgehead for the Roman invasion of Britain. The city centre stands on the foundations of the Romano-British city of Noviomagus Reginorum, capital of the Civitas Reginorum, and near to the Roman Palace of Fishbourne.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle it was captured towards the close of the fifth century, by Ælle, and renamed after his son, Cissa. It was the chief city of the Kingdom of Sussex. The Roman Road of Stane Street, connecting Fishbourne Palace with London, passes through the city centre.

The city streets have a cross-shaped layout, inherited from the Romans: radiating outwards from the medieval market cross lead the North, South, East and West shopping streets. Quite a lot of the city walls are in place, and may be walked along over what still remains .

An amphitheatre was built close to what would have been the city walls, outside the East Gate in around 80 AD. The remains are now buried under land currently used as a park, but the bank of the amphitheatre is clearly discernible and a notice board in the park gives more information.

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Houses for Sale Barnsley South Yorkshire

Approximate Population: 218,063

The first historical reference occurs in 1086 in the Domesday Book, in which it is called ‘Berneslai’ with a total population of around 200.   The exact origins of the name Barnsley is still subject to debate, but Barnsley Council claims that its origins lie in the Saxon word Berne, for barn or storehouse, and Lay, for field.

The town lay in the parish of Silkstone and developed little until in the 1150s it was given to the monastery of St John, Pontefract.   The monks decided to build a new town where three roads met: the Sheffield to Wakefield, Rotherham to Huddersfield and Cheshire to Doncaster routes.   The Domesday village became known as “Old Barnsley”, and a town grew up on the new site.

The monks erected a chapel-of-ease dedicated to Saint Mary, which survived intact until 1820, and established a market.   In 1249, a Royal Charter was granted to Barnsley permitting it to hold a weekly market on Wednesdays and annual four-day fair at Michaelmas.   By the 1290s, three annual fairs were held.   The town became the main centre for the Staincross wapentake, but in the mid-sixteenth century still had only 600 inhabitants.

Houses for Sale Barnsley South Yorkshire

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Cheltenham Gloucestershire

Approximate Population: 110,013

The oldest school in Cheltenham is Pate’s Grammar School (founded in 1574).  Cheltenham College (founded in 1841) was the first of the major public schools of the Victorian period.  The school was the setting in 1968 for the classic Lindsay Anderson film if…..  It also hosts the annual Cheltenham Cricket Festival, first staged in 1872, and the oldest cricket festival in the world.  The most famous school in the town, according to the The Good Schools Guide, is Cheltenham Ladies’ College (founded in 1853).

Dean Close School was founded in 1886 in memory of the Reverend Francis Close (1797-1882), a former rector of Cheltenham and the founder of Cheltenham’s great tradition of education.  The town also includes several campuses of the University of Gloucestershire, one other public and six other state schools, plus institutions of further education.

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Cheltenham Gloucestershire

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Lichfield Staffordshire

Approximate Population: 31,000

At Wall, 3 miles to the south of the present city, there was a Romano-British village called Letocetum (from the Celtic for “grey wood”), from which the first half of the name Lichfield is derived.   It was based on a Roman fort next to Watling Street which was used in the first centuries AD, until about AD 160-170, when the fort’s mansio was destroyed by fire at the same time the forum in Wroxeter was also destroyed by fire.

This suggests a revolt of the local British. Legend has it that a thousand Christians were martyred in Lichfield around AD 300, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, and that the name ‘Lichfield’ actually means ‘field of the dead’.   There is however, no evidence to support this legend.

The history of Lichfield in the following centuries is obscure. The Historia Britonum lists the city as one of the 28 cities of Britain around AD 833.   In the Welsh poem The Lament of Cynddylan, Caer Luytcoed (cf modern Welsh Caerlwytgoed — Lichfield) or Lichfield is said to have been taken by the sword by pagan opponents, most likely the Mercians to the east.

Houses for Sale Lichfield Staffordshire