110-589: The Weald ( / ˈ w iː l d / ) is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs . It crosses the counties of Hampshire , Surrey , West Sussex , East Sussex , and Kent . It has three parts, the sandstone "High Weald" in the centre, the clay "Low Weald" periphery and the Greensand Ridge , which stretches around the north and west of
220-547: A 2014 study, which then Business and Energy Minister Michael Fallon said "will bring jobs and business opportunities" and significantly help with UK energy self-sufficiency. Fracking in the area would be required to achieve these objectives, which has been opposed by environmental groups. Prehistoric evidence suggests that, following the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the Neolithic inhabitants had turned to farming, with
330-801: A Baptist minister, in Swindon , for a period of private study. Mantell returned to Lewes at age 15. With the help of a local Whig party leader, Mantell secured an apprenticeship with a local surgeon named James Moore. He served as an apprentice to Moore in Lewes for a period of five years, in which he took care of Mantell's dining, lodging and medical issues. Mantell's early apprenticeship duties included cleaning vials, as well as separating and arranging drugs . Soon, he learned how to make pills and other pharmaceutical products . He delivered Moore's medicines, kept his accounts, wrote out bills and extracted teeth from his patients. On 11 July 1807, Thomas Mantell died at
440-521: A Germanic root of the same meaning, and ultimately from Indo-European . Weald is specifically a West Saxon form; wold is the Anglian form of the word. The Middle English form of the word is wēld , and the modern spelling is a reintroduction of the Old English form attributed to its use by William Lambarde in his A Perambulation of Kent of 1576. In early medieval Britain, the area had
550-573: A Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1811. Four days later, he received a certificate from the Lying-in Charity for Married Women at Their Own Habitations that allowed him to act in midwifery duties. He returned to Lewes, and immediately formed a partnership with his former master, James Moore. In the wake of the cholera , typhoid and smallpox epidemics, Mantell found himself quite busy attending to more than 50 patients
660-531: A carriage accident. He got stuck in the reins and was dragged along for 5 miles before arriving at his destination. Despite being bent, crippled and in constant pain, he continued to work with fossilised reptiles and published a number of scientific books and papers until his death in November the 10th 1852. He moved to Pimlico in 1844 and began to take opium , as a painkiller, in 1845. On 10 November 1852, Mantell took an overdose of opium and later lapsed into
770-491: A coma. He died that afternoon. His post-mortem by William Adams showed that he had been suffering from severe lumbar scoliosis , leading to the Adams Forward Bend Test as a diagnostic tool. A section of Mantell's spine was removed, preserved and stored on a shelf at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It remained there until 1969 when it was destroyed due to lack of space. Mantell's surgery, on
880-416: A day and delivering between 200 and 300 babies a year. As he later recalled, he would have to stay up for "six or seven nights in succession" due to his overwhelming doctoral duties. He was also able to increase his practice's profits from £250 to £750 a year. Although mainly occupied with running his busy country medical practice, he spent his little free time pursuing his passion, geology, often working into
990-838: A geological structure, an anticline , a dome of layered Lower Cretaceous rocks cut through by weathering to expose the layers as sandstone ridges and clay valleys. The oldest rocks exposed at the centre of the anticline are correlated with the Purbeck Beds of the Upper Jurassic . Above these, the Cretaceous rocks, include the Wealden Group of alternating sands and clays – the Ashdown Sand Formation , Wadhurst Clay Formation , Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation (collectively known as
1100-645: A grammar school: 12%; the next highest is the South-West with 6%. The most-educated people ( NQF level 4 or above) in the region live in Elmbridge (51%), then Waverley, and Epsom and Ewell; 33% of people are at this level for the South-East, only second to London at 40%. Gideon Mantell Gideon Algernon Mantell MRCS FRS (3 February 1790 – 10 November 1852) was an English obstetrician , geologist and palaeontologist . His attempts to reconstruct
1210-493: A late party and apparently had some doubts when reconsidering the matter when he awoke, fresh in the morning. "The next morning he told me that he was confident that it was something quite different." Strangely, this change of opinion did not make it back to Britain where Mantell was mocked for his error. Mantell was still convinced that the teeth had come from the Mesozoic strata and finally recognised that they resembled those of
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#17327875156951320-576: A pension from the crown and made warden of the Weald in reward for his services. The inhabitants of the Weald remained largely independent and hostile to outsiders during the next decades. In 1264 during the Second Barons' War , the royalist army of King Henry III of England marched through the Weald in order to force the submission of the Cinque Ports . Even though they were not aligned with
1430-606: A place that is called Cymenshore . There they slew many of the Welsh; and some in flight they drove into the wood that is called Andred'sley. Until the Late Middle Ages the forest was a notorious hiding place for criminals. Settlements on the Weald are widely scattered. Villages evolved from small settlements in the woods, typically four to five miles (six to eight kilometres) apart; close enough to be an easy walk but not so close as to encourage unnecessary intrusion. Few of
1540-417: A prolific writer himself, did much of his writing at his country house, Chartwell , near Westerham , which has extensive views over the Weald. The view from the house was of crucial importance to Churchill; he once remarked, "I bought Chartwell for that view." In the early 21st century, Tunbridge Wells Borough Council promoted "Seven Wonders of the Weald": The game of cricket may have originated prior to
1650-571: A prosperous economic hub with the largest economy of any region in the UK, after London . The region is home to Gatwick Airport , the UK's second-busiest airport, and Heathrow Airport (the UK's busiest airport) is located adjacent to the region's boundary with Greater London . The coastline along the English Channel provides numerous ferry crossings to mainland Europe . The region is known for its countryside, which includes two national parks:
1760-733: A resource by people living on its fringes, much as in other places in Britain such as Dartmoor , the Fens and the Forest of Arden . The Weald was used for centuries, possibly since the Iron Age , for transhumance of animals along droveways in the summer months. Over the centuries, deforestation for the shipbuilding, charcoal, forest glass , and brickmaking industries has left the Low Weald with only remnants of that woodland cover. While most of
1870-605: A special licence to marry Mantell. After obtaining consent and the licence, she married Mantell on 4 May at St. Marylebone Church. That year, he purchased his own medical practice and took up an appointment at the Royal Artillery Hospital, at Ringmer , Lewes. Inspired by Mary Anning 's sensational discovery of a fossilised animal resembling a huge crocodile (later identified as an ichthyosaur ) at Lyme Regis in Dorset, Mantell became passionately interested in
1980-701: Is a 144-ft beech at Devil's Dyke in Newtimber Woods in West Sussex. Until 1999, there was a south east Standard Statistical Region , which also included the counties of Bedfordshire , Greater London , Essex and Hertfordshire . The former south east Civil Defence Region covered the same area as the current official region. In unofficial usage, the South East can refer to a varying area – sometimes only to London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, and Surrey; but sometimes to an area corresponding to
2090-473: Is a great deal of surface water: ponds and many meandering streams. Some areas, such as the flat plain around Crawley , have been utilised for urban use: here are Gatwick Airport and its related developments and the Horley -Crawley commuter settlements. Otherwise the Low Weald retains its historic settlement pattern, where the villages and small towns occupy harder outcrops of rocks. There are no large towns on
2200-527: Is a level-1 NUTS region, coded "UKJ", which is subdivided as follows: Buckinghamshire, Medway and Kent, and Slough have an almost completely selective education system – not just a few grammar schools as other English areas may have – with secondary modern schools as the alternative. Kent has 33 grammar schools, Buckinghamshire 13, Medway 6 and Slough 4. The other areas are comprehensive . The top thirty schools at A level are almost exclusively selective schools; one or two are sixth form colleges . However,
2310-551: Is an official region for statistical and strategic planning purposes, but is not served by any directly elected regional government. From 1998 to 2010 local councils sent to the voluntary South East England Regional Assembly , based in Guildford . Delegates met six times a year and it was responsible for the South East England Development Agency , a project which oversaw investment projects in
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#17327875156952420-616: Is at the junction of the Varsity Line (between Oxford and Cambridge) and the West Coast Main Line . The Harwell computer (Dekatron), now at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley, was built in 1949 and is believed to be the oldest working digital computer in the world. John Wallis of Kent introduced the symbol for infinity and the standard notation for powers of numbers in 1656. Thomas Bayes
2530-854: Is one of the nine official regions of England in the United Kingdom at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the nine counties of Berkshire , Buckinghamshire , East Sussex , Hampshire , the Isle of Wight , Kent , Oxfordshire , Surrey and West Sussex . Cities and towns in the region include Aldershot , Ashford , Aylesbury , Basingstoke , Bracknell , Brighton and Hove , Canterbury , Chichester , Crawley , Eastbourne , Farnborough , Gosport , Guildford , Hastings , High Wycombe , Margate , Maidstone , Medway , Milton Keynes , Newport , Oxford , Portsmouth , Ramsgate , Reading , Slough , Southampton , Winchester , Woking and Worthing . South East England
2640-649: Is strong support for other parties, for example, Oxford , Slough and Southampton Test for Labour and Brighton Pavilion which is held by the Green Party . Out of 84 parliamentary seats, the Conservatives hold 72. In the 2017 general election, the Conservatives won 54.8% of votes, Labour 28.6%, Liberal Democrats 10.6%, Greens 3.1%, and UKIP 2.2%. In the Eurostat Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS), South East England
2750-442: Is the third-largest region of England, with a land area of 19,072 square kilometres (7,364 sq mi), and is also the most populous with a total population of 9,379,833 in 2022. The region contains eight legally chartered cities : Brighton and Hove , Canterbury , Chichester , Milton Keynes , Oxford , Portsmouth , Southampton and Winchester . The region's close proximity to London has led to South East England becoming
2860-423: Is unknown, but Mantell's response is known. Galvanised and encouraged, Mantell showed the teeth to other scientists but they were dismissed as belonging to a fish or mammal and from a more recent rock layer than the other Tilgate Forest fossils. The eminent French anatomist , Georges Cuvier , identified the teeth as those of a rhinoceros . Although according to Charles Lyell , Cuvier made this statement after
2970-642: Is used as the name for various open rolling upland areas in the North of England, including the Yorkshire Wolds and the Lincolnshire Wolds , although these are, by contrast, chalk uplands. The Cotswolds are a major geographical feature of central England, forming a south-west to north-east line across the country. 51°00′N 0°24′E / 51°N 0.4°E / 51; 0.4 South East England South East England
3080-714: The A32 , is an example of a site where the Romano-British grew Roman grapes . Much of the Battle of Britain was fought in this region, especially in Kent. RAF Bomber Command was based at High Wycombe . RAF Medmenham at Danesfield House , west of Marlow in Buckinghamshire, was important for aerial reconnaissance . Operation Corona , based at RAF Kingsdown (at West Kingsdown next to Brands Hatch in Kent, between
3190-476: The Battle Abbey for the disloyalty of its tenants. In the first edition of On The Origin of Species , Charles Darwin used an estimate for the erosion of the chalk, sandstone and clay strata of the Weald in his theory of natural selection . Charles Darwin was a follower of Lyell's theory of uniformitarianism and decided to expand upon Lyell's theory with a quantitative estimate to determine if there
3300-825: The Hastings Beds ) and the Weald Clay . The Wealden Group is overlain by the Lower Greensand and the Gault Formation, consisting of the Gault and the Upper Greensand . The rocks of the central part of the anticline include hard sandstones, and these form hills now called the High Weald . The peripheral areas are mostly of softer sandstones and clays and form a gentler rolling landscape,
3410-609: The Low Weald . The Weald–Artois Anticline continues some 40 miles (64 km) further south-eastwards under the Straits of Dover , and includes the Boulonnais of France . Many important fossils have been found in the sandstones and clays of the Weald, including, for example, Baryonyx . The famous scientific hoax of Piltdown Man was claimed to have come from a gravel pit at Piltdown near Uckfield . The first Iguanodon
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3520-1011: The New Forest and the South Downs , as well as the North Downs , the Chiltern Hills and part of the Cotswolds . The River Thames flows through the region and its basin is known as the Thames Valley . It is also the location of a number of internationally known places of interest, such as HMS Victory in Portsmouth, Cliveden in Buckinghamshire, Thorpe Park and RHS Wisley in Surrey, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, Windsor Castle in Berkshire, Leeds Castle ,
3630-670: The Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty . In extent it covers about 85 miles (137 km) from west to east, and about 30 miles (48 km) from north to south, covering an area of some 500 square miles (1,300 km). The eastern end of the High Weald, the English Channel coast, is marked in the centre by the high sandstone cliffs from Hastings to Pett Level ; and by former sea cliffs now fronted by
3740-765: The White Cliffs of Dover and Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, Brighton Palace Pier , and Hammerwood Park in East Sussex, and Wakehurst Place in West Sussex. The region has many universities; the University of Oxford is the oldest in the English-speaking world, and ranked among the best in the world. South East England is host to various sporting events, including the annual Henley Royal Regatta , Royal Ascot and The Derby , and sporting venues include Wentworth Golf Club and Brands Hatch . Some of
3850-468: The circulation of blood . The Lilly Research Centre in Windlesham, Berkshire, part of Eli Lilly , developed Olanzapine in 1996 (for bipolar disorder , selling around $ 5bn worldwide annually). Beecham Research Laboratories at Brockham Park in 1959 discovered meticillin (or methicillin), the first semi-synthetic penicillin ( beta-lactamase stable), deriving from their discovery in 1958 of 6-APA ,
3960-773: The flying tail or all-moving tail also known as a stabilator ; this would solve the problem of stability and aircraft control at supersonic speeds , and its design was taken wholesale into the American Bell X-1 , the first supersonic aircraft . The first Harrier aircraft XV738 flew on 28 December 1967; this was the first aircraft of the RAF to have a head-up display avionics system. The first two-seat Harrier XW174 flew on 24 April 1969, later crashing at Larkhill in June 1969. The British Aerospace Sea Harrier XZ450 first flew on 20 August 1978; on 4 May 1982 this aircraft
4070-419: The iguana , but were twenty times larger. He surmised that the owner of the remains must have been at least 60 feet (18 metres) in length. He tried in vain to convince his peers that the fossils were from Mesozoic strata, by carefully studying rock layers. William Buckland famously disputed Mantell's assertion, by claiming that the teeth were of fish. When it was proved Mantell was correct in 1825,
4180-723: The long tunnel near Balcombe and the Ouse Valley Viaduct . Tributaries of the River Ouse provided some assistance in the building of now-closed East Grinstead - Lewes and the Uckfield -Lewes lines. The principal main-line railway to Hastings had to negotiate difficult terrain when it was first built, necessitating many sharp curves and tunnels; and similar problems had to be faced with the Ashford-Hastings line. Several long-distance footpaths criss-cross
4290-531: The plan position indicator method of radar display as most commonly known ever since; the site became Plessey Radar in 1965, and currently is run by BAE Systems. Sperry Gyroscope in Bracknell produced the guidance systems for Britain's 1960s space rockets. The Wealden iron industry in the Weald was the site of the first blast furnace in Britain in 1491, and produced much of Britain's cast iron until
4400-525: The 13th century in the Weald . The related game of stoolball is still popular in the Weald, it was originally played mainly by women's teams, but since the formation of the Sussex league at the beginning of the 20th century it has been played by both men and women. Several other areas in southern England have the name "Weald", including North Weald in Essex , and Harrow Weald in north-west London . "Wold"
4510-533: The 1770s. Portsmouth Block Mills were the site of the world's first metal machine tools , built for the manufacture of wooden pulleys , invented by Henry Maudslay , and the site of the world's first industrial assembly line in 1803. South Foreland Lighthouse on 8 December 1858 was the world's first lighthouse with electric light, with the first type of industrial electrical generator made by Frederick Hale Holmes , from work he had carried out with Floris Nollet of Belgium, and 36 permanent magnets. By 1880, of
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4620-402: The 17th century, but wild breeding populations have recently returned in the Weald, following escapes from boar farms. The Weald has been associated with many writers, particularly in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These include Vita Sackville-West (1892–1962), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). The setting for A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories
4730-477: The A20 and M20), was implemented to confuse German night fighters with native German-speakers, and coordinated by the RAF Y service . Bletchley Park in north Buckinghamshire was the principal Allied centre for codebreaking. The Colossus computer , arguably the world's first, began working on Lorentz codes on 5 February 1944, with Colossus 2 working from June 1944. The site was chosen, among other reasons, because it
4840-405: The High Weald in lime green (9a). The Low Weald , the periphery of the Weald, is shown as darker green on the map (9), and has an entirely different character. It is in effect the eroded outer edges of the High Weald, revealing a mixture of sandstone outcrops within the underlying clay. As a result, the landscape is of wide and low-lying clay vales with small woodlands ( "shaws" ) and fields. There
4950-499: The Low Weald, although Ashford , Sevenoaks and Reigate lie immediately on the northern edge. Settlements tend to be small and linear, because of its original wooded nature and heavy clay soils. The Weald is drained by the many streams radiating from it, the majority being tributaries of the surrounding major rivers: particularly the Mole , Medway , Stour , Rother , Cuckmere , Ouse , Adur and Arun . Many of these streams provided
5060-524: The M40); on 13 March 1962, the first in-flight rocket-powered ejection took place by Peter Howard , an RAF doctor based at Farnborough's Institute of Aviation Medicine in Meteor WA364 at 250 ft over Chalgrove, with the rocket giving a maximum force of 16G. The Miles M.52 , designed at Woodley Aerodrome in Berkshire by Miles Aircraft , was an advanced design of aircraft which had the innovation of
5170-510: The Pevensey and Romney Marshes on either side. Much of the High Weald , the central part, is designated as the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Its landscape is described as one of rolling hills, studded with sandstone outcrops and cut by streams to form steep-sided ravines (called gills); small irregular-shaped fields and patches of heathland, abundant woodlands; scattered farmsteads and sunken lanes and paths. Ashdown Forest , an extensive area of heathland and woodland occupying
5280-435: The Sun had been burning for less than a million years, and put the outside limit of the age of the Earth at 200 million years. Based on these estimates he denounced Darwin's geological estimates as imprecise. Darwin saw Lord Kelvin's calculation as one of the most serious criticisms to his theory and removed his calculations on the Weald from the third edition of On the Origin of Species . Modern chronostratigraphy shows that
5390-445: The UK was at Epsom telephone exchange from 18 May 1912. It was introduced as standard across the UK's 6,700 telephone exchanges in 1922, lasting for around 70 years; it could handle up to 500 lines. It used the Strowger design and was made by Automatic Telephone Manufacturing Company of Liverpool. The world's first automatic telephone exchange had opened in La Porte, Indiana in November 1892. UK-Belgium 5 , laid in 1986 from Kent,
5500-427: The UK, at Farnborough; on 14 May 1909 he flew it for more than a mile. On 13 August 1909, his wife was the first woman in the UK to fly in a plane, also at Farnborough. The first human airborne ejection seat firing took place on 24 July 1946 over Chalgrove Airfield , Oxfordshire, in a Meteor , piloted by Bernard Lynch ; the first dummy ejection had been 10 May 1945 over RAF Oakley in west Buckinghamshire (today near
5610-402: The Weald Clays were laid down around 130 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous. The Weald begins north-east of Petersfield in Hampshire and extends across Surrey and Kent in the north, and Sussex in the south. The western parts in Hampshire and West Sussex, known as the Western Weald , are included in the South Downs National Park . Other protected parts of the Weald are included in
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#17327875156955720-401: The Weald and includes its highest points. The Weald once was covered with forest and its name, Old English in origin, signifies "woodland". The term is still used, as scattered farms and villages sometimes refer to the Weald in their names. The name "Weald" is derived from the Old English weald , meaning "forest" (cognate of German Wald , but unrelated to English "wood"). This comes from
5830-415: The Weald was used for transhumance by communities at the edge of the Weald, several parts of the forest on the higher ridges in the interior seem to have been used for hunting by the kings of Sussex . The pattern of droveways which occurs across the rest of the Weald is absent from these areas. These areas include St Leonard's Forest , Worth Forest, Ashdown Forest and Dallington Forest . The forests of
5940-428: The Weald were often used as a place of refuge and sanctuary. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates events during the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Sussex when the native Britons (whom the Anglo-Saxons called Welsh ) were driven from the coastal towns into the recesses of the forest for sanctuary,: A.D. 477. This year came Ælle to Britain, with his three sons, Cymen, and Wlenking, and Cissa , in three ships; landing at
6050-423: The Weald, and it is well-mapped recreationally, covered by routes from: Neither the thin infertile sands of the High Weald or the wet sticky clays of the Low Weald are suited to intensive arable farming and the topography of the area often increases the difficulties. There are limited areas of fertile greensand which can be used for intensive vegetable growing, as in the valley of the Western Rother . Historically
6160-403: The Weald. The entire Weald was originally heavily forested. According to the 9th-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , the Weald measured 120 miles (193 km) or longer by 30 miles (48 km) in the Saxon era, stretching from Lympne , near Romney Marsh in Kent, to the Forest of Bere or even the New Forest in Hampshire. The area was sparsely inhabited and inhospitable, being used mainly as
6270-421: The administrative capital of England some time in the 13th century as its influence waned while the City of London dominated commerce. The last monarch to be crowned at Winchester was Richard II in 1377, although the last monarch to be crowned by the Bishop of Winchester was Queen Mary I in 1553. The Meonhill Vineyard, near Old Winchester Hill in east Hampshire on the South Downs south of West Meon on
6380-506: The age of 57. He left his son some money for his future studies. As his time in apprenticeship began to wind down, he began to anticipate his medical education. He began to teach himself human anatomy , and he ultimately detailed his new-found knowledge in a volume entitled The Anatomy of the Bones, and the Circulation of Blood , which contained dozens of detailed drawings of fetal and adult skeletal features. Soon, Mantell began his formal medical education in London. He received his diploma as
6490-431: The area of cereals grown has varied greatly with changes in prices, increasing during the Napoleonic Wars and during and since World War II . About 60% of the High Weald farmed land is grassland, with about 20% being arable. The Weald has its own breed of cattle, called the Sussex , although the breed has been as numerous in Kent and parts of Surrey. Bred from the strong hardy oxen, which continued to be used to plough
6600-412: The astronomer, from Kent, invented the term photography in 1839, meaning light writing . and discovered the first photographic fixer , sodium thiosulphate , known as hypo , also in 1839. GLEEP was Britain's first nuclear reactor, in August 1947 at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at Harwell, it would stay operational until 1990. William Harvey of Folkestone, in Kent, discovered
6710-411: The boar in Hampstead . In 1216 during the First Barons' War , a guerilla force of archers from the Weald, led by William of Cassingham (nicknamed Willikin of the Weald), ambushed the French occupying army led by Prince Louis near Lewes and drove them to the coast at Winchelsea . The timely arrival of a French fleet allowed the French forces to narrowly escape starvation. William was later granted
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#17327875156956820-426: The clay soils of the Low Weald longer than in most places, these red beef cattle were highly praised by Arthur Young in his book Agriculture of Sussex when visiting Sussex in the 1790s. William Cobbett commented on finding some of the finest cattle on some of the region's poorest subsistence farms on the High Weald. Pigs, which were kept by most households in the past, were able to be fattened in autumn on acorns in
6930-414: The conurbation known as the Greater London Urban Area . The South East has the highest percentage of people born outside of Britain other than London . According to the 2021 census, 78.8% of residents were White British , 7.1% Other White (inc. 0.8% Irish ), 7.0% British Asian , 2.8% Mixed Race , 2.4% Black British , and 1.4% of other groups . There was no census in 1941. South East England
7040-430: The core constituent; the team, led by Prof George Rolinson, won the Mullard Award in 1971. Bipyridine compounds (Paraquat-Gramoxone and Diquat) were discovered for herbicide use in 1954 by William Boon at ICI's Plant Protection division at Jealott's Hill, being released onto the market in 1958. AZT/Retrovir ( zidovudine ) was first manufactured by Wellcome in 1987 in Kent; they also introduced Zovirax ( aciclovir ), and
7150-499: The dinosaur's forelimbs were much shorter than its hind legs, therefore proving they were not built like a mammal as claimed by Sir Richard Owen . Mantell went on to demonstrate that fossil vertebrae , which Owen had attributed to a variety of different species, all belonged to Iguanodon . He also named a new genus of dinosaur called Hylaeosaurus and as a result became an authority on prehistoric reptiles. In 1833, Mantell relocated to Brighton but his medical practice suffered. He
7260-434: The early 1960s. Donald Watts Davies invented packet switching in the late 1960s at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington . Packet-switching was taken up by the Americans to form the ARPANET , the precursor to the Internet. Surrey's Alec Reeves invented pulse-code modulation (PCM) in 1937 (at ITT 's research laboratories in Paris), the standard for digital audio recordings. Sir John Herschel , son of
7370-411: The early hours of the morning, identifying fossil specimens he found at the marl pits in Hamsey . In 1813, Mantell began to correspond with James Sowerby . Sowerby, a naturalist and illustrator who catalogued fossil shells, received from Mantell many fossilised specimens. In appreciation for the specimens Mantell had provided, Sowerby named one of the species Ammonites mantelli . On 7 December, Mantell
7480-584: The entrance fee. Financially destitute, Mantell offered to sell the entire collection to the British Museum in 1838 for £ 5,000, accepting the counter-offer of £4,000. He moved to Clapham Common in South London, where he continued his work as a doctor. Mary Mantell left her husband in 1839. That same year, Gideon's son Walter emigrated to New Zealand . Walter later sent his father some important fossils from New Zealand. Gideon's daughter, Hannah, died in 1840. In 1841 he began to suffer from what would eventually be diagnosed as scoliosis, possibly precipitated by
7590-469: The events of the 2012 Summer Olympics were held in the south east, including the rowing at Eton Dorney and part of the cycling road race in the Surrey Hills . In medieval times , South East England included much of the Kingdom of Wessex , which was the precursor to the modern state of England . Winchester was the capital of England after unification of the various states, including the kingdoms of Kent , Sussex and Mercia . Winchester stopped being
7700-484: The extensive oak woods. In his novel Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man , the poet and novelist Siegfried Sassoon refers to "the agricultural serenity of the Weald widespread in the delicate hazy sunshine". Viticulture has expanded quite rapidly across the Weald, where the climate and soil is well suited to the growing of grapes, with over 20 vineyards now in the Wealden district alone The Weald has largely maintained its wooded character, with woodland still covering 23% of
7810-439: The first point of sale terminal in Europe - the NCR 280 in 1973. The National Fruit Collection is the largest collection of fruit trees in the world, at Brogdale , and is next to the M2 at the A251 junction in Ospringe . Scalextric was invented by Fred Francis in 1956, who founded Minimodels in Havant; initially the model cars had been clockwork ; it was made from 1967 at Triang in Margate. The world's first Mars Bar
7920-579: The first to assign the correct atomic number to elements in periodic table ; he did not receive any Nobel Prize as it is not awarded posthumously (he was killed in 1915 at Gallipoli with the Royal Engineers). Carbon fibre was invented in 1963 at the RAE in Farnborough by a team led by William Watt. The Apollo LCG space-suit cooling system originated mostly from work done at RAE Farnborough in
8030-414: The former Standard Statistical Region. The South East is also occasionally used as a synonym for the home counties . The population of the region at the 2011 census was 8,634,750 making it the most populous English region. The major conurbations of the region include South Hampshire (855,000), Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton (474,000) and Reading (318,000). Settlements closer to London are part of
8140-521: The highest sandy ridge-top at the centre of the High Weald, is a former royal deer-hunting forest created by the Normans and said to be the largest remaining part of Andredesweald . There are centres of settlement, the largest of which are Horsham , Burgess Hill , East Grinstead , Haywards Heath , Tonbridge , Tunbridge Wells , Crowborough ; and the area along the coast from Hastings and Bexhill-on-Sea to Rye and Hythe . The geological map shows
8250-472: The more sedate, but busy A21 trunk road to Hastings is still beset with traffic delays, despite having had some new sections. Five railways once crossed the Weald, now reduced to three. Building them provided the engineers with difficulties in crossing the terrain, with the hard sandstone adding to their problems. The Brighton Main Line followed the same route as its road predecessors: although it necessitated
8360-455: The name Andredes weald , meaning "the forest of Andred", the latter derived from Anderida , the Roman name of present-day Pevensey . The area is also referred to in early English texts as Andredesleage , where the second element, leage, is another Old English word for "woodland", represented by the modern leigh . The adjective for "Weald" is "wealden". The Weald is the eroded remains of
8470-530: The naturally occurring digoxin , a cardiac glycoside . After a plane crashed near his house in Oxford in 1940, Sir Peter Medawar helped the injured pilot, and in the process discovered homograft rejection , leading to organ transplantation using azathioprine . Viagra ( Sildenafil ) was synthesized at Pfizer in Sandwich, Kent. Sir Francis Pettit Smith of Kent invented the screw propeller . On 3 May 1830
8580-580: The only question was what to call his new reptile. His original name was "Iguana-saurus" but he then received a letter from William Daniel Conybeare : "Your discovery of the analogy between the Iguana and the fossil teeth is very interesting but the name you propose will hardly do, because it is equally applicable to the recent iguana. Iguanoides or Iguanodon would be better." Mantell took this advice to heart and called his creature Iguanodon . Years later, Mantell had acquired enough fossil evidence to show that
8690-400: The origin of which he could not ascertain. In 1821 Mantell planned his next book on the geology of Sussex. It was an immediate success with two hundred subscribers including King George IV at Carlton House Palace , who wrote a letter stating, "His majesty is pleased to command that his name should be placed at the head of the subscription list for four copies." How the king heard of Mantell
8800-477: The original communities by the addition of the suffix " -den ": for example, Tenterden was the area used by the people of Thanet . Permanent settlements in much of the Weald developed much later than in other parts of lowland Britain, although there were as many as one hundred furnaces and forges operating by the later 16th century, employing large numbers of people. In the 12th century, the Weald still extended so far that citizens of London could hunt wild bull and
8910-702: The overall area (one of the highest levels in England) and the proportion is considerably higher in some central parts. The sandstones of the Wealden rocks are usually acidic, often leading to the development of acidic habitats such as heathland , the largest remaining areas of which are in Ashdown Forest and near Thursley . Although common in France , the wild boar became extinct in Great Britain by
9020-537: The power for the watermills , blast furnaces and hammers of the iron industry and the cloth mills. The M25 , M26 and M20 motorways all use the Vale of Holmesdale to the north, and therefore run along or near the northern edge of the Weald. The M23 / A23 road to Brighton , uses the western, narrower, part of the Weald where there are stream headwaters, crossing it from north to south. Other roads take similar routes, although they often have long hills and many bends:
9130-410: The rebellious barons, the Weald's natives – mostly operating as archers – opposed the royalist advance, using guerrilla warfare . Even though they were unable to stop the army, their attacks inflicted substantial losses on the royalists. In retribution, King Henry ordered the execution of any Weald archers who were captured alive, for instance beheading 300 after a local shot his cook. The king also fined
9240-585: The region are at state secondary schools (the highest in England) with 101,000 in Kent (the highest in England for a county and completely selective) then 70,000 in Hampshire, 60,000 in Surrey, 45,000 in West Sussex, 36,000 in Oxfordshire, 35,000 in Buckinghamsire. The lowest is 6,000 at Bracknell Forest, then Reading with about 6,000. Of all regions, the South-East has the greatest percentage that attend
9350-742: The region is the chimney of Grain Power Station at 801 ft; it is the second-tallest chimney in the UK after Drax power station . George Albert Smith developed the first colour film process, known as Kinemacolor , in 1906 at Southwick, West Sussex . George E. Davis from Slough, is the founding father of chemical engineering. Wiggins Teape, later ARJO Wiggins Fine Papers , had the largest paper research centre in Europe at Butlers Court in Beaconsfield; built in 1891 and vacated in 2009. Bentalls in Bracknell (now Fenwick since 2017) had
9460-507: The region. It was abolished on 31 March 2009 and replaced with South East England Councils in Kingston upon Thames . The region is divided into several local council areas, most composed of two-tiered councils (the tiers are county councils and district councils) and unitary authorities : The South East of England is the most Conservative voting region of Britain in terms of both seats and votes. The area also has some seats where there
9570-787: The remains of terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems , at a time when all the known fossil remains from Cretaceous England, hitherto, were marine in origin. He named the new strata the Strata of Tilgate Forest , after an historical wooded area and it was later shown to belong to the Lower Cretaceous . By 1820, he had started to find very large bones at Cuckfield, even larger than those discovered by William Buckland , at Stonesfield in Oxfordshire. Then, in 1822, shortly before finishing his first book ( The Fossils of South Downs ), his wife found several large teeth (although some historians contend that they were in fact discovered by himself),
9680-654: The resultant clearance of the forest. With the Iron Age came the first use of the Weald as an industrial area. Wealden sandstones contain ironstone , and with the additional presence of large amounts of timber for making charcoal for fuel, the area was the centre of the Wealden iron industry from then, through the Roman times , until the last forge was closed in 1813. The index to the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain lists 33 iron mines, and 67% of these are in
9790-546: The results for each county as a whole are not always directly related to the number of grammar schools, as Kent and Medway perform below average at A-level. The King's School, Canterbury claims to be oldest in England: 597 AD. Herschel Grammar School in Slough is the most oversubscribed school in England, with 14 people per place, Langley Grammar School in Slough is next with 13 per place, then Burnham Grammar School. 508,000 in
9900-507: The settlements are mentioned in the Domesday Book ; however Goudhurst's church dates from the early 12th century or before and Wadhurst was big enough by the mid-13th century to be granted a royal charter permitting a market to be held. Before then, the Weald was used as summer grazing land, particularly for pannage by inhabitants of the surrounding areas. Many places within the Weald have retained names from this time, linking them to
10010-586: The south side of Clapham Common, is now a dental surgery. At the time of his death Mantell was credited with discovering four of the five genera of dinosaurs then known. In 2000, in commemoration of Mantell's discovery and his contribution to the science of palaeontology, the Mantell Monument was unveiled at Whiteman's Green, Cuckfield. The monument has been confirmed as the location of the Iguanodon fossils that Mantell first described in 1822. He
10120-537: The structure and life of Iguanodon began the scientific study of dinosaurs: in 1822 he was responsible for the discovery (and the eventual identification) of the first fossil teeth, and later much of the skeleton, of Iguanodon . Mantell's work on the Cretaceous of southern England was also important. Mantell was born in Lewes , Sussex as the fifth-born child of Thomas Mantell, a shoemaker, and Sarah Austen. He
10230-492: The study of the fossilised animals and plants found in his area. The fossils he had collected from the region, near The Weald in Sussex, were from the chalk downlands covering the county. The chalk is part of the Upper Cretaceous System and the fossils it contains are marine in origin. But by 1819, Mantell had begun acquiring fossils from a quarry, at Whitemans Green , near Cuckfield . These included
10340-525: The ten lighthouses with electric light, five were in the UK. From the lighthouse in 1899, the first international radio broadcast to France was made. Zénobe Gramme of Belgium made a much better design in 1870 with self-excitation of magnets, and the first modern dynamo . North Foreland Lighthouse was the UK's last-staffed lighthouse until 1998. Portland cement was developed in Northfleet, Kent, by William Aspdin, son of Joseph Aspdin . The development
10450-602: The world's first bus service was by Eastbourne Buses from Eastbourne railway station to Meads . The world's first submarine telephone cable was laid between England and France in 1891 by HMTS Monarch, enabling London-Paris calls from April 1891. On 3 December 1992, Neil Papworth of Reading, an engineer from Sema Group Telecoms at Vodafone in Newbury, sent the world's first text message from his computer to an Orbitel 901 handset of Richard Jarvis, Vodafone's technical director. The first public automatic telephone exchange in
10560-488: The world's first multi-channel flight data recorders in 1965. Although the Comet is generally accepted as the world's first production-run jet airliner, the first jet airliner ever built (individual) was a Nene -powered Vickers VC.1 Viking on 6 April 1948 from Wisley Airfield ; the world's first turboprop airliner would fly from there on 16 July 1948 by Mutt Summers . In 1939 at Cowes ( Northwood ) John Godeck invented
10670-583: The world's first passenger train service, the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway (6 miles or 10 km) began. It was built by George Stephenson and hauled by the locomotive Invicta . It introduced the world's first railway season ticket in 1834. Maidenhead Railway Bridge , known for its flat arch, was built in 1839 with 39-metre spans. The Military Vehicles and Engineering Establishment , in Chertsey, developed Chobham armour . On 12 April 1903,
10780-660: Was a follower of the Methodist church and the 12 free schools were reserved for children who had been brought up in the Anglican faith. As a result, Gideon was educated at a dame school in St. Mary's Lane, and learned basic reading and writing from an old woman. After the death of his teacher, Mantell was schooled by John Button, a philosophically radical Whig who shared similar political beliefs with Mantell's father. Mantell spent two years with Button, before being sent to his uncle,
10890-472: Was almost rendered destitute, but for the town's council, which promptly transformed his house into a museum. There he gave a series of lectures that were published in 1838 with the title The wonders of geology, or, A familiar exposition of geological phenomena: being the substance of a course of lectures delivered at Brighton . The museum in Brighton ultimately failed as a result of Mantell's habit of waiving
11000-553: Was an important statistician from Tunbridge Wells; his theorem (of probability theory ) is used for spam filters and Google's search . Sir David N. Payne at the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Centre invented the erbium-doped fibre amplifier , a type of optical amplifier , in the mid-1980s, which became essential for the internet. Henry Moseley at Oxford in 1913 discovered his Moseley's law of X-ray spectra of chemical elements that enabled him to be
11110-722: Was built in 1986. This is the world's highest-capacity submarine HVDC cable; it goes from France and lands near Folkestone, with the large transformer station (built by GEC) squeezed between the CTRL and the M20 in Aldington and Smeeth , made of eight 270 kV cables. On 16 October 1908 the British Army Aeroplane No 1 , flown by the American Samuel Franklin Cody , was the first aircraft flown in
11220-486: Was elected as a fellow of the Linnean Society of London . Two years later, he published his first paper, on the characteristics of the fossils found in the Lewes area. In 1816, he married Mary Ann Woodhouse , the 20-year-old daughter of one of his former patients who had died three years earlier. Since she was not 21 and still technically a minor under English law, she had to obtain permission from her mother and
11330-493: Was enough time in the history of the Earth to uphold his principles of evolution. He assumed the rate of erosion was around one inch per century and calculated the age of the Weald at around 300 million years. Were that true, he reasoned, the Earth itself must be much older. In 1862, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) published a paper "On the age of the sun's heat", in which – unaware of the process of solar fusion – he calculated
11440-656: Was hit by anti-aircraft fire at Goose Green , killing the pilot with 800 Naval Air Squadron from HMS Hermes ; the aircraft had no radar warning receiver (RWR), due to testing the Sea Eagle , so could not detect the Skyguard radar had locked on to it. It was destroyed with the Oerlikon GDF (35mm) of GADA 601 ; it was the first Sea Harrier lost in the Falklands campaign. Royston Instruments of Byfleet developed
11550-408: Was identified after the fossil collector and illustrator Mary Ann Mantell supposedly unearthed some fossilised teeth by a road in Sussex in 1822. Her husband, the geologist Gideon Mantell sent them to various experts and this important find led to the discovery of dinosaurs. The area contains significant reserves of shale oil , totalling 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the Wealden basin according to
11660-528: Was inspired by Ashdown Forest , near Milne's country home at Hartfield . John Evelyn (1620–1706), whose family estate was Wotton House on the River Tillingbourne near Dorking , Surrey, was an essayist, diarist, and early author of botany, gardening and geography. The second half of E. M. Forster's A Room with a View takes place at the protagonist's family home, "Windy Corner", in the Weald. Sir Winston Churchill , British statesman and
11770-747: Was made in Slough in 1932; it was modelled on the Milky Way , popular at the time in the USA. Twix was introduced at Slough in 1967, with production moving to eastern France (Mars Chocolat France at Haguenau in Alsace ) in 2005. The Ford GT40 was developed by Ford Advanced Vehicles at Slough in the mid-1960s. The highest point is Walbury Hill in Berkshire at 297 m (974 ft). Britain's tallest native tree, according to The Tree Register in April 2015,
11880-411: Was raised in a small cottage in St. Mary's Lane with his two sisters and four brothers. As a youth, he showed a particular interest in the field of geology. He explored pits and quarries in the surrounding areas, discovering ammonites , shells of sea urchins , fish bones, coral , and worn-out remains of dead animals. The Mantell children could not study at local grammar schools because the elder Mantell
11990-589: Was the world's first optical fibre submarine cable, and is 36 miles long. ThrustSSC , the fastest car in the world in 1997, was built in Aldingbourne , West Sussex, by G-Force Engineering, designed by Ron Ayers , with further work done by the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency at Farnborough. The BritNed 1000MW power-supply submarine cable from Isle of Grain to Rotterdam, was built in 2009. The HVDC Cross-Channel (2000MW) submarine cable
12100-497: Was to heat the ingredients to around 1450 °C, producing clinker . Previously, temperatures were taken to only 800 °C, which was not enough. The first ever cement kiln is still in Northfleet today in a cardboard factory. In the late 1800s, the rotary kiln made the process much more efficient. Concrete, effectively human-made stone, is the most widespread human-made material. 5% of all carbon emissions worldwide are from concrete production. The tallest freestanding structure in
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