The History of Glendale

In 1993 remains of a Bronze Age bridge were found on the south River Thames foreshore, upstream from Vauxhall Bridge. Two of the timbers were radiocarbon dated to 1750–1285&nbsp;BC. were found on the Thames' south foreshore downstream from Vauxhall Bridge. Both are on the south bank of the Thames, where the now-underground River Effra flows into the Thames. This only lasted until about AD&nbsp;61, when the Iceni tribe led by Queen Boudica stormed it and burnt it to the ground. The next planned incarnation of Londinium prospered, superseding Colchester as the principal city of the Roman province of Britannia in 100. At its height in the 2nd century, Roman London had a population of about 60,000. With the early-5th-century collapse of Roman rule, the walled city of Londinium was effectively abandoned, although Roman civilisation continued around St Martin-in-the-Fields until about 450. From about 500 an Anglo-Saxon settlement known as Lundenwic developed slightly west of the old Roman city. By about 680 the city had become a major port again, but there is little evidence of large-scale production. From the 820s repeated Viking assaults brought decline. The Vikings applied Danelaw over much of eastern and northern England from 886; The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that Alfred "refounded" London that year. This involved the abandonment of Lundenwic and a revival of life and trade within the old Roman walls. London then grew slowly until a dramatic increase in about 950. By the 11th century, London was clearly the largest town in England. Westminster Abbey, rebuilt in Romanesque style by King Edward the Confessor, was one of the grandest churches in Europe. Winchester had been the capital of Anglo-Saxon England, but from this time, London became the main forum for foreign traders and the base for defence in time of war. In the view of Frank Stenton: "It had the resources, and it was rapidly developing the dignity and the political self-consciousness appropriate to a national capital." After winning the Battle of Hastings, William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England as William I in the newly completed Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066. He built the Tower of London to intimidate the inhabitants. In 1097 William II began building Westminster Hall, near the abbey. It became the basis of a new Palace of Westminster. In the 12th century the institutions of central government, which had followed the royal English court around the country, grew in size and sophistication and became increasingly fixed, for most purposes at Westminster, although the royal treasury came to rest in the Tower of London. While the City of Westminster developed into a true governmental capital, its distinct neighbour, the City of London, remained England's largest city and principal commercial centre and flourished under its own unique administration, the Corporation of London. In 1100, its population was some 18,000; by 1300, it had grown to nearly 100,000. With the Black Death in the mid-14th century, London lost nearly a third of its population. London was the focus of the Peasants' Revolt in 1381. London was a centre of England's Jewish population before their expulsion by Edward I in 1290. Violence against Jews occurred in 1190, when it was rumoured that Richard I had ordered their massacre after some of their leaders had presented themselves at his coronation. In 1264, during the Second Barons' War, Simon de Montfort's rebels killed 500 Jews while attempting to seize records of debts. The Reformation produced a shift to Protestantism. Much property passed into private ownership, accelerating business in the city. In 1475 the Hanseatic League set up a trading base. Woollen cloth was shipped undyed from 14th- and 15th-century London to the Low Countries. The reopening of the Netherlands to English shipping in January 1565 spurred a burst of commercial activity. Mercantilism grew and monopoly traders such as the East India Company were founded as trade expanded to the New World. London became the main North Sea port, with migrants from England and abroad. The population rose from about 50,000 in 1530 to about 225,000 in 1605. The ban was lifted during the 1660 Restoration; London's oldest theatre, Drury Lane, opened in 1663. By the end of the Tudor period in 1603, London was still compact. There was an assassination attempt on James I in Westminster, in the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605. In 1637 the government of Charles I attempted to reform London's administration; the Corporation made "The Great Refusal", explaining the City of London's unique governmental status. In the English Civil War, most Londoners supported the Roundheads. After an advance by the Cavaliers in 1642, culminating in the battles of Brentford and Turnham Green, London was surrounded by a defensive perimeter wall. The fortifications failed their only test when the New Model Army entered London in 1647. London suffered the Great Plague of 1665–1666, killing some 100,000 people, a fifth of the population. In 1666, the Great Fire destroyed much of the wooden-built city. Rebuilding took over 10 years, supervised by the polymath Robert Hooke. In 1710, Christopher Wren's masterpiece St Paul's Cathedral was completed, replacing its medieval predecessor, lost in the Great Fire. Its dome dominated the London skyline for centuries, inspiring William Blake, whose 1789 poem "Holy Thursday" mentions 'the high dome of Pauls'. During the Georgian era new districts such as Mayfair were formed in the west, while new bridges encouraged development in South London. In the east, the Port of London expanded downstream, while the financial centre matured. In 1762 George III acquired Buckingham House. During the 18th century London was dogged by crime, and the Bow Street Runners were established in 1750 as a professional police force. Epidemics during the 1720s and 30s saw most children born in the city die before reaching their fifth birthday. Growing literacy and printed papers made news widely available; Fleet Street became the centre of the British press, and Londoners debated in coffeehouses. Napoleon's invasion of Amsterdam led many financiers to relocate to London and the first London international issue was arranged in 1817. The Royal Navy became the world's leading war fleet, acting as a deterrent to economic adversaries. Following an 1838 fire, the Royal Exchange was rebuilt in 1844. The 1846 repeal of the Corn Laws, meant to weaken Dutch economic power, enabled London to overtake Amsterdam as the leading international financial centre. <gallery class=center mode=nolines widths=170 heights=170> File:Siege of London (MS 1168).jpg|The Lancastrian siege of London in 1471 is attacked by a Yorkist sally. File:London - John Norden's map of 1593.jpg|Map of London in 1593. There is only one bridge across the Thames, but parts of Southwark on the south bank of the river have been developed. File:Great Fire London.jpg|The Great Fire of London destroyed much of the city in 1666. File:Edward Angelo Goodall04.jpg|St Paul's Cathedral (painted by Edward Goodall in 1850) was completed in 1710. </gallery> The Industrial Revolution saw unprecedented urbanisation. London was the world's largest city from about 1831 to 1925, with a population density of 132 per acre (325 per hectare). Harding, Howell & Co. on Pall Mall was one of the first department stores, alongside many street sellers. Overcrowding led to cholera epidemics, claiming 14,000 lives in 1848, and 6,000 in 1866. A modern sewage system was created by the Metropolitan Board of Works; it diverted waste to the Thames Estuary, and by the 1890s used biological treatment of sewage to oxidise the waste. The Metropolitan Board of Works oversaw infrastructure expansion in the capital and some surrounding counties. Lyons opened the first of their chain of teashops in Piccadilly in 1894. Tearooms became popular meeting places for women from the suffrage movement.

Source: Wikipedia