Old Baths Hall, Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. 17th November 2018
It was here in 1821 that John Parkinson, a land agent for Sir Joseph Banks of Revesby, sank a shaft to find coal, but instead hit a spring of salt water. The shaft was abandoned in 1822 and the water overflowed into a stream where it cured sick cattle who drank it. People then started to drink the water as a cure and initially bathed in an open wooden tank.
This encouraged the local landowner and squire Thomas Hotchkin, to build a brick bath and a windlass in about 1829/30. Its fame spread and in 1838 / 1839 he built a proper bath house with 6 treatment rooms and a hotel where all the latest treatments were available to the visitor. Hotchkin also laid out parkland with shrubbery and walks, all at a cost of (then) £30,000. This was continually expanded and in 1887 was bought by the Syndicate, a group of businessmen who enlarged the Spa Baths and the Spa Hotel (later the Victoria Hotel), and laid out attractive wooded gardens and walks. The timbered roof of the pump room and the present frontage was designed by C. F. Davis for the Syndicate. It is the main visible feature left after the collapse of the well in 1983, although the main part of the former Hotchkin bath house still exists around the back, but is obscured by the pebble dash frontage.
The Syndicate included:
The Right Honourable Edward Stanhope, M.P. for Horncastle,
The Right Honourable Henry Chaplin M.P.
Sir Richard Webster M.P.
T. Cheney Garfit Esq., Louth
The Reverend J. O. Stephens, Rector of Blankney (who was the secretary).
Sir Stafford Northcote, (Lord Iddesleigh)
Lord Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice.
They also commissioned Richard Adolphus Came, a London architect who later settled here, to design a garden city for Woodhall Spa. The names of the Syndicate are remembered in the road names to the South of the town which they hoped would be a large suburban style housing estate. It was never completed due to slowness of selling building plots and, consequently, the investors lost most of their money.
Joseph Banks | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:01:34 1 Early life
00:02:08 1.1 Education
00:04:11 2 Newfoundland and Labrador
00:05:03 3 iEndeavour/i voyage
00:07:28 4 Return home
00:11:58 5 Colonisation of New South Wales
00:15:11 6 Later life
00:18:32 7 Legacy
00:22:17 8 Online archive
00:22:48 9 See also
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- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (24 February [O.S. 13 February] 1743 – 19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences.
Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage (1768–1771), visiting Brazil, Tahiti, and after 6 months in New Zealand, Australia, returning to immediate fame. He held the position of president of the Royal Society for over 41 years. He advised King George III on the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and by sending botanists around the world to collect plants, he made Kew the world's leading botanical gardens. He is credited for bringing 30,000 plant specimens home with him; amongst them, he discovered 1,400. Banks advocated British settlement in New South Wales and colonisation of Australia, as well as the establishment of Botany Bay as a place for the reception of convicts, and advised the British government on all Australian matters. He is credited with introducing the eucalyptus, acacia, and the genus named after him, Banksia, to the Western world. Around 80 species of plants bear his name. He was the leading founder of the African Association and a member of the Society of Dilettanti, which helped to establish the Royal Academy.
Boston, Lincolnshire
Boston (/ˈbɒstən/) is a town and small port in Lincolnshire, on the east coast of England. It is the largest town of the wider Borough of Boston local government district. The borough had a total population of 64,637 at the 2011 census, whilst the town itself had a population of 35,124 at the 2001 census. It is due north of Greenwich on the Prime Meridian.
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Christchurch | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:01:58 1 Names
00:02:57 2 History
00:03:06 2.1 Māori settlement
00:03:50 2.2 European settlement
00:07:03 2.3 1900–2000
00:07:35 2.4 Modern history
00:07:44 2.4.1 2010–2012 earthquakes
00:10:13 2.4.2 2013 to 2018
00:10:56 2.4.3 2019 terrorist attacks
00:11:27 3 Geography
00:12:45 3.1 Central City
00:16:22 3.2 Inner suburbs
00:16:35 3.3 Outer suburbs
00:16:47 3.4 Satellite towns
00:16:56 3.5 Climate
00:19:14 4 Demographics
00:19:56 4.1 Culture and identity
00:21:28 5 Economy
00:21:37 5.1 Farming
00:23:31 5.2 Industry
00:25:48 5.3 Tourism
00:26:20 5.4 Gateway to the Antarctic
00:26:29 5.4.1 Antarctic exploration
00:27:38 6 Government
00:27:47 6.1 Local government
00:29:21 6.2 Central government
00:29:55 7 Education
00:30:04 7.1 Secondary schools
00:31:11 7.2 Tertiary institutions
00:31:39 8 Transport
00:36:18 9 Culture and entertainment
00:36:51 9.1 Cinema
00:38:23 9.2 Parks and nature
00:39:10 9.3 Television
00:40:25 9.4 Theatre
00:41:39 9.5 Music
00:43:29 9.6 Venues
00:45:17 10 Sport
00:45:26 10.1 Teams
00:46:50 10.2 Events
00:47:27 10.3 Venues
00:50:32 11 Utilities
00:50:41 11.1 Electricity
00:52:27 12 Sister cities
00:53:13 13 See also
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
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- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
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Speaking Rate: 0.9920219397969675
Voice name: en-US-Wavenet-E
I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
Christchurch (; Māori: Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. The Christchurch urban area lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula. It is home to 404,500 residents, making it New Zealand's third-most populous city behind Auckland and Wellington. The Avon River flows through the centre of the city, with an urban park located along its banks.
Archaeological evidence has indicated that people first settled in the Christchurch area in about 1250. Christchurch became a city by Royal Charter on 31 July 1856, making it officially the oldest established city in New Zealand. The Canterbury Association, which settled the Canterbury Plains, named the city after Christ Church, Oxford. The new settlement was laid out in a grid pattern centred on Cathedral Square; during the 19th century there were few barriers to the rapid growth of the urban area, except for the Pacific to the east and the Port Hills to the south.
Agriculture is the historic mainstay of Christchurch's economy. The early presence of the University of Canterbury and the heritage of the city's academic institutions in association with local businesses has fostered a number of technology-based industries. Christchurch is one of five 'gateway cities' for Antarctic exploration, hosting Antarctic support bases for several nations.The city suffered a series of earthquakes between September 2010 and January 2012, with the most destructive of them occurring at 12.51 p.m. on Tuesday, 22 February 2011, in which 185 people were killed and thousands of buildings across the city collapsed or suffered severe damage. By late 2013, 1,500 buildings in the city had been demolished, leading to an ongoing recovery and rebuilding project.