Bradford on Avon

Coordinates: 51°20′49″N 2°15′04″W / 51.3469°N 2.2510°W / 51.3469; -2.2510

Bradford on Avon (sometimes Bradford-on-Avon) is a town in west Wiltshire, England with a population of 9,402 at the 2011 census. The town's canal, historic buildings, shops, pubs and restaurants make it popular with tourists.

The history of the town can be traced back to Roman origins. It has several buildings dating to the 17th century, when the town grew due to the thriving English woollen textile industry.

Location

The town lies partly on the Avon Valley, and partly on the hill that marks the Vale's western edge, eight miles southeast of Bath, in the hilly countryside between the Mendip Hills, Salisbury Plain and the Cotswold Hills. The local area around Bath provides the Jurassic limestone (Bath Stone) from which the older buildings are constructed. The River Avon (the Bristol Avon) runs through the town.

History

The earliest evidence of habitation is fragments of Roman settlements above the town. In particular, archaeological digs have revealed the remains of a large Roman villa with a well-preserved mosaic on the playing fields of St Laurence School. The centre of the town grew up around the ford across the river Avon, hence the origin of the town's name ("Broad-Ford"). This was supplemented in Norman times by the stone bridge that still stands today. The Norman side is upstream, and has pointed arches; the newer side has curved arches. The Town Bridge and Chapel is a grade I listed building. It was originally a packhorse bridge, but widened in the 17th century by rebuilding the western side. On 2 July 1643 the town was the site of a skirmish in the English Civil War, when Royalists seized control of the bridge on their way to the Battle of Lansdowne.

Bradford, Ontario

Bradford is the primary country urban area of the Town of Bradford West Gwillimbury, Ontario, in Canada. It overlooks a farming community, known as The Holland Marsh, located on the Holland River that flows into Lake Simcoe. Within the municipal boundaries are a number of smaller communities, including: Bond Head, Dunkerron, Green Valley, Pinkerton, Fisher's Corners, Newton Robinson, Coulson and Deerhurst.

History

The eastern boundary of Bradford is the Holland River, named for Samuel Holland, first Surveyor General of British North America, who passed this way on an exploration from Toronto to Balsam Lake, by way of Lake Simcoe, in 1791.

For several years the Holland River and Lake Simcoe provided the only means of transportation. Holland Landing was the northern terminus of Yonge Street. The military route to Georgian Bay during the War of 1812 crossed Lake Simcoe to Kempenfelt Bay, then by the Nine Mile Portage to Willow Creek and the Nottawasaga River. The Penetanguishene Road, built between 1814 and 1815 from Kempenfelt Bay, provided an alternate route to Georgian Bay. However, early settlers also used this route to get to the frontier of Simcoe County, bypassing the areas of West Gwillimbury and Essa townships.

Bradford

Coordinates: 53°48′00″N 1°45′07″W / 53.8000°N 1.75206°W / 53.8000; -1.75206

Bradford ⁱ/ˈbrædfərd/ is in the Metropolitan Borough of the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England, in the foothills of the Pennines 8.6 miles (14 km) west of Leeds, and 16 miles (26 km) northwest of Wakefield. Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897. Following local government reform in 1974, city status was bestowed upon the wider metropolitan borough.

Bradford forms part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area conurbation which in 2001 had a population of 1.5 million and is the fourth largest urban area in the United Kingdom with the Bradford subdivision of the aforementioned urban area having a population of 528,155.

Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bradford rose to prominence during the 19th century as an international centre of textile manufacture, particularly wool. It was a boomtown of the Industrial Revolution, and amongst the earliest industrialised settlements, rapidly becoming the "wool capital of the world". The area's access to a supply of coal, iron ore and soft water facilitated the growth of Bradford's manufacturing base, which, as textile manufacture grew, led to an explosion in population and was a stimulus to civic investment; Bradford has a large amount of listed Victorian architecture including the grand Italianate City Hall.

Martini (cocktail)

The Martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. Over the years, the Martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages. H. L. Mencken called the Martini "the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet" and E. B. White called it "the elixir of quietude".

Preparation

By 1922 the Martini reached its most recognizable form in which London dry gin and dry vermouth are combined at a ratio of 2:1, stirred in a mixing glass with ice cubes, with the optional addition of orange or aromatic bitters, then strained into a chilled cocktail glass. Over time the generally expected garnish became the drinker's choice of a green olive or a twist of lemon peel.

A dry Martini is made with dry, white vermouth. By the Roaring Twenties, it became common to ask for them. Over the course of the century, the amount of vermouth steadily dropped. During the 1930s the ratio was 3:1, and during the 1940s the ratio was 4:1. During the latter part of the 20th century, 6:1, 8:1, 12:1, or even 50:1 or 100:1 Martinis became considered the norm.

Bradford, Pennsylvania

Bradford is a city in McKean County, Pennsylvania, United States, close to the border with New York State and approximately 78 miles (126 km) south of Buffalo, New York. Bradford is the principal city in the Bradford, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area.

History

Settled in 1823, Bradford was chartered as a city in 1879 and emerged as a wild oil boomtown in the Pennsylvania oil rush in the late 19th century. The area's Pennsylvania Grade crude oil has superior qualities and is free of asphaltic constituents, contains only trace amounts of sulfur and nitrogen, and has excellent characteristics for refining into lubricants. The Bradford & Foster Brook Railway was built in 1876 as one of, if not the first, monorails in America, when Bradford was a booming oil town. World-famous Kendall racing oils were produced in Bradford.

The population peaked at 19,306 in 1930, but at the 2010 census had dropped to 8,770. Two adjoining townships, home to approximately 9,000 people, make the population of Greater Bradford about 18,000. Famous Bradfordians include the opera singer Marilyn Horne, the Hall of Fame baseball player Rube Waddell and the five-time All-Star football player Stew Barber. A famous perpetual motion machine hoax was created in Bradford in 1897 by J.M. Aldrich; it was exposed in the July 1, 1899, issue of the Scientific American magazine, leading to a four-month prison sentence in the county jail.