28 Dec 10 Cranford Park
In most urban areas, parks and rural areas are quite precious, particularly to the local inhabitants. Cranford Park, with St. Dunstan’s Church, is one of those places, situated with the M4 motorway to its immediate north, and Heathrow Airport barely a mile to the south.
The River Crane runs through the park, and a ford once crossed the river here, about where it goes under the present Bath Road. From this comes the name Cranford.
Records show that a church has been on the current site of St. Dunstan’s within the park, since the 7th or 8th century, when it would have been a Saxon building.
Cranford is mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086, produced under the orders of William the Conqueror.
The land forming the estate of Cranford, and the current park, changed hands several times down the centuries.
The Berkeley family owned Cranford Manor Estate for some 300 years, from 1618 until 1918, when the estate was sold to Middlesex County Council.
In 1945 the Manor House was demolished. It hadn’t been bombed in World War II, but a number of nearby bombs aimed at Heston Aerodrome had left it in a weakened condition.
The present park was opened as a Public Open Space in 1949.
Tags: 1918, aerodrome, centuries, crane, cranford park, domesday book, heathrow airport, heston, inhabitants, m4 motorway, manor house, middlesex county, public open space, rural areas, several times, st dunstan, urban areas, william the conqueror, world war ii
04 Jun 08 Lend-Lease
The Lend-Lease Act of 1941 was passed in March of that year, which allowed the United States to lend supplies to the UK while still remaining neutral.
It wasn’t until 1994 that Russia finally began to pay back the debts of the former USSR, who had refused to do so,and the UK finally repaid the last of its debt in late 2006.
Tags: allies, great britain, lend-lease, russia, soviet union, united kingdom, world war ii
16 May 08 World’s Longest Pier
Why the sudden rash of photographs from England? Well, quite simply I was going through all my photographs, and I found a few that I might be of interest to you, dear readers, who come from all over the world, in any case.
Also, I guess I wanted to show that the good ‘ole US of A doesn’t have the biggest of quite everything!
There’s been a pier at Southend since 1830, when the local Aldermen decided that one was needed as many boats bring Londoners down river couldn’t call there due to the mudflats, particularly at low tide.
The original wooden pier was replaced by an iron structure in the 1870′s.
The pier has an interesting history, having suffered a number of major fires; a threat of closure in the 1980′s, and requisition by the Royal Navy during World War 2. There is now an RNLI lifeboat station at the pier head, which was built in 2000.
Southend Council are currently promoting the pier as part of its tourism drive, and for the time-being at least its future looks safe.
Oh, the length of the pier? It’s 1.341 miles long. For the metric heads, that’s 2,158 meters. It’s about a 25 minute walk.
Tags: aldermen, boats, closure, dear readers, England, fires, iron structure, lifeboat station, longest pier, low tide, mudflats, photographs, requisition, rnli lifeboat, royal navy, southend council, sudden rash, tourism, world war ii, world's longest pier
