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Halifax West Yorkshire

Approximate Population: 82,056

Halifax was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1848 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835, and with the passing of the Local Government Act 1888 became a County Borough in 1889.   Since 1974, Halifax has been the administrative centre of the Metropolitan District of Calderdale, part of the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire.

North Halifax is noted for its local support of the far-right British National Party; the suburb of Mixenden became the first area in West Yorkshire to popularly vote in a BNP councillor, with Illingworth soon to follow.

Topographically, Halifax is located in the south-eastern corner of the moorland region called the South Pennines. Halifax is situated about 4 miles (6.4 km) from the M62 motorway close to Bradford, Huddersfield and Rochdale.   The Tees-Exe line passes through the A641 road, which links nearby Brighouse with Bradford and Huddersfield, The town lies 65 miles (105 km) from Kingston upon Hull and Liverpool, and about 200 miles (320 km) from the cities of London, Edinburgh, Belfast, Dublin and Cardiff as the crow flies. The major waterway is the River Calder.

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Portsmouth Hampshire

Approximate Population: 197,700

Portsmouth is administered by Portsmouth City Council, which is currently a unitary authority.   Portsmouth was granted its first charter in 1194. In 1904 the boundaries were extended to finally include the whole of Portsea Island. The boundaries were further extended in 1920 and 1932, taking in areas of the mainland.

Until April 1, 1997 it was a non-metropolitan district of Hampshire.   Portsmouth remains part of the Ceremonial county of Hampshire.   The city is divided into two parliamentary constituencies, Portsmouth South and Portsmouth North, represented in the House of Commons by, respectively, a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, Mike Hancock, and a Labour MP, Sarah McCarthy-Fry.

The city council is made up of 42 councillors. There is no overall majority control of the city council, with 19 Liberal Democrat, 19 Conservative, 2 Labour, and 2 members of the Independent group. The Council is currently led by the Liberal Democrats with the two independents forming part of the administration. Gerald Vernon-Jackson is the council leader. Councillors are returned from 14 wards, each ward having three councillors. Councillors have a 4 year term, only one council seat is up for election in each Ward at any one election.

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Sheds Suppliers Birkenhead Merseyside

Approximate Population: 83,729

In 1886 Birkenhead and Liverpool were linked by an underground railway system, which today is part of the Merseyrail network.

The major underground station in Birkenhead is Hamilton Square, the nearest station to the ferry terminal. Hamilton Square station is linked to the “Liverpool Loop” of the Wirral Line, which includes James Street, Moorfields, Liverpool Lime Street and Liverpool Central stations, all of which are underground.   Other stations located in Birkenhead include Birkenhead Central, Green Lane, Rock Ferry, Conway Park, Birkenhead Park, Birkenhead North and Bidston.

The Wirral Line from Birkenhead travels south to Chester and Ellesmere Port, north to New Brighton and westwards, across the Wirral Peninsula, to West Kirby. The Borderlands Line leaves Bidston station, in the north of Birkenhead and travels through the rural centre of Wirral, ultimately leaving England near Shotton and terminating in Wrexham, Wales.

From 1878, until its closure in 1967, Birkenhead Woodside railway station was the town’s mainline railway terminus.   Originally located close to Woodside Ferry Terminal, the site has been redeveloped into flats, a bus depot and offices for HM Land Registry.

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Sheds Suppliers Chester Cheshire

Approximate Population: 77,040

A considerable amount of land in Chester is owned by the Duke of Westminster who owns an estate – Eaton Hall – near the village of Eccleston. He also has vast London properties in Mayfair.   Indeed, the clock tower which houses Big Ben was copied on the Duke’s estate home of Eaton Hall and can be seen from the road from Aldford to Chester today.

Grosvenor is the Duke’s family name, which explains such features in the City such as the Grosvenor Bridge, the Grosvenor Hotel, and Grosvenor Park. Much of Chester’s architecture dates from the Victorian era, many of the buildings being modelled on the Jacobean half-timbered style and designed by John Douglas, who was employed by the Duke as his principal architect. He had a trademark of twisted chimney stacks, many of which can be seen on the buildings in the city centre.

Douglas designed amongst other buildings the Grosvenor Hotel and the City Baths.   In 1911, Douglas’ protégé and city architect James Strong designed the then active fire station on the west side of Northgate Street. Another feature of all buildings belonging to the estate of Westminster is the ‘Grey Diamonds’ – a weaving pattern of grey bricks in the red brickwork laid out in a diamond formation.

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Sheds Suppliers 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.

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Sheds Suppliers Gillingham Kent

Approximate Population: 99,773

Within Gillingham there are many churches from different denominations of Christianity.   In 1896, Our Lady of Gillingham Roman Catholic Church was built close to the site of the Saint Mary Magdalene Church, which overlooks the River Medway.

It followed after other Catholic churches in the area, the closest, St Michael’s in Chatham (built 1863).   Our Lady of Gillingham was built on the town of New Brompton, as Gillingham was then called, to mainly cater for the new workforce - those employed at Chatham Dockyard.   The church itself was started in 1890, and was completed by 1896, being opened on 12 May 1896.

A local Catholic school was established on the site of the church in 1894.   The schoolrooms were used until 1972, when the infant section of the school relocated to nearby Greenfield Road.   In 1988, after more building work on the new site, the whole school was reunited on its new site at Greenfield Road.

The Church celebrated its centenary in May 1996, two years after the local school.  Gillingham also has the Jāmi’ah mosque and a Hindu Sabha Mandir.

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Sunderland Tyne and Wear

Approximate Population: 177,739

As the former heavy industries have declined in Sunderland, so electronic, chemical, paper and motor manufactures have replaced them, including the Nissan car plant at Washington.

From 1990, the banks of the Wear experienced a massive physical regeneration with the creation of housing, retail parks and business centres on former shipbuilding sites.   Alongside the creation of the National Glass Centre the University of Sunderland has also built a new campus on the St. Peter’s site.   The clearance of the Vaux Breweries site on the north west fringe of the City Centre has created a further opportunity for new development in the city centre.

Like many cities, Sunderland comprises a number of areas with their own distinct histories, for example Fulwell, Monkwearmouth, Roker, and Southwick on the northern side of the Wear, and Bishopwearmouth and Hendon to the south.

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Brighton East Sussex

Approximate Population: 263,464

The Royal Pavilion is a former royal palace built as a home for the Prince Regent during the early 1800s and is notable for Indian architecture and Oriental interior design. The building and grounds were purchased by the town in 1849 for £53,000.

Brighton Pier (originally and in full “The Brighton Marine Palace and Pier”, and for long known as the Palace Pier) opened in 1899.   It features a funfair, restaurants and arcade halls.   The funfair has been criticised for its prices, with rides costing up to £8. Brightonians refer to it as Palace Pier in protest at the commercialisation.

The West Pier was built in 1866 and has been closed since 1975 awaiting renovation, which faces continual setbacks, in part because the owners of the Palace Pier, the Noble Organisation, have opposed plans.[12] The West Pier is one of only two Grade I listed piers in the United Kingdom, but suffered two fires in 2003.   Plans for a new landmark in its place – the i360, a 183m (600 ft) observation tower designed by London Eye architects Marks Barfield – were announced in June 2006. Plans were approved by the council on 11 October 2006.  As of early 2009, construction had yet to begin.

Created in 1883, Volk’s Electric Railway runs along the inland edge of the beach from Brighton Pier to Black Rock.   It is the world’s oldest operating electric railway.

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Ripon North Yorkshire

Approximate Population: 15,922

Ripon became a cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Ripon, in 1836, with the creation of the Diocese of Ripon, the first new diocese to be created in England since the Reformation.    This also led to the recognition of city status for Ripon.

There are a number of monuments of historical and antiquarian interest. The diocese, called ‘Ripon and Leeds’ since 1999, includes rather less than one-third of the parishes of Yorkshire.  Bishop Mount, the home of the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, is about a mile north of Ripon, while the old Bishop’s Palace, a Victorian building in Tudor style, is situated in extensive grounds about a mile west.   In the vicinity is the domain of Studley Royal, the seat of the Marquess of Ripon, which contains the celebrated ruins of Fountains Abbey.   The principal secular buildings are the town hall, the public rooms, and the mechanics’ institution (1894).

There are several old charities, including the hospital of St John the Baptist, founded in 1109 but modernized; the hospital of St Anne, founded probably in the reign of Henry VI by an unknown benefactor; and the hospital of St Mary Magdalene for women.   This last was founded by Thurstan, archbishop of York (1114–41), as a secular community, one of the special duties of which was to minister to lepers.   In the 13th century a master and chaplain took the place of the lay brethren, and in 1334 a chantry was founded.   The chapel remains, with its interesting Norman work, its low side-windows, said to have allowed the lepers to follow the services, and its pre-Reformation altar of stone, a rare example.

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Sheds Suppliers Lewisham Greater London

Approximate Population: 248,922

It is most likely to have been founded by a pagan Jute, Leof, who settled (by burning his boat) near St Mary’s Church (Ladywell) where the ground was drier, in the 6th century. As to the etymology of the name, Daniel Lysons (1796) wrote:

“In the most ancient Saxon records this place is called Levesham, that is, the house among the meadows; leswe, læs, læse, or læsew, in the Saxon, signifies a meadow, and ham, a dwelling. It is now written, as well in parochial and other records as in common usage, Lewisham.”

‘Leofshema’ was an important settlement at the confluence of the rivers Quaggy (from Farnborough) and Ravensbourne (Caesar’s Well, Keston), so the village expanded north into the wetter area as drainage techniques improved.   In the mid-seventeenth century the then vicar of Lewisham, Abraham Colfe, built a grammar school, primary school and six almshouses for the inhabitants. The Earl of Dartmouth became the (hereditary) Viscount Lewisham in 1711.

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