Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme north-east corner of the county,  south-west of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Aldershot Urban Area - a loose conurbation, which also includes other towns such as Camberley, Farnborough and Farnham - has a population of 243,344; it the thirtieth-largest urban area in the UK.

Aldershot is known as the Home of the British Army, a connection which led to its rapid growth from a small village to a Victorian town.

History

Early history

The name is likely to have derived from alder trees found in the area (from the Old English 'alor-sceat' meaning copse, or projecting piece of land, featuring alder trees). Any settlement, though not mentioned by name, would have been included as part of the Hundred of Crondall referred to in the Domesday Book of 1086. The Church of St Michael the Archangel is the parish church for the town and dates to the 12th century with later additions. There was almost certainly an earlier church on the site. Cistercian monks from the nearby Waverley Abbey established granges or farms on their outlying estates, including one at Aldershot by 1175 for sheep grazing. We do not know when monks from the Abbey first came to Aldershot but the first documentary evidence is from 1287 when the Crondall Rental records that at 'Alreshate the Monks of Waverlye hold 31 acres of encroachment'. This area ran from the church of St Michael's down to the area around the present Brickfields Country Park while the grange itself was near the church. John Norden's map of Hampshire, published in the 1607 edition of William Camden's Britannia, indicates that Aldershot was a market town.

Prior to 1850, Aldershott was little known. The area was a vast stretch of common land, a lonely wasteland unsuitable for most forms of agriculture with scant population. As it existed at the time of the Domesday Survey in 1086, the extensive settlement of Crondall in the north-east corner of Hampshire was certainly Scandinavian, for among the customs of that great manor, which included Crondall, Yateley, Farnborough, and Aldershot, that of sole inheritance by the eldest daughter in default of sons prevailed, as over a large part of Cumberland, and this is a peculiarly Norse custom.

The first recorded mention of the manor of Aldershot is in 1573 in the will of Sir John White of Aldershot (c1512–1573), alderman of London and knighted when he became Lord Mayor of London (1563-4). He left Aldershot Manor to his son Sir Robert White of Aldershot (died 1599). He in turn left the manor to be divided between his two daughters, Ellen the wife of Sir Richard Tichborne and Mary, the wife of Sir Walter Tichborne, brother of Richard. The 18th-century jurist Charles Viner lived in the town and printed his A General Abridgment of Law and Equity on a press in his home. In the 18th century, the stretch of the London to Winchester turnpike that passed through Aldershot between Bagshot and Farnham (now known as the Farnborough Road) was the scene of highway robberies. At one time it had "almost as bad a reputation as Hounslow Heath". Dick Turpin is said to have operated in the area having his headquarters nearby in Farnborough, and there were sightings of Spring-heeled Jack.

Growth in the Victorian era
In 1854, at the time of the Crimean War, Aldershot Garrison was established as the first permanent training camp for the British Army. This led to a rapid expansion of Aldershot's population going from 875 in 1851, to in excess of 16,000 by 1861 (including about 9,000 from the military). Mrs Louisa Daniell arrived in the town at this time and set up her Soldier's Home and Institute to cater for the spiritual needs of the soldiers and their families. During this period Holy Trinity church, the Presbyterian church, the Wesleyan church and Rotunda chapel were built in the town centre to cater for the spiritual needs of the increasing numbers of troops in the nearby camp and the growing civilian town. In August 1856, on her return from the Crimean War and "wishing to be with her sons in the Army", Mary Seacole with her business partner Thomas Day is said to have arrived in Aldershot where they attempted to open a canteen. In her autobiography, Seacole wrote: 'We set to bravely at Aldershott to retrieve our fallen fortunes, and stem off the ruin originated in the Crimea, but all in vain...'. The venture is believed to have failed through lack of funds and the two being declared bankrupt.

Aldershot Military Tattoo
The Aldershot Military Tattoo was an annual event dating back to 1894. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Aldershot Command Searchlight Tattoo held at the Rushmoor Arena presented displays from all branches of the services, including performances lit by flame torches. At one time the performances attracted crowds of up to 500,000 people. The Tattoo was organised to raise money for military charities. By the end of the 1930s, the event was raising around £40,000 annually. The Tattoo's modern format, the Army Show, was cancelled in 2010 by the Ministry of Defence due to budget cuts. It was briefly revived the following year and attracted 20,000 visitors. In 2012, it was styled as the Aldershot Garrison Show, a smaller free event held on Armed Forces Day.

The Army Show was replaced in 2013 with a general Military Festival. Events were held across the town, including an art exhibition, live music, sports events and film screenings.

During the World Wars
In 1914, Aldershot had the largest army camp in the country with 20% of the British Army being based in and around the town. Aldershot was home for two Infantry Divisions and a Cavalry Brigade in addition to large numbers of artillery, engineers, service corps and medical services. At the start of World War I, the units based at Aldershot became the 1st Corps of the British Expeditionary Force, and soon tens of thousands of new recruits came to the large training centre in the Camp. This had a great effect on the civilian town as there was a great shortage of accommodation for the troops and many were billeted in local houses and schools. Aldershot played a vital role in the formation of Kitchener's Army, providing the core of the Army from 1914 onwards as well as treating the wounded brought back from the trenches in France and Flanders. The Cambridge Military Hospital was the first base hospital to receive casualties directly from the Western Front and it was here that plastic surgery was first performed in the British Empire by Captain Gillies (later Sir Harold Gillies).

From 1939 to 1945 during World War II, about 330,000 Canadian troops of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian Infantry Brigades passed through Aldershot for training before being deployed for the defence of the United Kingdom while much of the British Army was overseas. Additional units of the Canadian Army followed later creating the largest force of British Commonwealth troops ever to be stationed in the UK at one time. The Aldershot riot of July 1945 caused considerable damage to the town centre when disgruntled Canadian troops tired of waiting to be repatriated rioted in the streets for two evenings. In a gesture of forgiveness and goodwill, the Freedom of the Borough of Aldershot was conferred on the Canadian Army on 26 September 1945 in a ceremony held at the town's recreation ground. In the following year Aldershot's military prison the 'Glasshouse' was burned down in prison riots.

Post War

A substantial rebuilding of the barracks was carried out between 1961 and 1969 by the architecture and engineering firm Building Design Partnership. The work was sped up under government pressure, and various new building technologies were employed with mixed success.

In 1974, Aldershot borough, which had been based at Aldershot Town Hall, merged with Farnborough urban district to form the Borough of Rushmoor under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1972.

After a 2009 campaign, the British Government allowed veteran Gurkha soldiers who had served for more than four years, and their families, to settle in the UK. The rise in the Nepalese population led Gerald Howarth, Conservative Member of Parliament for Aldershot, to request government assistance in expanding local public services to meet the needs of the growing population.

1972 Aldershot bombing

On 22 February 1972, Aldershot experienced the first in a series of mainland IRA attacks. Seven people, six of whom were civilian support staff, including five catering staff and a gardener were killed in a car bomb attack on the 16th Parachute Brigade headquarters mess. A further 19 people were injured. The bombing was claimed by the Official IRA as revenge for the Bloody Sunday massacre. The only army officer killed was Captain Gerry Weston a Catholic British Army chaplain. An area to be developed into a memorial garden was used to mark the 40th anniversary of the bombing in 2012.

Aldershot Military Town

Aldershot Military Town is located between Aldershot and North Camp near Farnborough. It is a garrison town that serves as the location for the military presence in the area. It houses Aldershot Garrison's married quarters, barracks, Army playing fields and other sporting facilities. The military town includes some local landmarks, such as the Aldershot Observatory, Aldershot Military Cemetery, the Union Building, the Royal Garrison Church and other churches. Until 1993, the town served as headquarters for the Royal Corps of Transport and the Army Catering Corps, until they were merged into the Royal Logistic Corps and moved to Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert showed a keen interest in the establishment and development of Aldershot as a garrison town in the 1850s, at the time of the Crimean War. They had a wooden Royal Pavilion built, where they would often stay when attending reviews of the army. In 1860, Albert established and endowed the Prince Consort's Library, which still exists today. To celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897, 25,000 British and Colonial soldiers marched from Laffan's Plain near Farnborough, reviewed by Queen Victoria. Beside the British soldiers, marched men from Canada, India, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Aldershot Military Town comes under its own military jurisdiction. It was home to the Parachute Regiment from its formation in 1940 until it moved to Colchester Garrison in 2003. Many famous people have been associated with the Military Town, including Charlie Chaplin, who made his first stage appearance in The Canteen theatre aged 5 in 1894, and Winston Churchill, who was based there in the late 19th century during his time in the Army.

The area also houses various military and regimental museums, including the Aldershot Military Museum, housed in a red-brick Victorian barracks. Until December 2007, the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces Museum was in Aldershot. It has since moved to the Imperial War Museum Duxford. The RAMC Memorial to the 314 men of the Royal Army Medical Corps who lost their lives in the Boer War of 1899-1902 is located at the top of Gun Hill.

An outline planning application has been agreed for the redevelopment of some of the former Military Town. The Aldershot Urban Extension will bring some 3,850 new homes, two new primary schools, a children's day-care centre, additional secondary school places, community facilities, waste recycling and landscaping to an area of 150 hectares.

In 2013, the MoD announced a £100 million investment to expand Aldershot Garrison and bring 750 more service personnel and their families to settle in Aldershot.

Landmarks

Wellington Statue

A statue of the first Duke of Wellington mounted on his horse, Copenhagen, is situated on Round Hill behind the Royal Garrison Church. The statue is  high,  from nose to tail, over  in girth, weighs 40 tons and is intricately detailed including musculature and veins. It was designed and built by Matthew Cotes Wyatt who used recycled bronze from cannons that were captured at the Battle of Waterloo. It took thirty men over three years to finish the project.

Originally, in 1846, the statue was erected at Hyde Park Corner, London on the Wellington Arch. However, Decimus Burton, architect of the arch, had tried to veto this plan for his preferred "figure in a four horse chariot". Many agreed with Decimus Burton that the statue looked ridiculous since it was out of proportion. It was nicknamed "The Archduke" and was a popular topic in the satirical magazine Punch.

Queen Victoria claimed that the statue ruined the view of the skyline from Buckingham Palace, and she privately proposed that the statue be moved. The Duke, who had only sat for the sculptor on two or three occasions, suddenly became very attached to the statue and would not consider its removal from its arch.

In 1885, the Prince of Wales handed over the monument to Lieutenant General Anderson, the commander of the Aldershot Garrison.

Aldershot Observatory

The observatory is a circular red-brick building with a domed roof, and it stands on Queen's Avenue. Inside is a telescope, 8-inch refractor, mounted on a German-type equatorial mount with a clockwork drive. The telescope and observatory building were a gift from aviation pioneer Patrick Young Alexander to the British Army, a fact which is recorded by a plaque near the observatory door. It reads: "Presented to the Aldershot Army Corps by Patrick Y Alexander Esq 1906".

The Wesleyan Church

The former Wesleyan church on Grosvenor Road has a 100-foot tower that can be seen for miles around the town and which is described as " the only significant tower in the town". Opened in 1877, the church served the Methodists of Aldershot for over 100 years and could seat 1,150 people until its closure in 1988. Today the original complex of church, Soldiers' Home and Hall has been converted into offices, a dental surgery, gymnasium and homes.

Aldershot Buddhist Centre

Aldershot Buddhist Centre is a Buddhist temple and community centre catering for the Buddhists of Aldershot and surrounding area, which is billed as the United Kingdom's first Buddhist community centre. With the influx of large numbers of Nepalis into the area in recent years giving Rushmoor the largest Buddhist community in the United Kingdom, a temple and community centre to cater for their spiritual and secular needs was required. The centre was formally opened on the High Street by the 14th Dalai Lama in June 2015.

Union Building

When a small party of NCOs and men of the Royal Engineers arrived in November 1853 in the area that is today Princes Gardens, they were the first soldiers to arrive in Aldershot. At this time, the area was heathland with the only building in sight being the Union Poor House, built in 1629 as a sub-manor for the Tichborne family and later used as the local workhouse and a school. It was one of five permanent local buildings purchased by the War Department in 1854 as part of the development of the new Aldershot Camp, and was used by the Army from 1854 to 1879 as No 2 Station Hospital. In later years, it saw a variety of uses before being redeveloped as flats.

Transport

Aldershot railway station is a stop on the Alton Line; South Western Railway runs services between London Waterloo, Alton, Guildford and Ascot.

Aldershot is close to several major roads, including the M3 and the A3. Its nearest dual-carriageway roads are the A31 to the south, which heads east towards Guildford and the A3; to the east, the A331 which heads north towards Farnborough and the M3.

Aldershot bus station is the terminus for many bus services within the Aldershot Urban Area and further afield. Bus services from Aldershot are provided by Stagecoach South. National Express coach services operate between London Victoria and Portsmouth twice a day.

Farnborough Airport is located  away, with Heathrow  and Gatwick  away.

Education

There are various schools in Aldershot. These will be joined by two new primary schools being built as part of the Aldershot Urban extension development of 3,850 houses. This development will also be served by a further 675 secondary school places being created at the Alderwood and Wavell schools.

A mix of infants and juniors exists, including Park Primary School and St Michael's (C of E). The infant schools are Talavera, Wellington Primary, and Bell Vue Infant School. Junior schools include: Newport County, Talavera, Wellington Secondary and St Joseph's Primary (Catholic). Aldershot has only one secondary school, Alderwood School (formerly Heron Wood School and The Connaught School), though Ash Manor School, Farnham Heath End School, All Hallows Catholic School and The Wavell School are all local. In the town's West End can be found Rowhill School, a special school for students of secondary age unable to attend mainstream schooling for a variety of reasons. There are also two private schools, Salesian College and Farnborough Hill School in nearby Farnborough.

Local newspapers
The local press is the Aldershot News & Mail, a Surrey Advertiser Group broadsheet. At the end of November 2017, the Surrey-Hants Star Courier, a free tabloid, ceased publication.

Leisure and recreation

Following the demolition of the Theatre Royal and Hippodrome theatres in 1959 and 1961, the local council opened its own Princes Hall in 1973 as an entertainment venue. Another entertainment venue and arts centre is the West End Centre on Queens Road which is popular for small-scale theatre, music and comedy.

Music and dance

Hardcore
The Palace (previously The Palace Cinema, The Rhythm Station, Cheeks, Vox), influenced the rapid growth of the hardcore scene from 1992 to 1995. Weekly events included Fusion (Hectic Records), Tazmania, Slammin' Vinyl and Future World. The club also groomed local talents such as DJ Sharkey, DJ Mystery, DJ Sy, DJ Unknown, Vinylgroover, DJ NS, Hixxy, MC Freestyle, MC Young, MC Smiley and Spyder MC. The location of Aldershot between Southampton and London meant the club became a mecca for Hardcore, and it was regularly sold out during this time. At the height of the club's popularity, a teenager's death from a suspected overdose of ecstasy was the catalyst that saw dance music leaving the club and had a negative impact on the hardcore dance scene in the Aldershot area.

The Beatles in Aldershot

Sam Leach, their then agent and wanting to become their manager, attempted to introduce the Beatles to London agents by promoting shows at The Palais Ballroom, on the corner of Perowne Street and Queens Road in Aldershot on 9 December 1961. Leach wanted to organise a 'battle of the bands' between The Beatles and Ivor Jay and the Jaywalkers from London. The show was not advertised properly and, as a result, only 18 people attended. The local newspaper, The Aldershot News, failed to publish Leach's advertisement for the show. In addition, Ivor Jay and the Jaywalkers failed to appear. However, the band and friends had their own fun after the show, drinking ale, playing football with bingo balls and dancing the foxtrot. The noise became so loud that a neighbour called the police who shut the event down. When interviewed in 1983 about the Aldershot gig, Paul McCartney described it as "the night we couldn't get arrested, but it wasn't for the lack of trying". After the gig, the band went on to London to join an after hours jam at the Blue Gardenia Club. Weeks after this Brian Epstein became the group's manager.

Rock music

At the end of the 1990s and the start of the 2000s, an underground scene of rock bands cropped up around Aldershot. Notable bands include Reuben, Vex Red, Inter and Hundred Reasons.

Shopping

Union Street and Wellington Street at the centre of the town's shopping district were pedestrianised in the 1970s when the Wellington Centre, a covered shopping centre, was built over the site of the town's former open-air market.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the Victorian shopping arcade and various other period buildings in Wellington Street were demolished to allow for the building of an extension to the Wellington Centre known as The Galleries. The Galleries has remained almost vacant for many years now and is currently under consideration for proposed redevelopment into a mixed use retail and residential scheme, with potential commercial leisure space. In 2003, a health check of the town centre concluded that, "Aldershot is experiencing promising signs of revitalisation, particularly in the shopping core". This revitalisation failed to materialise, with prominent traders such as Marks and Spencer leaving the town centre.

In 2005, Rushmoor Borough Council documented the percentage of vacant shops at 10%, 8% and 7% respectively for Union Street, the Wellington Centre and Wellington Street.

The Westgate Leisure Park, which opened in 2012–2013 and which fronts onto Barrack Road, includes a Cineworld cinema, a Morrisons supermarket, and several chain restaurants, including Nando's, Mimosa and Pizza Express. There is also a Tesco superstore located at the rear of the development.

Parks and open spaces

Aldershot has many parks, playgrounds and open spaces for sport, play and leisure, including Aldershot Park, Brickfields Country Park, the Municipal Gardens, Manor Park and the Princes Gardens, the latter three a short walk from the town centre.

The legacy of the Army has meant that the land for leisure use, as well as protected areas for flora and fauna, has been preserved over many years. On the Surrey border can be found Rowhill Nature Reserve which is popular with nature-lovers, dog owners, walkers and joggers.

Sport
Aldershot has many sports facilities including the Rushmoor Gymnastics Academy, Aldershot Tennis Centre, Aldershot Bowling, Aldershot Pools and Lido, Aldershot Garrison Sports Centre, Alderwood Leisure Centre (formerly Connaught Leisure Centre) and Alpine Snow Sports (Dry Ski Centre). Formerly the town also hosted short circuit motor racing including speedway and stock car racing. Greyhound racing took place at Aldershot Stadium, and point-to-point racing at Tweseldown. Famous running club AFD has produced top runners. Aldershot Park hosts a number of sports facilities and organisations.

Athletics
Aldershot is home to arguably the most successful athletics club in British and European history, Aldershot, Farnham & District A.C. The club has produced many Olympians including Roger Hackney, Zola Budd, Lily Partridge and Steph Twell and specialises in middle–long distance running. The home of AFD, as it is commonly known, is the Aldershot Military Stadium, Aldershot. Blackwater Valley Runners are a social running club and organise many local races.

Swimming
Opened in 1930, Aldershot Lido is a traditional outdoor leisure pool that contains 1.5 million gallons of water situated on a  site. The original land was a lake that had become overgrown with weeds. It was bought by the Borough Council in 1920 for £21,000 and was the focus of the council's improvement projects for the town. The Lido became an Olympic venue in 1948 when it was the site of the swimming event in the Modern Pentathlon of that year's London Olympic Games. The pool has extensive areas of shallow water for children to play including a large fountain at the centre. It also has a diving area and water slides. There is an adjoining 25 m indoor pool that allows all year round swimming.

Football

The local professional football team is Aldershot Town who compete in the Football Conference. Before 1992 the local club was Aldershot, which folded on 25 March 1992, while playing in the Football League Fourth Division. The current club was formed shortly afterwards and achieved five promotions in its first 16 seasons to return to the Football League in 2008. The previous Aldershot club's biggest success arguably came in 1987, just five years before closure, when they became the first team to win the Football League Fourth Division promotion play-offs, at the expense of a far bigger club – Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Since 1927, the main football ground in the town, and home of both teams, is the Recreation Ground, also known as "The Rec". It has a capacity for 7,100, of which 2,000 can be seated.

A number of successful current and former footballers are from the Aldershot area, including Johnny Berry, who was born in the town in 1926. He played for Birmingham City and Manchester United before his playing career was ended by injuries sustained in the Munich air disaster on 6 February 1958. He had won three league title medals with Manchester United. He later returned to Aldershot to run a sports shop with his brother Peter. He continued to live locally until he died in September 1994, at the age of 68.

Other footballers born in Aldershot include Craig Maskell (a striker for clubs including Southampton, Swindon Town and Reading) during the 1980s and 1990s, and Bruce Rioch. Rioch played for clubs including Luton Town, Aston Villa and Derby County before managing clubs including Middlesbrough and Arsenal, but played for the Scotland team during the 1970s due to his ancestry. Another player from the area is Joe Ralls who played youth football for Aldershot Town FC and currently plays for EFL Championship side Cardiff City FC. Another former notable player is current Burnley Goalkeeper Nick Pope. Pope was at Aldershot on loan from Charlton at the time.

On 25 October 2011 Aldershot Town played Manchester United at the Recreation Ground in the League Cup 4th round losing 3–0, their most successful run to date in the Carling Cup.

Cricket
Aldershot Cricket Club is based in Aldershot Park in the town and plays in the Thames Valley Cricket League. Army cricket matches have been played at the Officers Club Services Ground, which has also played host to home matches for Hampshire County Cricket Club. Many of these matches held first-class status.

Hockey
Aldershot Cricket Club shares facilities with the successful Aldershot & Farnham Hockey Club who, in 2022, were looking for a more permanent base.

Rugby union
Formerly known as Fleet RUFC, the club started in 1991 as a pub side. The club was renamed Aldershot and Fleet RUFC (A&F or the Stags) after their move in 2003 from Farnborough to their current home, Aldershot Park. With an ever-expanding juniors section, Aldershot & Fleet were successful in winning the coveted RFU "Seal of Approval" Club of the Year 2008 for the southern region. They now play in the Hampshire 2 league. The club also hosts a Rugby League Vet's team for over 35's.

Greyhound racing
Greyhound racing took place regularly at the now closed Aldershot Stadium in Tongham during the 1950s.

Stock car racing

Aldershot Stadium was located in Oxenden Road, Tongham, and staged Stock Car racing for the first time on 30 October 1954. Together with other short-circuit formulae (including Superstox, Hot Rods, Bangers and Midgets), racing was held regularly (every Thursday evening, every Boxing Day afternoon and later on Saturdays).

The racing took place initially on a loose shale track inside the greyhound track; after Motorcycle speedway racing at the venue ceased, the shale track was replaced with a hard tarmaced surface. The track was home to the Aldershot Knights for National League team racing in 1966 and again in 1971 and 1972.

The site was the headquarters for the promoter, Spedeworth International ltd. Major national events at the track were few and far between – the most notable title race contested there being the 1975 British Superstox Championship (27 Sep 1975, won by Steve Monk).

The final meeting at Oxenden Road took place on 21 November 1992. Immediately after this date, the site was cleared for construction of the A331 Blackwater Valley Road, which forms a by-pass for Aldershot and Farnborough.

Now, short-circuit motor sport takes place in Aldershot again, at the Aldershot Raceway, Pegasus Village, Rushmoor Arena. It was founded and named by a local man and ex short circuit racing driver Malcolm Roberts, his wife Gwen and their children, in memory of and following the death of their eldest son, also Malcolm, a short circuit motor racing enthusiast. The site is now operated by Spedeworth, whilst the Roberts family relocated to a new circuit in Aldermaston, West Berkshire.

Speedway racing
Circa 1929, a track operated at a stadium in Boxalls Lane. Speedway returned to Aldershot in 1950 at the local greyhound stadium. The Shots featured in the lower echelons of the sport up to 1960.

Olympics
Aldershot hosted three of the five events in the modern pentathlon at the 1948 London Olympics. The swimming was held in Aldershot Lido, Maida Gymnasium hosted the fencing, and the cross-country equestrian event was held at Tweseldown. All of the Olympic equestrian events, excluding the Prix des Nations, were also held at Aldershot. It was announced on 15 January 2008 that the Aldershot Military Town had been chosen as the official training camp for the British Olympic team ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games in London. However, in April 2010, it was announced that Team GB would be training at Loughborough University.

Politics

Aldershot is divided into the following wards:

Rushmoor Borough Council
Rowhill: southwest of the town has three Conservative councillors.
Wellington: west of the town together with the northern half of the town centre, combines the most compact urban parts of the town northern part of the town centre, much of the military town and a very large acreage of unpopulated woodlands, forests and heathland. It has two Labour councillors and one Conservative councillor.
Manor Park: south of the town and the southern half of the town centre has three Conservative councillors.
Aldershot Park: southeast of the town has three Labour councillors.
North Town: northeast of the town has three Labour councillors.
St Marks: north of the town and parts of Farnborough has three Conservative councillors.

Hampshire County Council
Aldershot North: the north west of the town has one Labour councillor.
Aldershot South: the south east of the town has one Conservative councillor.

As of the May 2018 Rushmoor Borough Council Elections and the May 2017 Hampshire County Council Elections, of the 20 seats on Rushmoor Borough Council and Hampshire County Council covering Aldershot, the Conservatives hold 12 and Labour hold 8.

Member of Parliament
The town is represented in Parliament through the Aldershot constituency. The current MP is Leo Docherty, Conservative.

Climate
Aldershot is a Cfb according to the Köppen climate classification.

Notable people from Aldershot

Eve Stratford, Playboy Club Bunny who was the victim of one of Britain's unsolved murders in 1975.
Martin Freeman, actor in The Office, The Hobbit, and Sherlock.
Ian McEwan, novelist
Ben Norris (comedian), stand-up comedian, who has appeared on Mock the Week and Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
Arthur English, actor and comedian, in honour of whom there is now a blue plaque at 22 Lysons Road.
Amelle Berrabah, singer, songwriter and former member of the Sugababes.
Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience and Nicholas Kurti Senior Fellow at Brasenose College at the University of Oxford
John Lucarotti, screenwriter.
Joel Freeland, professional basketball player, having played for both the Portland Trail Blazers and CSKA Moscow.
Holly Aird, actress known for her role in Waking The Dead.
Alfred Toye, Aldershot-born recipient of the Victoria Cross during World War I
DanTDM (Daniel Robert Middleton), YouTube personality, professional gamer, and author.
James Wade, professional darts player on the PDC
Alex Reid, mixed martial arts fighter and ex-husband of Katie Price.
Joe Jopling, professional footballer.
Johnny Berry, Manchester United footballer and 'Busby Babe'.
Sai Bennett, actress, born in 1990 in Aldershot.

Location filming

The barracks scenes in the 1968 film The Charge of the Light Brigade starring David Hemmings and Trevor Howard were filmed at the old West Cavalry Barracks (now largely demolished). The gates of the South Cavalry Barracks stood in as the prison gates for the 1960 film Two-Way Stretch starring Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Hyde-White and Lionel Jeffries.

The area was used for location filming of the 1970 Doctor Who serial The Ambassadors of Death.

Due to its architecture, Bruneval Barracks in Montgomery Lines was chosen as the location for snowy scenes in Kazan, Russia, at the end of the 2009 James Bond film Quantum of Solace. Parts of Aldershot's military training area were also used for the opening sequence in the 2002 James Bond film Die Another Day.

The Montgomery Lines were again used for Brad Pitt's film World War Z based on the novel by Max Brooks.

The HBO series House of the Dragon filmed a number of scenes for the third episode on the Ceaser's Camp military training ground on the border of Farnham and Aldershot.

Twin towns – sister cities

Rushmoor is twinned with:
 Dayton, Ohio, United States (since 2019)
 Gorkha Municipality, Nepal (since 2020)
 Meudon, France (since 1974)
 Oberursel, Germany (since 1989)
 Rzeszów, Poland (since 2019)
 Sulechów, Poland (since 2001)

See also

List of army barracks around Aldershot
Aldershot Military Cemetery
Aldershot Cemetery, the town's civil cemetery
Aldershot Crematorium
St Joseph's Church, Aldershot
Church of St Michael the Archangel
Holy Trinity Church, Aldershot
Wesleyan Church, Aldershot

References

External links

Rushmoor Borough Council
The Aldershot Tattoo (Web archive)
The Aldershot Civic Society
Aldershot Military Museum
Aldershot Library Military Collection
Brickfields Country Park

Towns in Hampshire
Venues of the 1948 Summer Olympics
Olympic equestrian venues
Military in Hampshire
Towns with cathedrals in the United Kingdom
Unparished areas in Hampshire
Rushmoor
Populated places established in the 11th century
1086 establishments in England

Aldershot


The wallum sedge frog or olongburra frog (Litoria olongburensis) is a frog from eastern Australia.  It lives in Queensland and New South Wales.

The adult male frogs is 25 mm long from nose to rear end and the female is 27 to 31 mm long.  It is gray, brown or bright green, with blue or orange colour on its legs.  It has brown and white stripes and a white belly.  It has only a little webbing on the front feet and more on the hind feet.  It has large discs on its toes for climbing.  It has vomerine teeth in its upper jaw.

This frog lives near the ocean and on islands with sandy soil.  It lives in creeks and marshes that have acidic water (pH 2.8-5.5), such as wallums.  If the water becomes less acidic, then other frogs move in and eat all the food. Adult frogs climb on sedge plants during the day.

This frog lays eggs in acidic water (pH < 6) in temporary or semi-permanent swamps.  They lay eggs 200-1000 at a time near sedge plants.

This frog is also in danger because humans like to build things in the places where they live.  Humans like beaches and seashores, so they sometimes walk over the grasses and shore plants where the frog likes to hide during the day.  Scientists also think the fungal disease chytridiomycosis might be killing these frogs.

Scientists think this frog is also in danger because of invasive species.  Plants from other places might change the places where these frogs like to live.  Frogs from other places eat all their food.  Fish from other places, such as mosquito fish, eat the tadpoles and eggs.  Feral pigs can also run through the wallums and damage them.

References

Pelodryadidae

Wallum sedge frog


Bradford Gates "Brad" Rutter (born January 31, 1978) is the highest winner on the American television game show Jeopardy!, and the highest winner on a game show.

Rutter became a five-time champion on Jeopardy! in 2000. He later won four tournaments: the Tournament of Champions in 2001, the Million Dollar Masters tournament in 2002, the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions in 2005, and the Jeopardy! Battle of the Decades in 2014 His win in the Ultimate Tournament of Champions made him the highest winner on a game show. This was later beaten by Ken Jennings in 2007 when Jennings won $500,000 on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?.  However, Rutter reclaimed the record after he won the Battle of the Decades tournament.

In February 2011, Rutter played against Jennings and an artificial intelligence computer called Watson. Rutter came in third place, losing to Watson. He won $200,000 for placing in third place.

In January 2020, Rutter played against Jennings and James Holzhauer in Jeopardy! Greatest of All Time.  The event was won by Jennings and Rutter finished in third place.

In addition to Jeopardy!, Rutter also appeared on the game show 1 vs. 100 as part of the show's "mob." He played four times: on December 1, 2006, December 8, 2006, December 15, 2006, and February 9, 2007. In 2007, he appeared on the game show Grand Slam. He lost to Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant Ogi Ogas in the second round. In 2011, he appeared as part of a six-person team on the game show Million Dollar Mind Game. His team won $600,000.

References

Other websites

Jeopardy!
1978 births
Living people

Brad Rutter


Fine bubble diffusers are a pollution control technology used to aerate wastewater for sewage treatment.

Description
Fine bubble diffusers produce a plethora of very small air bubbles which rise slowly from the floor of a wastewater treatment plant or sewage treatment plant aeration tank and provide substantial and efficient mass transfer of oxygen to the water. The oxygen, combined with the food source, sewage, allows the bacteria to produce enzymes which help break down the waste so that it can settle in the secondary clarifiers or be filtered by membranes. A fine bubble diffuser is commonly manufactured in various forms: tube, disc, plate, and dome.

Bubble size
The subject of bubble size is important because the aeration system in a wastewater or sewage treatment plant consumes an average of 50 to 70 percent of the energy of the entire plant. Increasing the oxygen transfer efficiency decreases the power the plant requires to provide the same quality of effluent water.  Furthermore, fine bubble diffusers evenly spread out (often referred to as a 'grid arrangement') on the floor of a tank, provide the operator of the plant a great deal of operational flexibility.  This can be used to create zones with high oxygen concentrations (oxic or aerobic), zones with minimal oxygen concentration (anoxic) and zones with no oxygen (anaerobic). This allows for more precise targeting and removal of specific contaminants.

The importance of achieving ever smaller bubble sizes has been a hotly debated subject in the industry as ultra fine bubbles (micrometre size) are generally perceived to rise too slowly and provide too little "pumpage" to provide adequate mixing of sewage in an aeration tank. On the other hand, the industry standard "fine bubble" with a typical discharge diameter of 2 mm is probably larger than it needs to be for many plants.  Average bubble diameters of 0.9 mm are possible nowadays, using special polyurethane (PUR) or special recently developed EPDM membranes.

Fine bubble diffusers have largely replaced coarse bubble diffusers and mechanical aerators in most of the developed world and in much of the developing world. The exception would be in secondary treatment phases, such as activated sludge processing tanks, where 85 to 90 percent of any remaining solid materials (floating on the surface) are removed through settling or biological processes. The biological process uses air to encourage bacterial growth that would consume many of these waste materials, such as phosphorus and nitrogen that are dissolved in the wastewater. The larger air release openings of a coarse bubble diffuser helps to facilitate a higher oxygen transfer rate and bacterial growth. One disadvantage of using fine bubble diffusers in activated sludge tanks is the tendency of floc (particle) clogging the small air release holes.

See also
 List of waste-water treatment technologies

References

Sewerage
Water treatment
Environmental engineering
Water technology

Fine bubble diffusers


A skin-walker (Navajo: yee naaldlooshii) is a fictional shape shifting creature that usually takes the form of a wolf or coyote.  It is said that in order to become one you must kill a close friend or a family member.

Description
The concept of the skin-walker is unique to the Navajo people. In their language, the word yee naaldlooshii means, "with it [the animal skin], he goes on all fours."

A skin-walker may be a man or a woman. Skin-walkers are usually associated with trickster animals like the coyote or with animals that represent death and bad luck. They can turn into any animal they want by wearing its skin. Because of this, the Navajo will not wear the skin of a predator animal. Also, skin-walkers are really fast. People can be possessed by a skin-walker by looking them in the eye.

A skin-walker knows about the same rituals and spells like other Navajo medicine men. Unlike medicine men, they use their knowledge to do evil. A person becomes a skin-walker by killing someone in their family, which is a really evil thing to do according to the Navajo.

The Navajo agree that skin-walkers are hard to kill. According to them, the best way to kill a skin-walker is to get a shaman who knows about good magic to do certain spells and rituals that can return a skin-walker's evil back to them. Others think that skin-walkers can be killed by bullets dipped in white ash. However, these bullets won't work unless they hit the skin-walker in the head or neck.

The skin-walker represents everything evil in the Navajo culture. To them, there is nothing good about the skin-walker. People who are skin-walkers use black magic to kill others.

They really do not like talking about skin-walkers, especially to people who are not Navajo. Some even do not want to say the word and will take great pains to hide it, such as by typing sk*nw*lker. They believe that saying its name or mentioning it will make it appear.

Stories
The Navajo tell stories about the skin-walker in order to teach their children about right and wrong. They believe that children who learn how to do the right thing and lead moral lives are less likely to become evil, which is what the skin-walker is.

When non-Native people talk about the skin-walker, they usually use it in horror movies and stories. But when Native people tell horror stories, they use another scary character to replace the skin-walker.

Legends
Witchcraft
North America

Skin-walker


Rabbit Seasoning is a 1952 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoon directed by Chuck Jones. Released on September 20, 1952, the short stars Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd.

It is the sequel to the previous year's Rabbit Fire, and the second in the "hunting trilogy" directed by Jones and written by Michael Maltese (the only major difference in format between them is that Rabbit Fire takes place during the spring, while Rabbit Seasoning takes place in the autumn. The third cartoon, Duck! Rabbit, Duck!, takes place in the winter). The short was produced by Edward Selzer for Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc., and is the first WB cartoon on which layout artist Maurice Noble received credit.

It is considered to be among Jones' best and most important films. In Jerry Beck's 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons, Rabbit Seasoning is listed at number 30.

Plot
The cartoon opens showing several signs posted throughout the forest indicating that it is rabbit season.  It is revealed that Daffy Duck is the one putting them up, and he is shown stamping the ground with fake rabbit tracks leading to Bugs' hole. Daffy states that while he knows what he is doing is unfair, he has to have some fun "and besides, it's really duck season."

Elmer Fudd then appears and notices the rabbit tracks. He pokes his gun into the hole, threatens to blast Bugs if he does not come out, and then follows through on his threat. Bugs Bunny, however, has been watching from a hole a few feet away and wanders over to Elmer to begin a conversation with him about rabbit season. When Elmer does not appear to notice that Bugs is a rabbit, Daffy is enraged by this and emerges from his hiding spot to point out that Bugs is a rabbit, which the latter confirms, asking if Elmer would like to shoot him now or wait until he gets home. Daffy immediately shouts for the first option and Bugs undermines him, "You keep out of this! He doesn't have to shoot you now!" Daffy sharply asserts, "He does so have to shoot me now!" and demands that Elmer do so. Elmer looks confused for a few seconds, but complies as Daffy sticks his tongue out at Bugs. The shot dislocates his beak to the back of his head and Daffy replaces his beak before requesting to run through again what they just said. Bugs agrees to, and upon reaching Bugs' word swap, Daffy calls him out on "pronoun trouble", saying "It's not 'he doesn't have to shoot you now.' It's 'he doesn't have to shoot me now.'  WELL, I SAY HE DOES HAVE TO SHOOT ME NOW!" Subsequently, Daffy commands Elmer to shoot him again, which he does. Daffy fixes his beak again and is about to rant at Bugs before realizing that he may fall into the same trap once more. He decides to speak to Elmer instead, confirming that Elmer is a hunter and that it is rabbit season. Bugs interjects, asking what Elmer would do if Daffy was a rabbit. Daffy repeats the question forcefully and has enough time to realize what he said (looking towards the camera and meekly saying "Not again") before Elmer shoots him. Daffy fixes his bill once more and laughs sarcastically at Bugs for his trick.

At that point Elmer grows impatient and begins firing at them both. They hide together in Bugs' hole, and Daffy checks to see if the hunter is gone at Bugs' request. Daffy is shot again, and in a daze refuses Bugs' suggestion of being a decoy, whereupon the rabbit dresses up as a woman (wearing a Lana Turner-style sweater). He manages to fool Elmer briefly, but an annoyed Daffy demands that he reveal his identity out of sheer honesty. When Daffy antagonizes Bugs, asking if he has anything to say out of sheer honesty, "she" replies that she would love a duck dinner. A lovestruck Elmer shoots Daffy, who removes his beak by hand as he is shot and replaces it afterwards. The duck approaches the rabbit, briefly apologizes for suspecting him, then removes Bugs' wig to expose him and commands Elmer to shoot him. Bugs responds by asking, "Would you like to shoot him here or wait till you get home?" Daffy attempts to escape any more tricks by choosing the latter option, whereupon he joins Elmer on a walk to his cabin and is once again shot. Daffy walks back to Bugs, fixes his beak, and the cartoon ends with Daffy rebuking Bugs, "You're despicable."

Reception
Animator J. J. Sedelmaier writes, "Of director Chuck Jones' three "Shoot 'im now!" cartoons, Rabbit Seasoning has always been my favorite. Bugs, Daffy, and Elmer are so tightly defined as the characters we all know and love that they're almost parodies of themselves. Even though this short is the second of the series, it's still fresh and tight. What's also amazing is how it doesn't feel like a cartoon that's almost sixty years old. The timing of the cuts — Daffy's expression when Elmer says to Bugs that he "hasn't even seen a wabbit yet" — and the miscellaneous, eccentric W.C. Fields-like sound effects that seem to ooze out of Daffy are still cool today."

Cast
• Mel Blanc as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck

• Arthur Q. Bryan as Elmer Fudd (uncredited)

Home media
Rabbit Seasoning is available on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 1 and Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 2. It is also available on the Salute To Chuck Jones VHS, the Warner Bros. Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24-Karat Collection: Elmer Fudd's Comedy Capers VHS, the Looney Tunes Collectors Edition: All-Stars VHS, and the Bugs Bunny: Winner By A Hare laserdisc.

References

External links

1952 films
1952 animated films
1952 short films
Animated films set in forests
Merrie Melodies short films
Short films directed by Chuck Jones
Films about hunters
Animated films about rabbits and hares
Bugs Bunny films
Daffy Duck films
Elmer Fudd films
Fictional rivalries
1950s Warner Bros. animated short films
Films with screenplays by Michael Maltese
Films scored by Carl Stalling
1950s English-language films

Rabbit Seasoning


John Landry "Buddy" Boudreaux (December 27, 1917 – June 13, 2015) was an American big band and jazz musician. He was born in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. He played saxophone and clarinet. Since 1934, he directed and played in a number of bands that have toured the southern United States and drawn nationally known performers to Baton Rouge.

The State-Times newspaper called him "the city's sound of big band." His bands backed such artists as Andy Williams, Bernadette Peters, Doc Severinsen, Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Burt Bacharach, Johnny Mathis, The Four Tops, Bob Hope, George Burns and Joan Rivers. He opened shows for Tony Bennett, Tony Orlando, Louise Mandrell, The Beach Boys and Bill Cosby. He was co-author—with his barber, Michael T. Abadie—of "My Baton Rouge," which in 1998 was declared the city's official song.

Boudreaux died at the age of 97 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

References

1917 births
2015 deaths
American jazz musicians
Musicians from Louisiana

Buddy Boudreaux


Five Alive () is a line of fruit juice blends created by Minute Maid, a subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company. Both the name and the five colors of the logo refer to the five fruit juices each variety contains.

The juice line was first introduced in the late 1970s in both 12 oz. and 16 oz. cans. Marketing for Five Alive featured the slant rhyme catchphrase "get a taste for life".

Starting in 1981, Five Alive was released in traditional juice box cartons alongside cans. By the 1990s, the beverages were no longer produced for the U.S. market. Five Alive continues limited production in Canada.

Varieties
 Citrus (orange, lemon, grapefruit, tangerine, and lime)
 Passionate Peach Citrus (peach, grape, orange, passion fruit, and lemon)
 Tropical Citrus (orange, apricot, guava, mango, and passion fruit)
Berry Citrus (apple, blackcurrant, grape, raspberry, and strawberry)
Mango Citrus (mango, kiwi, dragon fruit, granadilla, and banana)
 Pomegranate Citrus (grape, orange, pomegranate, tangerine, and lemon)
 Snow Crop (apple, grape, lemon, pineapple, and cherry)

Nutritional information

Five Alive is not a significant source of saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, fiber, vitamin A, calcium, or iron.

The Nutrition Facts label on the Canadian 341 mL ready-to-serve can of Five Alive claims the beverage contains 140% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C.  Five Alive contains 110 calories and 27 grams of sugar per 240 mL.

U.S. Five Alive labels list 41% fruit juice, with high fructose corn syrup as an ingredient after filtered water.

In the United Kingdom, quantitative ingredient labeling is mandatory; U.K. labels show that Five Alive contains 42% fruit juice, as well as 22% sugar and several artificial sweeteners.

References

Coca-Cola brands
Juice brands

Five Alive


The Vaal River ( ;  Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about  north of Ermelo and only about  from the Indian Ocean. It then flows westwards to its confluence with the Orange River southwest of Kimberley in the Northern Cape. It is  long, and forms the border between Mpumalanga, Gauteng and North West Province on its north bank, and the Free State on its south.

It is the third largest river in South Africa after the Orange River (2200 km long) and the Limpopo River (1750 km long) and was established as the main source of water for the great Witswatersrand area after the 19th century gold rush. The Vaal Dam lies on the Vaal River in Deneysville just south of the border between Gauteng and the Free State. The Vaal River is the longest river wholly within the borders of South Africa.

Vaal is a Dutch name (later Afrikaans), translated by the Griquas or Boers from an earlier Kora Khoekhoe or !Orakobab name, sometimes spelled as Tky-Gariep (in Khoekhoegowab orthography it is ǀHai!garib, drab river).
Both Vaal and Tky (in modern orthography ǀHai) mean "drab" or "dull", which alludes to the colour of the waters, especially noticeable during flood season when the river is laden with silt. In the upper reaches the river was named iLigwa (Sindebele), Ikwa or Igwa (isiZulu), ilikwa (siSwati), lekwa (Sesotho), or cuoa by the Khoikhoi, all referring to the plain it traverses.

History

Historically, the river formed the northern border of Moshoeshoe I's Basotho kingdom at its height in the mid-19th century, then became the boundary between two Boer republics: The South African Republic (later the Transvaal province) and the Orange Free State. The geographic name "Transvaal" comes from the name of this river, meaning "beyond the Vaal river". This was in respect to the Cape Colony and Natal, which were the main areas of European settlement at the time, and which lay south of the Vaal.

During the late 19th century, there was an influx of people migrating to the Witwatersrand in search of gold. The Vaal River would eventually become the main water source for the Witwatersrand. The growing population initially used water from the groundwater of the Zuurbekom Wells in Gauteng's West Rand. Eventually these would dry up and people would need a new source that could provide for their domestic, agricultural and industrial activities.

Water schemes were initially established by the private sector to deal with the growing demand. These included the Braamfontein Water Company's Vierfontein Syndicate of 1893 and the Sivewright Concession of 1887 by the Johannesburg Waterworks and Exploration Company. Water was expensive and largely inaccessible for most inhabitants.

Rand Water Board

The Rand Water Board was established in 1903 to take over the operations of the private sector with a mandate to investigate sustainable water supply and sanitation services. The organisation would become fully operational in 1905, supplying water in bulk to the Witwatersrand. The organisation's members included officials from the Johannesburg Town Council, The Chamber of Mines and other local authorities within the Witwatersrand.

Rand Water responded to water scarcity by imposing restrictions on Witwatersrand inhabitants in 1913. It also developed major water schemes that would respond to the growing demand. Between 1914 and 1998, the organisation partnered with various government and private entities to drive the Vaal River scheme and the barrage (1914–1924). The Vaal River scheme was an initiative established to manage water distribution. The Rand Water board also established the Vereeniging Pumping Station (1924), the Zwartkopjes Pumping Station, the Vaal Dam (1938), the Zuikerbosch Pumping Station (1949) and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (1998).

River Basin

Rain and underground water collects in pans, vleis and streams and where these connect, the westward flowing Vaal River is born. The river flows west into the Grootdraai Dam near Standerton, Mpumalanga. On its course to the Vaal Dam in Vereeniging, the river is joined by a number of tributaries. The Little Vaal River starts in an escarpment near Ermelo. Near Memel in the Free State is where the Klip River begins. The Watervals River begins in Secunda, Mpumalanga. The Wilge River used to meet the Vaal River before the Vaal Dam was built in 1938; now the water flows straight into the dam.

Vaal Dam

Since the Vaal River's surface runoff is erratic, large dams have been built along its course to collect the water. In the past, before the river was established as the official source of water for part of the Gauteng , several small dams were built by farmers for irrigation.

When the construction of the Vaal Dam was completed in 1938, the dam ensured the supply of water throughout each year even when the river was not full. The dam would receive water from different catchment areas through various projects.

Tugela-Vaal Transfer Scheme

Two water transfer schemes were developed to supply the economic heartland
of the country (then recognised as the Pretoria-Witwatersrand-Vereeniging
complex) by channelling water into the Vaal River from other catchment areas between the 1970s and 1990s. These include the Lesotho Highlands Water Project and KwaZulu-Natal's Tugela-Vaal Water Transfer Scheme. The Tugela-Vaal Transfer Scheme was completed in 1974 to transfer from the Tugela River in KwaZulu Natal via canals, pipelines and dams into the Vaal River system

Lesotho Highlands Water Project

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project was finally launched in 1997 and would entail a three-phase construction that would augment water from Lesotho into the Vaal River, including four major dams. From 1954, the Natural Resources Development Council proposed that South Africa receive some water from neighbouring Lesotho. Negotiations between the two countries started in the late 1970s. A treaty for the development of the scheme was signed on 24 October 1987 by representatives of Lesotho, South Africa, the European Union, United Nations and the World Bank. It was then estimated to cost R9.1 billion for the first phase of the project alone.

South Africa pays R150 million to Lesotho each year whether they use all of the water that is supplied or not.

Basin ecology
According to Hogan the headwaters portion of the basin supports high endemism in reptiles, and lower in the watershed are elevated levels of endemism for small mammals.

Industry and agriculture
Water is drawn from the Vaal to meet the industrial needs of the Greater Johannesburg Metropolitan Area and a large part of the Free State. In 1881 the Kimberley Waterworks Company, provided water from the Vaal to the Cape Diamond Fields at a cost of one shilling per .

As a part of the Vaal-Hartz Scheme it is a major source of water for irrigation. Water drawn from the Vaal supports 12 million consumers in Gauteng and surrounding areas.

Current uses
The majority of the Vaal River water upstream of the Vaal Dam is used for mining and industrial use such as coal mines and Sasol's energy and chemical-related activities, as well as urban use and power generation. Further downstream of the dam, water is mostly dedicated to urban requirements and, although proportionally less, a considerable amount of this section is also used for mining and industries, irrigation and power generation. The river regularly experiences pollution of its upper reaches, and this affects users downstream. During 2019 the Lekwa Local Municipality's main water treatment plant in Standerton was in disrepair and was causing chronic pollution problems. To assist users downstream, clean water had to be pumped into the river to dilute its high salt levels, thereby wasting a large quantity of this scarce resource. In 2021, a report released by the South African Human Rights Commission found the river to be polluted beyond acceptable levels, including the flow of raw sewerage into the River.

Tourism

The Vaal River is made up of 50 km of navigable water. The river basin thus offers a range of leisurely water activities that attract local and international tourists throughout the year. Activities include boating, yachting and water skiing.

Deneysville is a town on the Free State side of the Vaal River and is a popular water-centre where visitors can enjoy swimming, kiteboarding, yachting, boating, catamaran cruising, jet skiing, windsurfing, snorkelling and fishing.

See also
Orange River
List of rivers in South Africa
Lower Vaal Water Management Area
Vaal Dam
Witwatersrand basin
Witwatersrand Gold Rush
Drainage basins of South Africa

References

External links

 Parys.info
 Parys on the Vaal
 Vaal Meander
 Vaal River Cruises
 Vaal River Properties
 Vaal de Grace Estate
 University Campus on banks of Vaal river
 Lesotho Highlands Development Authority

Tributaries of the Orange River
Internal borders of South Africa
Rivers of the Free State (province)
Rivers of Gauteng
Rivers of the Northern Cape
Rivers of Mpumalanga
Lesotho–South Africa relations
Water supply and sanitation in South Africa

Vaal River


Omdurman () was a communist publication issued from Cairo 1945-1946, directed towards Sudanese community in Egypt. The group of Sudanese communists that worked around the journal would later return to Sudan and build the Sudanese Communist Party.

In 1944 Henri Curiel recruited a small group of Sudanese students in Cairo to his Egyptian Movement for National Liberation (HAMTU), and Omdurman became the organ of this group. The first issue was published on 15 March 1945. At the time Omdurman was one of two legal publications linked to HAMTU. Issues of Omdurman included editorial column, news coverage, political commentaries, articles on science, poetry, cultural and music reviews and specific sections for students and women. The Omdurman faction consisted of some 25-30 individuals. Muhammad Amin Husayn al-Muhami was the owner of the periodical, whilst Abdu Dhahab Hasanayn was its editor.

Omdurman became popular among Sudanese in Cairo. It was read by hundreds of Sudanese students, who otherwise were generally unable to obtain sufficient news coverage from their home country. Whilst mainstream Egyptian parties supported the notion of Egyptian-Sudanese union, HAMTU supported the right of self-determination of Sudan and that Egyptian and Sudanese peoples should fight together against British imperialism. As of 1946 Omdurman argued that 'those here, in Egypt, that call for unity without talking about self-determination are not less dangerous than those, in Sudan, that call for separation.'  Omdurman focused heavily on questions on Sudanese social, economic, political and cultural issues. It talked about the conditions of Sudanese students in Egypt. The publication had significant impact on the first generation of leaders of the Sudanese communist movement.

Abdel Khaliq Mahjub, Abdu Dhabab Hasnayan and Shafeah Ahmed travelled to Khartoum, to build the communist movement there. The Omdurman group met with a small Khartoum-based faction of communists, that had been organized by a British soldier named Herbert Storey (member of the Communist Party of Great Britain), and on 10 August 1945 the two factions agreed to build the Sudanese Movement for National Liberation as a united organization (by 1946 the Sudanese Movement for National Liberation - which later became the Sudanese Communist Party - had been established).

The last issue of Omdurman was published on 1 July 1946. Omdurman was shut down on 12 July 1946, as part of a crackdown by the Ismail Sidky government against leftist movements and publications.

References

Magazines established in 1945
Magazines disestablished in 1946
Magazines published in Cairo
Arabic-language magazines
Defunct political magazines published in Egypt
Communist magazines
1945 establishments in Egypt
1946 disestablishments in Egypt
Banned magazines
Censorship in Egypt

Omdurman (journal)


Alfred Bertram "Bud" Guthrie Jr. (January 13, 1901 – April 26, 1991) was an American novelist, screenwriter, historian, and literary historian known for writing western stories. His novel The Way West won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and his screenplay for Shane (1953) was nominated for an Academy Award.

Biography
Guthrie was born in 1901 in Bedford, Indiana. When he was six months old he relocated with his parents to Montana, where his father became the first principal of the Teton County Free High School in Choteau. His father was a graduate of Indiana University,  his mother from Earlham College at Richmond, Indiana.

A constant reader, Guthrie tried to write while in high school, "fiction pretty much, some essays, but I majored in journalism. My father had been a newspaper man for four years in this little town in Kentucky, and I guess he thought it was the way to become a writer".:3

In 1919, Guthrie studied at the University of Washington for a year, then transferred to the University of Montana, where he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity and graduated with a degree in journalism with honors in 1923. He worked odd jobs for the next few years.

In 1926, Guthrie took out a $300 bank loan and moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he took a job at the Lexington Leader newspaper. For the next 21 years he worked as a reporter, the city editor, and an editorial writer for the Leader. Guthrie published his first novel Murders at Moon Dance in 1943.

In 1944, while still at the Leader, Guthrie won the Nieman Fellowship from Harvard, and spent the year at the university studying writing. While at Harvard he made friends with English professor Theodore Morrison, "who knew so much about writing, probably more than I ever will.":3 Morrison mentored Guthrie and helped him transition from journalism to fiction.

During his year at Harvard Guthrie began his novel The Big Sky, which was published in 1947. Guthrie later wrote, "It wasn't until I went to Harvard that I got in gear. Then I went back and worked for the newspaper for another year or so.":4

At the Lexington Leader Guthrie's boss was very understanding and as long as Guthrie performed his news duties satisfactorily he was allowed to take his afternoons off to write fiction.:18 After publication of The Big Sky Guthrie left the paper and supported himself by teaching creative writing at University of Kentucky. During this time he published The Way West which won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He quit teaching in 1952 to devote his full-time to writing, and moved back to Choteau, Montana, because he said it was his "point of outlook on the universe". He split his residence between Choteau and Great Falls, Montana, an hour away from Choteau.

Guthrie continued to write predominantly western subjects. He worked for a time in Hollywood, writing the screenplays for Shane (1953, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award) and The Kentuckian (1955).

His other books included These Thousand Hills (1956), The Blue Hen's Chick (1965), Arfive (1970), The Last Valley (1975), Fair Land, Fair Land (1982), Murder in the Cotswolds (1989), and A Field Guide to Writing Fiction (1991). His first collection of short stories, The Big It and Other Stories, was published in 1960.

Guthrie died in 1991, at age 90, at his ranch near Choteau.

Bibliography

Western Novels
The Big Sky (1947)
The Way West (1949)
These Thousand Hills (1956)
Arfive (1971)
The Last Valley (1975)
Fair Land, Fair Land (1982)

Western Mystery Novellas
Murders at Moon Dance (1943)
Wild Pitch (1974), featuring Sheriff Chick Charleston
The Genuine Article (1977), featuring Sheriff Chick Charleston
No Second Wind (1980), featuring Sheriff Chick Charleston
Playing Catch-up (1985), featuring Sheriff Chick Charleston
Murder in the Cotswolds (1989), featuring Sheriff Chick Charleston

Short-story collections
 The Big It, and Other Stories (1960), "Bargain" (originally titled "Bargain at Moon Dance")

Non-fiction
 The Blue Hen's Chick (1965)
 Big Sky, Fair Land: The Environmental Essays of A. B. Guthrie Jr., edited by David Peterson (1988)
 A Field Guide to Writing Fiction (1991)

Children's books
The Big Sky: An Edition For Young Readers (1950)
Once Upon a Pond (1973)

Poetry
Four Miles from Ear Mountain (1987)

Screenplays
Shane (1953)
The Kentuckian (1955)

Spoken word
A. B. Guthrie Jr., reads from THE BIG SKY (Caedmon, 1974)

References

External links
Western American Literature Journal: A.B. Guthrie
U. Eastern Kentucky site
Literary History of the American West page on Guthrie
A. B. Guthrie Jr. Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

1901 births
1991 deaths
People from Great Falls, Montana
Nieman Fellows
Novelists from Kentucky
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
American literary critics
American environmentalists
20th-century American historians
Activists from Indiana
Activists from Montana
Activists from Kentucky
People from Choteau, Montana
Novelists from Montana
Novelists from Indiana
20th-century American male writers
American male non-fiction writers

A. B. Guthrie Jr.


Stop at Nothing is the fowert album bi the Maryland-based technical daith metal baund Dying Fetus. Ance again, Steve Carr's production wis uised.

Shortly efter the release o the baund's previous album, Destroy the Opposition, aw o the baund except for John Gallagher quit. Gallagher brocht in new vocalist Vince Matthews, guitarist Mike Kimball, bassist Sean Beasley, an drummer Eric Seyanga. This album is slichtly different frae earlier DF records, in that it includit less o thair oreeginal form.

The black an white pairt o the cover o the album is pairt o the photo taken bi Lewis Wickes Hine, American sociologist an photographer, cawed "Power house mechanic working on steam pump".  The steam pump, on the cover, is put intae colour while the oreeginal photo wis completely black an white.

Track leetin
 Schematics - 3:59
 Ane Shot, Ane Kill - 4:25
 Institutions o Deceit - 3:39
 Abandon Aw Hope - 6:22
 Forced Elimination - 3:22
 Stop at Nothing - 3:09
 Onslaught o Malice - 5:33
 Vengeance Unleashed - 5:08

Personnel

 John Gallagher: Guitars/vocals
 Mike Kimball: Guitars
 Vince Matthews: Vocals
 Sean Beasley: Bass
 Eric Seyanga: Drums

Trivia
A video wis produced for the sang Ane Shot, Ane Kill.

"Schematics" wis featurt in the seicont saison episode Tree Tap Casino o Viva La Bam. Additionally, "Forced Elimination" wis featurt in the third saison episode Angry Ape o Viva La Bam.

References

Dying Fetus albums
2003 albums
Relapse Records albums

Stop at Nothing


The grey-and-buff woodpecker (Hemicircus concretus) is a species of bird in the family Picidae. It is found in Brunei, Indonesia (Sumatra and Borneo), Malaysia, southern Myanmar, and southern Thailand, but has become regionally extinct in Singapore. Its natural habitats are lowland and montane tropical or subtropical moist broadleaf forests.

Taxonomy
The grey-and-buff woodpecker was formally described by the Dutch zoologist Coenraad Jacob Temminck in 1821 and given the binomial name Picus concretus. The type locality is western and central Java. The species is now placed in the genus Hemicircus that was introduced in 1837 by the English naturalist William John Swainson.

Two subspecies are recognised:
 H. c. sordidus (Eyton, 1845) – Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo and nearby islands
 H. c. concretus (Temminck, 1821) – Java

The species is sometimes split with H. concretus as the red-crested woodpecker and H. sordidus as the grey-and-buff woodpecker.

Description
The species has a plump body and short rounded tail, and grows to a length of about . The head appears large because of the slender neck and the large, cone-shaped crest. The head is largely grey, with a fine white, wavy line running from the cheek to the mantle. In males the forehead is red and the crest grey, while in females, both are grey. Body upper parts and wings are blackish, the feathers being edged with white or buff giving a scalloped effect. Underparts are grey, the tail and underwing dark, and the legs are grey or brown. The beak is long, slender and grey with a black tip, and the iris is chestnut. A gland of unknown function is on the back, the secretions from which sometimes stain the white rump.

Distribution and habitat
This woodpecker is native to tropical southeastern Asia. Its range extends from southern Myanmar and peninsular Thailand and Malaysia, to Sumatra and Borneo. It is a resident species found in lowland and mid-elevation evergreen rainforests, particularly clearings and forest edges, also in plantations, bamboo thickets, cleared areas, wooded urban areas and cultivated land.

Behaviour and ecology
The grey-and-buff woodpecker is usually seen singly or in pairs, but sometimes occurs in mixed species flocks foraging in the canopy. It mainly feeds by gleaning rather than by drilling into the wood, the diet consisting of insects and fruit, including mistletoe (Loranthus) berries. The birds roost communally at night in shallow holes they excavate near each other in dead wood. Nesting takes place in deeper holes or crevices, the breeding season being between December and July.

Status
Although H. concretus occurs in a range of habitats, numbers are thought to be in gradual decline through loss of habitat, and it has become locally extinct in Singapore. It has a very large range and is generally described as being uncommon. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern".

References

grey-and-buff woodpecker
Birds of Malesia
grey-and-buff woodpecker
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot

Grey-and-buff woodpecker


Candice Michelle Beckman-Ehrlich (born September 30, 1978 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) is an American professional wrestler, actress, and model. She is better known as Candice Michelle or just Candice. Beckman is best known for wrestling for World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).

World Wrestling Entertainment

Candice Michelle came to WWE as a contestant in the 2004 Diva Search. Although she did not win, WWE hired her anyway. At first, Candice Michelle did not have much to do on the program. Over the next several years, she was trained as a wrestler and started doing more work. She was mainly used in unusual matches. For example, "Bra and panties matches" are matches where the winner is the person removes the other persons clothing leaving them wearing only their bra and panties.

At the Vengeance PPV on June 24, she defeated Melina to win the WWE Women's Title for the first time.

Michelle was released from her WWE contract on June 19, 2009.

Personal life
Candice married Dr. Ken Gee Ehrlich, a West Los Angeles chiropractor on May 7, 2005.

Media
During Candice's career, she has been in many television series, magazine pictorials, fashion shows, and movies. She has been in the movies Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story(as a dancer), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, High Crimes, and Horrorween. In television, she has been on Party of Five, The Man Show, Playboy TV's Totally Busted, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Monk. Her most notable appearance was her appearance on Hotel Erotica. She has also posed nude for several magazines including Playboy. She is also the spokesperson for the internet company GoDaddy.com.

References

Other websites
Official site
WWE Profile

1978 births
Living people
American professional wrestlers
Former WWE wrestlers
Female professional wrestlers
American models
Actors from Milwaukee
Sportspeople from Wisconsin

Candice Michelle


The Ballard Avenue Historic District is a section of downtown Ballard in Seattle, Washington, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 (ID #76001885). The district consists of Ballard Avenue N.W. between N.W. Market Street and N.W. Dock Place, and is located near to and along Salmon Bay. After initial work by the Ballard Avenue Association and the city of Seattle's Urban Conservation Division, Seattle mayor Wes Uhlman signed the ordinances that led to the national recognition of the area. The neighborhood of Ballard is known for a large historic population and presence of immigrants from Sweden, and King Gustaf of Sweden read the proclamation inducting the district to the historical registry in 1976, and at the same time dedicated the new bell tower at Ballard's Marvin's Garden Park, which housed the original bell from Ballard's old city hall.  The historic markers that can be seen on 26 of the buildings were created and erected by the Ballard Historical Society.

All the commercial buildings in the historic district face towards Ballard Avenue. Other locations in Ballard that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places include the old Ballard Carnegie Library on N.W. Market Street, the Ballard Bridge, Fire Station No. 18, the Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, and the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

References

External links

 "Nordic Knits And Lutefisk In Seattle"
 "One day in Seattle: How to see the top spots"
 "Fight looms over replacing Ballard's old Sunset Hotel"
 "Ballard hopes its old spirit can endure condo onslaught"
 Ballard Avenue Historic District--Seattle, Washington: A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary
 Seattle.gov, Ballard Avenue Landmark District
 Historylink.org Ballard tour

Ballard, Seattle
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington (state)
National Register of Historic Places in Seattle
Swedish-American culture in Washington (state)

Ballard Avenue Historic District


Wisbech Castle was a stone to motte-and-bailey castle built to fortify Wisbech (historically in the Isle of Ely and now also in the Fenland District of Cambridgeshire, England) on the orders of William I in 1072, it probably replaced an earlier timber and turf complex. The layout was probably oval in shape and size, on the line still marked by the Circus.  The original design and layout is unknown.
It was rebuilt in stone in 1087.
The castle was reputedly destroyed in a flood in 1236.
In the 15th century, repairs were becoming too much for the ageing structure, and a new building was started in 1478 under John Morton, Bishop of Ely (later Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England). His successor, John Alcock, extended and completed the re-building and died in the Castle in 1500. Subsequent bishops also spent considerable sums on this new palace. The Bishop's Palace was built of brick with dressings of Ketton Stone, but its exact location is unknown.

In later Tudor times, the rebuilt castle became a notorious prison. The site was again redeveloped in the mid-17th century and yet again in 1816 by Joseph Medworth. A 1794 plan of the 'castle' exists; this only shows the 'castle' as it existed at the end of the 18th century, prior to the development of the site to its current form.

The Regency building known as The Castle, Museum Square, Wisbech PE13 3ES was given Grade II* listed status on 31 October 1983 following the vaults Grade II listed in 1969. It now stands in the middle of a circus.

History

Middle Ages
The Domesday Book of 1086 makes no mention of a castle at Wisbech.

King John travelled from Lynn to Lincolnshire via Wisbech, and stayed at the castle on 12 October 1216. His baggage train is reported to have got into difficulties crossing a river or estuary and the wagons and contents, including the regalia and other treasures, were lost. In recent years, treasure seekers have tried to find the location of this incident and the lost treasures.

The castle and town of Wisbech were swept away in a storm in 1236, although the castle appears to have soon been rebuilt as a keeper or Constable is named in 1246.

King Edward II of England visited the castle in 1292, 1298, 1300 and 1305.

In 1315, Richard Lambert of Lenne (Lynn), a merchant, brought an action against William le Blowere and others for a conspiracy to imprison him. He had been "thrown in the depth of the gaol of Wysebech among thieves, where by [sic] toads and other venomous vermin he was so inhumanely gnawed that his life was despaired of".

The castle tower was repaired during 1332–1333 using six fotmel (approximately 420 lb) of lead, and a year later the bakehouse wall was buttressed using 6,000 bricks.

In 1350, John de Walton was lodged in the castle accused of trespass and rebellion. In the same year the Bishop's Constable and his men were 'besieged' by Sir John de Stonore, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench.

There were several fisheries belonging to the manor of Wisbech alone, in the 1350s the reeves of Walton and Leverington each sent a porpoise to Wisbech Castle, and the reeve of Terrington a swordfish.

In 1355, a licence was issued to John Boton, vicar of Wysebeche, to marry Hugh Lovet of Lincoln, the bishop's domicellus, and Jane de Pateshalle in the chapel of the Castle of Wysebech.

In 1409, a new Floud Gate and a new water gate were erected and a new pons tractabilis(Bridge) towards the church.
In 1410 a new 'Pons tractabilis' towards the church, a chapel within and a bridge without the castle, also a garden and dove house (destroyed in 1531) all walled around and moated.
In 1410 Sir John Colvile was the governor or Constable, a steel seal used by him has a representation of a castle in the form of a fortress, with circular keep. A wax copy may be seen in Wisbech & Fenland Museum.

In 1414, Dominus Heyle, and several prisoners taken by the Earl of Dorchester were kept here by permission of bishop John Fordham.

In 1443, the houses and chambers called Le Dungeon are allotted to the Constable.

During 1478–83, the Bishop's Palace was constructed of bricks measuring 11 inches in length and 2.5 inches thick with a dressing of Ketton stone. The property's cellars and foundations can still be seen. The palace was extended by Bishop Alcock.

16th century
Wisbech was used as a prison in part due to its remote location, it took prisoners under escort three days to walk between Wisbech and London.
During the reign of Queen Mary (1553–1558) Protestants were imprisoned here during her restoration of Roman Catholicism. William Wolsey and Robert Piggott were imprisoned but then removed and later burnt at the stake.

In 1577 Cecilia Samuel was tried, convicted and hanged at Ely for drowning her newborn son in the ditch called the Castell dike in Wisbech.

In 1580 the bishop was enjoined to put the castle "in order and strength" to receive prisoners, and the first were received in October. In October 1580 Roger Goad, Dr Bridgewater and William Fulke engaged in the examination of John Bourne, a glover and some others of the Family of Love who were confined in the castle.

In 1583 a prisoner, Dr Andrew Oxenbridge, is recorded as taking the oath of supremacy.

In 1584 John Feckenham (aka John Howman) died in the castle. Imprisoned in the Tower of London during the reign of Edward VI, he was made Abbot of Westminster by Mary Tudor but sent back to the Tower by Elizabeth I. While a prisoner in Wisbech he is said to have paid for a market cross to be erected. Later it was changed to an obelisk, but it was removed in April 1811.

During the reign of  Elizabeth I while the seat of the bishopric was left vacant, the Queen's halmote court to dealt with cases such as the surrender (transfer) of land at 'Stowecroft', 'Sybbilsholme', 'Harecrofte' by Jacomina Robinson to her son John Crosse in July 1586.

Other leading Roman Catholics were imprisoned for political reasons, at the time of the Spanish Armada; Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham are reported to have been held at Wisbeach Castle in 1588. Later they were principal conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot.

In the last years of the 16th century there were 33 Catholics held prisoner in Wisbech Castle, almost all of them priests, including the Jesuit priests, Christopher Holywood, William Weston and lay brother Thomas Pounde. A quarrel arose among them that came to be known as the "Wisbech Stirs". In the winter of 1594-95 a substantial group (18 of the 33) wished to separate themselves from the rest and adopt a regular communal life. This was largely impossible without appearing to castigate those who did not want to make this change and on account of the limited space. The unwilling minority argued, which only confirmed the others in their resolve, and the separation was carried out in February 1595, but came to an end with a general reconciliation in November of that same year. Philip Strangeways was one of the missionary priests imprisoned at Wisbech at the end of Elizabeth's reign.

Dr Francis Young's research indicates that there were at least 111 prisoners.

17th century
John and Robert Nutter were brothers, born in Burnley. After university, both studied at the English College in Rheims before being ordained. Soon after returning to England to minister to recusant communities, they were captured and sent to the Tower of London. Robert was tortured before being forced to see his brother being hanged, drawn and quartered. Robert was eventually released and transported to France, but recaptured on his return to England and sent to Newgate, the Marshalsea and thence to Wisbech Castle. After escaping from the castle and recapture, he was martyred at Lancaster in July 1600. A fellow prisoner in Wisbech Castle was Dr. Antony Champney.

William Chester was Constable from 1605 until his death in the castle in 1608; he was buried in St Peter's churchyard.

There is a memorial to Matthias Taylor, Constable of the Castle in the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul, Wisbech.During his tenure three Jesuits escaped in 1614 and in 1615 another five escaped custody. His monument states that three sons, five daughters and 22 grandchildren survived him.

In 1616 a priest, Thomas Tunstal, escaped from the castle to Norfolk. Sir Hamon L'Estrange had him pursued and apprehended. He was tried at Norwich and condemned and executed. The use of the castle for recusant prisoners ceased in 1627.

During the English Civil War, after Oliver Cromwell had been appointed governor of the Isle of Ely for his activity in swaying it to the interest of Parliament, he refortified the castle and town with outposts at the Horseshoe Sluice and Leverington. The soldiers stationed to defend the town were commanded by Colonel Sir John Palgrave and Captain William Dodson; and the ammunition, and other warlike stores, were supplied from a Dutch ship, which the Queen had dispatched from Holland for the use of the Royalists, but which had been captured. In 1643 the castle was used to secure the river Nene frontier and to block any attempt by the Newark garrison to relieve the besieged King's Lynn Royalists. The castle was armed with cannon 'Great Guns' from Ely and money from the town paid for ironwork to repair the drawbridge. The garrison at Wisbech was commanded by Lt Col Dodson and carried out skirmishing in the surrounding Fenland. The naval blockade, siege and bombardment brought capitulation from King's Lynn after three weeks. Peterborough was occupied by the Parliamentarians before the capture of Crowland.

Captain Thomas Pigge of Walsoken was taken prisoner by the Earl of Essex in October 1634 and exchanged at Burghley House 'on a bond of £2,000 never to bear arms again'.

John Thurloe esq,(Secretary of State) of Lincoln's Inn, Middlesex  purchased the manors of Wisbech Barton, Elm and Todd St.Giles and the 'castle estate', sold off some property, demolished the bishop's palace, and then built and furnished a mansion, aka Thurloe's mansion (demolished by Joseph Medworth c1816), just before the Restoration of the Monarchy, after which his house and estates in Wisbech were repossessed by the Bishop of Ely. Jonas Moore's Mapp of the Great Levell of the Fens (1658) shows the town with a church and a large building surrounded by a moat, Thurloe's coat of arms is one of those nearby. William Dugdale noted that a lock at the Horseshoe (on the River Nene) erected in an earlier phase of the drainage work, which 'cost £7000 at least' had since been 'pulled down, as useless, and is disposed of to Mr. Secretary Thurloe, towards his building of that fair new house in Wisbech, which stands where the old Castle was'. He also built a property (or properties) nearby for his sons.

The demolition of the bishop's palace and construction of Thurloe's mansion did not end the imprisonment for religious beliefs in Wisbech. In 1663 John Inds late of Ely, was taken with several other Friends from a peaceable meeting on 16 February, and sent to Wisbech Gaol, where he was kept prisoner for three years.

In 1664 Matthew Wren, Lord Bishop of Ely  was liable for 24 hearths, in 1662 it had been 25, one later being pulled down.

Henry Pierson (died 1664), born in Wisbech was the first post-Restoration tenant to lease the castle from the Bishop of Ely.

The Southwell family were tenants for over 100 years.

18th century
The household goods of Mrs Edwards (deceased) were auctioned at the castle on 8 July 1724.

'Notice To be SOLD, A Very good Milch Ass, with a She-foal a Fortnight old. Enquire at the Castle in Wisbeach', was advertised in the Stamford Mercury on 7 July 1737.
In 1762 it was reported that Henry Southwell, Esq ; an eminent Merchant at Wisbech, Receiver-General of this County, and many years in the Commission of the Peace died.
In 1778/1779, the Italian author and poet Giuseppe Marc'Antonio Baretti (1718–1789) resided with Edward Southwell and his family living at the Castle for about a fortnight. Afterwards, he published a series of letters Lettere Familiari de Giuseppe Baretti including a description of his Wisbech visit, including attending the race meet and a theatre performance.

The death of Edward Southwell, age 60, of The Castle, Wisbech was reported in the January 1788 press.
To be sold by auction
At the New Theatre (now the Angles Theatre) in Deadman's Lane, in Wisbech on Tuesday the eighth of November, 1791, and the following days.
On the death of Edward Southwell, All the elegant and genuine HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE, LINEN, and CHINA, brought from the Castle (his late Dwelling-House) in Wisbech, a sale not being permitted on the Premises.

Jane Southwell, (aka Lady Jane Trafford) (1732–1809), heiress of Wisbech Castle, married Sir Clement Trafford (aka Clement Boehm), they had three children Clement (1761–1768) Sigismund & Jane. Separated by 1764. She changed her name back to Southwell by an Act of Parliament in 1791 in order to inherit from her brother Edward. Buried at Orsett, Essex the home of her daughter Jane who married Richard Baker. In her will she expressed a wish to be buried in Wisbech.

An Act of 1793, 33 Geo. 3. c. 53, empowered the Bishop of Ely to sell the castle. James Yorke, the Bishop of Ely put up the castle for auction in six lots at the Rainbow coffee house, Cornhill, London on 13 November 1793. Joseph Medworth was the highest bidder for all six lots, totalling £2,305.

In 1796 John Thelwall attempted to give his lecture in a room in the castle, the lecture was not completed due to disturbances outside the castle.

19th century
Joseph Medworth was elected Town Bailiff in 1809. In 1811 he offered Thurloe's mansion and the enclosed garden to the corporation for £2,000 for the use of Wisbech Grammar School but they did not take up the offers and subsequently he demolished the mansion and used the material to build his villa now known as The Castle.

William Richards, in his history of Lynn Vol I published in 1812, describes The Castle site. "The detached (castle) buildings have been removed and some elegant rows of houses have been erected. The plan of a large Circus has already also been laid out, about one half which has already been built: when the plan is completed it will add greatly to the pleasantness and beauty of the town. The Castle is still standing, and likely to stand, with what may be called fair play, as long as any of the new buildings, although it has been built now over 150 years, and was, at the time of the sale, stated (even by his lordship, it seems) to be in a decayed and ruinous condition".

In January 1814 The Castle was temporarily used by the Seminary for Young ladies run by Miss Diggle and Miss Oldham whilst their property in The Crescent was completed.

The Rev W.Holmes ran a Boarding School at The Castle for young gentlemen from about 1830 until the 1840s. In 1842 F. Ewen's name also featured in the adverts. By January 1844 the school was advertised as a Boarding and Day School of Rev. W.Holmes & Son.

Charles Boucher (1817-1853) of The Castle is reported to have broken his arm. Boucher married Elizabeth Russell on 4 July 1844.
A son was born to the Bouchers in 1845.
On Friday, 30 October 1846 the Lincolnshire Chronicle paper reports 'Births'
'At The Castle, Wisbech on the 15th inst., the lady of Charles Boucher. jun., Esq., of a son
Died at Wisbech, on the 30th April, 1849 in her 26th year, Elizabeth Russell wife Chas. Boucher, jun. Esq, and only child of Thos. Stear, Esq

The next tenant appears to have been a school advertising in the press.

In March 1864 The Castle was sold at a public auction for £1,300 to William Peckover FSA and later passed down the family. Sarah Hardman, aged 74,  died at The Castle in 1868.

The will of Chas. Boucher, Esq., (died December 1865 aged 82) of Wisbech, father of the late Charles Boucher was reported in the press on 10 August 1866.
Miss Harman is still running the school on the site in 1886.
By 1888 Mr Bradley appears to be in residence as the press reports 'an interesting gathering of archaeologists and others, including many members of Wisbech Natural History Society, to view The Castle grounds and vaults, by invitation of Mr. F. W. Bradley, who conducted the party over the premises.'
Mr F W Bradley of The Castle married Miss May Langley, youngest daughter of Mr J Langley, of Primrose Farm Tilney, at Tilney All Saints on Wednesday, 11 September 1889. One of the pupils of the private school at The Castle run by May Bradley was farmer's daughter Lilian Pratt.

20th century
At the turn of the century The Castle tenant was still the dentist F W Bradley.
The Northern Whig No 28,517 reported on Tuesday 2 January 1900 "Births" - "Bradley December 31, at Wisbech Castle, Cambs, the wife of F.W.Bradley, of a daughter."

On 16 May 1903 a chimney fire set the roof on fire at the castle. It took 12 hours to extinguish.
In the 1920s the lawn was laid out as a lawn tennis court. He remained in occupation as a tenant of Lord Peckover for 48 years until 1935. At this time there was still a statue of Mercury (from the garden of Thurloe's Mansion) above the vaults in the garden.

In 1955 excavations on the site of Messrs. Keightley's new building in the Market Place revealed evidence of a wall and extensive moat, in which were found pottery, leather sole shoes, slim fitting with long pointed toes and an early 15th century gilt spur.

Following the death of A.P.D. Penrose, son of J. Doyle Penrose and  grandson of Baron Peckover, the castle was put up for auction in October 1957, the property was withdrawn at £4,450 but bought a few weeks later by Mrs F C D Fendick, wife of the Isle of Ely Chief Education officer.
Her husband Tee Gordon Fendick, M.A. LL.B. wrote an article 'Wisbech castle: Past and Present' published in 1960  in it, he refers to the building's secrets, including a bricked up space between two rooms. An Anglia Television report on the history of Wisbech Castle shown in 1963 is available on the East Anglian Film Archive.
After his death in the 1960s, Florence transferred ownership to Isle of Ely County Council in March 1969. Fendick, aged 94, died in 1984.
After a merger this became the Cambridgeshire and Isle of Ely County Council, then later Cambridgeshire County Council.
In 1988 Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester made a tour of The Castle.

The Castle was to be used as an educational museum for schools. A concealed fire escape was installed. The Fendick Room, previously the drawing room was to be used for meetings of a cultural and educational nature (maximum capacity - 30 persons).
Leslie 'George' Anniss MBE FGS was castle custodian from 1971-1977 and carried out research leading to the publication of A History of Wisbech Castle. One of his paintings, a copy of an earlier painting of Thurloe's mansion, is available from an online collection.

The custodian in 1979 was Mr F Sumner when it was used for a Save the Children Fund coffee Morning.

The Castle was used as a Teacher's Professional Development Centre, providing a venue for meetings and training.
In 1987 it also staged an outdoor performance of Romeo and Juliet by the theatre company of the Angles Theatre, the balcony scene utilised the balcony of The Castle itself.

21st century

In September 2009, excavations were carried out on the site by Oxford Archaeology East and local volunteers. The report was published in July 2010. The Wisbech Castle Community Archaeology Project was 'Highly Commended' in the Best Community Archaeology Project category at the 2010 British Archaeological Awards. As a result of the dig, local volunteers formed a local archaeology group – the Wisbech and District Archaeology Society (WADAS) - now FenArch (Fenland Archaeological Society).

It was registered as an asset of community value. A business plan was drawn up and presented by Cllr Hoy.

In February 2018, Wisbech Town Council acquired a lease from Cambridgeshire County Council and took over the running of the site. The Castle project is run by a Castle Management committee of Wisbech Town council and a Castle Working Party of councillors and volunteers.
In November 2019 an open day was held at The Castle to mark the 10th anniversaries of the 2009 dig and the formation of Fenland Archaeological Society (FenArch). The finds from the 2009 dig, now held by Wisbech & Fenland Museum, were loaned for the exhibition.

There have been school visits, and the property is licensed for civil weddings.

The museum's collection of artworks is now online and includes painting of the castle, former occupants and others associated with the castle in its various forms.

In May 2021 the castle hosted the Mayor-making for the first time. In July 2021 following the relaxation of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions the gardens were a venue for a concert by the Hexachordia trio performing All in a Garden Green a celebration of the English garden in music, song and verse, tracing its history from monastic herb gardens to more formal grounds. The event raised funds for the Wisbech & Fenland Museum.

The Vaults
The Castle vaults lie where Thurloe's mansion was built. The vaults are opened to the public. They are now accessed by a door facing the front of Medworth's villa.
They are sometimes described by volunteer guides and ghost-hunters as being where the religious prisoners were kept or as being the Norman Period dungeons. Archaeological investigations do not ascribe these remains, with the possible exception of a well, to periods that early.

Constables of the Castle
1246 William Justice
1262 Simon de Dullingham
1308 Richard de Halstead (or Halsted)
1401 Thomas De Bramstone (Braunstone?)
1408 Sir John de Rochford
1410 Sir John de Colvile aka Sir John Colville (c.1365-1446), founded the college of St. Mary-on-the-Sea at Newton-in-the-Isle.
1446 Sir Andrew Hoggard or Ogard
1476 Sir Thomas Grey
1489 Sir James Hobart or Sir Thomas Hobart
1525 Walter And Miles Hubbard
1531 Thomas Megges,
     Sir Richard Cromwell
1605 William Chester, Sen, Esq
c.1609–1619 Rowland Bradford
1633 Matthias Taylor, Esq

Popular culture

The Castle, under the name Barbican House, in The Crescent, is one of several local sites that features in local journalist John Gordon's novel The Flesh Eater. Gordon frequently used Wisbech locations in his novels.

Notes

References

Further reading

Attribution:

External links

 Official website

Castles in Cambridgeshire
Wisbech
English Civil War
Regency architecture in the United Kingdom
Museums in Cambridgeshire

Wisbech Castle