User:Lionelfullwood/Sandbox5

England Bath

Guide to Bath history, family history, and genealogy: parish registers, census records, birth records, marriage records, and death records.





HISTORY
The hills in the locality such as Bathampton Down saw human activity from the Mesolithic period. Several Bronze Age round barrows were opened by John Skinner in the 18th century. Bathampton Camp may have been an Iron Age hill fort or stock enclosure. A long barrow site believed to be from the Beaker people was flattened to make way for RAF Charmy Down.

Archaeological evidence shows that the site of the Roman baths' main spring may have been treated as a shrine by the Britons,[8][9] and was dedicated to the goddess Sulis, whom the Romans identified with Minerva.

The name Sulis continued to be used after the Roman invasion, appearing in the town's Roman name, Aquae Sulis (literally, "the waters of Sulis").

A temple was constructed in 60–70 AD and a bathing complex was built up over the next 300 years. Engineers drove oak piles into the mud to provide a stable foundation, and surrounded the spring with an irregular stone chamber lined with lead. In the 2nd century, the spring was enclosed within a wooden barrel-vaulted structure, that housed the caldarium (hot bath), tepidarium (warm bath), and frigidarium (cold bath).

Following the exit of the Roman overlords, Bath may have been the site of the Battle of Badon (c. 500 AD), in which King Arthur is said to have defeated the Anglo-Saxons. The city fell to the West Saxons in 577 after the Battle of Deorham.

By the 9th century the old Roman street pattern was lost and Bath was a royal possession. King Alfred laid out the town afresh, leaving its south-eastern quadrant as the abbey precinct. In the Burghal Hidage Bath is described as having walls of 1,375 yards (1,257 m) and was allocated 1000 men for defence.

In Medieval times, Bath fell into ruin,and was really not developed to its former glory until Georgian times, when the wealthy class required accommodations that were fit for taking the waters.

The population of the city was 40,020 at the 1801 census, making it one of the largest cities in Britain. Today, Bath has become a noted world site, and probably its major industry is tourism.

LOCATION
Glasgow is located on the banks of the River Clyde, in West Central Scotland. It is at the lowest point where the Clyde could be forded in ancient times, and thus a locale for north and south commerce.

The Clyde is also a critically located river for merchant trading via the North Sea and thence south, and thus Glasgow became a critical hub for trade with Europe and the rest of the world.

After the Acts of Union in 1707, Scotland gained further access to the vast markets of the new British Empire, and Glasgow became prominent as a hub of international trade to and from the Americas, especially in sugar, tobacco, cotton, and manufactured goods.

Its second most important river is the Kelvin whose name was used for creating the title of Baron Kelvin and thereby ended up as the scientific unit of temperature. On older maps Glasgow will be found within the area of the pre-1975 county of Lanarkshire, from 1975 to 1996 it will appear within Strathclyde Region; current maps will generally show Glasgow as one of 32 Council Areas in Scotland.

RELIGION
Glasgow is a city of significant religious diversity. The Church of Scotland and the Roman Catholic Church are the two largest Christian denominations in the city. There are 147 congregations in the Church of Scotland's Presbytery of Glasgow (of which 104 are within the city boundaries, the other 43 being in adjacent areas such as Giffnock). The city has four Christian cathedrals: Glasgow Cathedral, of the Church of Scotland; St Andrew's Cathedral, of the Roman Catholic Church; St Mary's Cathedral, of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and St Luke's Cathedral, of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Additionally other non-christian religions are well represented. The Sikh community is served by 4 Gurdwaras.

Glasgow Central Mosque in the Gorbals district is the largest mosque in Scotland and, along with twelve other mosques in the city, caters for the city's Muslim population, estimated to number 33,000.

Glasgow also has a Hindu Mandir,

Glasgow has seven synagogues with the seventh largest Jewish population in the United Kingdom after London, Manchester, Leeds, Gateshead, Brighton and Bournemouth, but once had a Jewish population second only to London, estimated at 20,000 in the Gorbals alone.

INDUSTRY
The opening of the Monkland Canal and basin linking to the Forth and Clyde Canal at Port Dundas in 1795, facilitated access to the extensive iron-ore and coal mines in Lanarkshire. This area, south of the river Clyde, became the scene of numerous tips, from the tailings from the coal fields.

After extensive river engineering projects to dredge and deepen the River Clyde as far as Glasgow, shipbuilding became a major industry on the upper stretches of the river, pioneered by industrialists such as Robert Napier, John Elder, George Thomson, Sir William Pearce and Sir Alfred Yarrow.

In addition to its preeminence in shipbuilding, engineering, industrial machinery, bridge building, chemicals, explosives, coal and oil industries it developed as a major center in textiles, garment-making, carpet manufacturing, leather processing, furniture-making, pottery, food, drink and cigarette making; printing and publishing. Shipping, banking, insurance and professional services expanded at the same time.

After a deep decline in shipbuilding and heavy industry, Glasgow remade itself into a much more service industry based community. It's new role became a European center for business services and finance and promoted an increase in tourism and inward investment.

CEMETERIES AND GRAVEYARDS
Ancestry.com records

The Necropolis

Find a grave in Scotland

Glasgow Port Cemetery

Glasgow Roman Catholic Cemetery

Find a Grave in Glasgow

GENEALOGY AND FAMILY HISTORY
Acestry.com Family History

Glasgow and West Scotland Family History Society

Genuki Scotland Societies

Dumfries and Galloway Family History

[[Category:England Cities]