Launceston Castle is located in the town of Launceston, Cornwall, England. It was probably built by Robert the Count of Mortain after 1068, and initially comprised an earthwork and timber castle with a large motte in one corner. Launceston Castle formed the administrative centre of the new earldom of Cornwall, with a large community packed within the walls of its bailey. It was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century and then substantially redeveloped by Richard of Cornwall after 1227, including a high tower to enable visitors to view his surrounding lands. When Richard's son, Edmund, inherited the castle, he moved the earldom's administration to Lostwithiel, triggering the castle's decline. By 1337, the castle was increasingly ruinous and used primarily as a gaol and to host judicial assizes.
The castle was captured by the rebels during the Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549, and was garrisoned by the Royalists during the English Civil War in the 17th century. Towards the end of the civil war it was stripped for its building materials and rendered largely uninhabitable. A small gaol was erected in the centre of the bailey, which was also used for executions. The castle eventually became the county gaol for Cornwall, but was heavily criticised for its poor facilities and treatment of inmates. By 1842, the remaining prisoners had been moved to Bodmin Gaol and the site was closed, the castle being landscaped to form a park by the Duke of Northumberland. During the Second World War, the site was used to host United States Army soldiers and, later, by the Air Ministry for offices. The ministry left the castle in 1956 and the site was reopened to visitors.
In the 21st century, Launceston is owned by the duchy of Cornwall and operated by English Heritage as a tourist attraction. Much of the castle defences remain, including the motte, keep and high tower which overlook the castle's former deer park to the south. The gatehouses and some of the curtain wall have survived, and archaeologists have uncovered the foundations of various buildings in the bailey, including the great hall.
Erasmus Darwin was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher beginning his journals on Galapagos Islands, physiologist, slave-trade abolitionist, inventor and poet.
His poems included much natural history, including a statement of evolution and the relatedness of all forms of life.
He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family, which includes his grandsons Charles Darwin and Francis Galton. Darwin was a founding member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a discussion group of pioneering industrialists and natural philosophers.
He turned down an invitation of George III's to become a physician to the King.
The Erewash Museum is a museum in the town of Ilkeston, Erewash, in Derbyshire, England. The building that houses the museum is named the Dalby House after one of the families who inhabited it, and has served as a school and a private dwelling.
The museum opened in the 1980s, and focuses on the history of the Erewash area, with exhibits covering the Second World War, archaeology, and the Stanton Ironworks.
The Essex Record Office is the repository for records about the county of Essex in England. The office is run by Essex County Council. A searchable database of the records held at the office is available on a system called Seax.
The Essex Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1958. The regiment served in many conflicts such as the Second Boer War and both World War I and World War II, serving with distinction in all three. It was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 44th Regiment of Foot and the 56th Regiment of Foot.
In 1958, the Essex Regiment was amalgamated with the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment to form the 3rd East Anglian Regiment . However, the existence was short-lived and, in 1964, was amalgamated again with the 1st East Anglian Regiment , the 2nd East Anglian Regiment and the Royal Leicestershire Regiment to form the Royal Anglian Regiment. The lineage of the Essex Regiment is continued by 'C' Company of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment.
Eton College is a 13–18 independent boarding school for boys in the parish of Eton, near Windsor in Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore", as a sister institution to King's College, Cambridge, making it the 18th-oldest Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference school. Eton's history and influence have made it one of the most prestigious schools in the world.Following the public school tradition, Eton is a full boarding school, which means pupils live at the school seven days a week, and it is one of only four such remaining single-sex boys', boarding-only independent senior schools in the United Kingdom . The remainder have since become co-educational: Rugby , Charterhouse , Westminster , and Shrewsbury . Eton has educated prime ministers, world leaders, Nobel laureates, Academy Award- and BAFTA award-winning actors, and generations of the aristocracy, having been referred to as "the chief nurse of England's statesmen."Eton charges up to £42,501 per year . Eton was noted as being the sixth most expensive HMC boarding school in the UK in 2013-14, however the school admits some boys with modest parental income: in 2011 it was reported that around 250 boys received "significant" financial help from the school, with the figure rising to 263 pupils in 2014, receiving the equivalent of around 60% of school fee assistance, whilst a further 63 received their education free of charge. Eton has also announced plans to increase the figure to around 320 pupils, with 70 educated free of charge, with the intention that the number of pupils receiving financial assistance from the school continues to increase.
Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The present building was complete by about 1400, and has several notable features, including an early set of misericords, an astronomical clock and the longest uninterrupted vaulted ceiling in England.
Exhall Grange Specialist School is a special school located in Ash Green just outside Coventry in Warwickshire, England. The school meets the needs of children and young people age from 2 to 19 years with physical disability, visual impairment, complex medical needs, and social, communication and interaction difficulties.
Opened in 1951 as a school for visually impaired pupils, Exhall Grange was the first school to cater exclusively for partially sighted children. It later widened its remit to include pupils with other disabilities, and became a grammar school in 1960.
The school was a boarding school for many years, but significantly reduced its boarding facilities during the 1990s and 2000s as its role as a special school changed, and it is now a day school. In 2001 Exhall Grange began to share its campus with RNIB Pears Centre for Specialist Learning , an RNIB school which relocated there from Northamptonshire. A children's hospice also occupies part of the site. Exhall Grange was the first special school to be awarded science college status in 2003, and celebrated its Diamond Jubilee year in 2011.
The Bate Collection of Musical Instruments is a collection of historic musical instruments, mainly for Western classical music, from the Middle Ages onwards. It is housed in Oxford University's Faculty of Music near Christ Church on St. Aldate's.
The collection is open to the public and is available for academic study by appointment. The current curator is Andy Lamb, a former NCO who served in the Royal Artillery and was a trumpeter in their Junior Leaders band during his training as a Boy Soldier. There are frequent gallery events and special exhibitions. More than a thousand instruments by important English, French and German makers, are on display, showing the musical and mechanical development of wind and percussion instruments from the Renaissance to the current day.The collection is named after Philip Bate who gave his collection of musical instruments to the University of Oxford in 1968, on the condition that it was used for teaching and was provided with a specialist curator to care for and lecture on it. The collection also houses an archive of his papers.
The Bate Collection is additionally the home of the Reginald Morley-Pegge Memorial Collection of Horns and other Brass and Woodwind Instruments; the Anthony Baines Collection; the Edgar Hunt Collection of Recorders and other instruments; the Jean Henry Collection, the Taphouse Keyboard Loans; the Roger Warner Keyboard Collection; the Michael Thomas Keyboard Collection; a number of instruments from the Jeremy Montagu Collection; a complete workshop of the English bow-maker William C Retford, as well as a small collection of Bows formed in his memory, the Wally Horwood Collection of books and recordings, and other instruments acquired by purchase and gift.
An album, 'Voices From The Past, Vol. 2: Instruments of The Bate Collection' was released in 2015.
