Rent Houses Southport Merseyside

Approximate Population: 99, 456

Southport is a seaside town within the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, in Merseyside, England. The town is located on the Irish Sea coast, 16.5 miles (26.6 km) to the north of Liverpool and 14.8 miles (23.8 km) west-southwest of Preston. Southport has a population of around 100,000,[1] with approximately 40% of the population over 55 years old and around 55% defined as social class ABC1.

Historically a part of Lancashire, tourist attractions include Southport Pier, the second longest seaside pleasure pier in the British Isles, Lord Street, a tree-lined shopping street once home of Napoleon III of France, and a fairground which was originally opened in 1912.

The town contains examples of Victorian architecture and town planning. These include much of Lord Street in addition to Cambridge Hall, Town Hall and Wayfarers’ Arcade.  A particular feature of the town is the extensive tree planting.   This was one of the conditions required by the Hesketh family when they made land available for development in the 19th century.   Hesketh Park at the northern end of the town is named after the Hesketh family.

Extensive sand dunes stretch for several kilometers between Birkdale and Ainsdale/Woodvale to the south of the town.   The Ainsdale sand dunes have been designated as a National Nature Reserve in England and a Ramsar site. Local fauna include the Natterjack toad and the Sand lizard.

Rent Houses Southport Merseyside

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Croydon Greater London

Approximate Population: 316,283

Croydon is a large town and major commercial centre in South London, and the principal settlement of the London Borough of Croydon.   It is 9.5 miles (15.3 km) south of Charing Cross, and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It is located on the natural transport corridor between London and England’s south coast, just to the north of a gap in the North Downs.

Historically a part of Surrey, at the time of the Norman conquest of England Croydon had a church, a mill and around 365 inhabitants (as recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086).   Croydon expanded during the Middle Ages as a market town and a centre for charcoal production, leather tanning and brewing.   The Surrey Iron Railway from Croydon to Wandsworth opened in 1803 and was the world’s first horse-drawn railway, which later developed into an important means of transport – facilitating Croydon’s growth as a commuter town for the City of London and beyond.

In the early 20th century Croydon was an important industrial area, known for metal working, car manufacture and its airport.   In the mid 20th century these sectors were replaced with retailing and service economy, brought about as a result of a massive redevelopment of office blocks and the Whitgift shopping centre. Croydon was amalgamated into Greater London in 1965. Road traffic is now diverted away from a largely pedestrianised town centre, but its main railway station, East Croydon, is still a major hub within the national railway transport system.   The town is expected to have its urban planning changed as part of Croydon Vision 2020.

Rent Houses Croydon Greater London

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Telford Shropshire

Approximate Population: 138,241

Telford  is a large new town in the borough of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England, approximately 13 miles (21 km) east of Shrewsbury, and 30 miles (48 km) west of Birmingham.  With a population of 138,241 people (2001 census), and a projected population growth within the next 20 years to over 200,000, Telford is by far the largest town in Shropshire, and one of the fastest growing towns in the United Kingdom.

It is named after Thomas Telford, the famous civil engineer.   The town was built in the 1960s and 1970s as a new town on previously industrial and agricultural land. Similarly to other planned towns of the era, Telford was created from the merger of other, smaller settlements, most notably the towns of Wellington, Oakengates, Madeley and Dawley.   Telford Shopping Centre, a modern shopping mall, was constructed at the new town’s geographical centre, along with an extensive Town Park.   The M54 motorway was completed in 1983, connecting the town with the West Midlands conurbation.

Telford now includes Ironbridge Gorge, a scenic tourist destination and UNESCO World Heritage Site.   The town advertises itself as “The Birthplace of Industry”, due to its proximity to Coalbrookdale, and local activity during the Industrial Revolution as part of the Shropshire Coalfield.   The River Severn flows along its southernmost boundary.

Rent Houses Telford Shropshire

Rent Houses Worcester Worcestershire

Approximate Population: 93,700

Worcester is a city and county town of Worcestershire, in the West Midlands of England. Worcester is situated some 30 miles (48 km) southwest of Birmingham, 29 miles (47 km) north of Gloucester, and has an estimated population of 94,300 people. The River Severn runs through the middle of the city, overlooked by the 12th century Worcester Cathedral.

The 2001 census recorded that Worcester had a population of 93, 353 with 96.5% White ethnicity including 94.2% White British, greater than the national average.   The largest religious groups are Christian (77%) and No Religion or Not Stated (21%) with other religions totalling less than 2%.   Ethnic minorities include people of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, Italian and Polish origin, with the largest single minority group being the ethnic Pakistani population of around 1200 people (around 1.3%).

This has led to Worcester containing a small but diverse range of religious groups; as well as the commanding Worcester Cathedral (Church of England), there are also Catholic and Baptist churches, a large centre for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), an Islamic mosque, and a number of smaller interest groups regarding Eastern Religions such as Buddhism and the Hare Krishnas.

Worcester is the seat of a Church of England bishop.   His official signature is his Christian name followed by Wigorn, which is also occasionally used as an abbreviation for the name of the county.

Rent Houses Worcester Worcestershire

Rent Houses Luton Bedfordshire

Approximate Population: 203,800

Luton is a large town in the east of England, 32 miles (51 kilometres) north of London. Historically, Luton is within the county of Bedfordshire, and since 1997, the town has been a unitary authority. Luton, along with its near neighbours of Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of over 230,000.

In the 20th century, the hat trade severely declined and was replaced by other industries. In 1905, Vauxhall Motors opened the largest car plant in the United Kingdom in Luton. Electrolux built a household appliances plant which was followed by other light engineering businesses.

In 1904 councillors Asher Hucklesby and Edwin Oakley purchased the estate at Wardown Park and donated it to the people of Luton. Hucklesby went on to become Mayor of Luton. The main house in the park became Luton Museum & Art Gallery.

The town had a tram system from 1908 until 1932 and the first cinema was opened in 1909. By 1914 the population had reached 50,000.

The original town hall was destroyed in 1919 during Peace Day celebrations at the end of World War I.   Local people including many ex-servicemen were unhappy with unemployment and had been refused the use of a local park to hold celebratory events.   They stormed the town hall setting it alight.   A replacement building was completed in 1936. London Luton Airport opened in 1938, owned and operated by the council.

 Rent Houses Luton Bedfordshire

Rent Houses Loughton Essex

Approximate Population: 30,340

Loughton is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located between 11 and 13 miles (21 km) north east of Charing Cross in London, south of the M25 and west of the M11 motorway and has boundaries with Chingford, Buckhurst Hill, Theydon Bois, Waltham Abbey, and Chigwell. Loughton includes 3 conservation areas and there are 56 listed buildings in the town, together with a further 50 locally listed.

Loughton has a population of 30,340 and covers about 3,724 acres (15 km2), of which over 1,300 acres (5 km2) are part of Epping Forest. The ancient parish contained over 3,900 acres (16 km2), but some parts in the south were transferred in 1996 to Buckhurst Hill parish, and small portions to Chigwell and Theydon Bois. After Canvey Island, it is the second most populous separately administered town in Essex and is also the most populous town within the Epping Forest district and the second largest in area.

Much of the housing in Loughton was built in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, with significant expansion in the 1930s. The Great Eastern Railway Company would not offer workmen’s fares to and from Loughton, so development was of a middle-class character. Loughton was a fashionable place for artistic and scientific residents in Victorian and Edwardian times, and a number of prominent residents were also socialists, nonconformists, and social reformers. Debden is a post-war development intended to ease the chronic housing shortage in London in the 1940s

From 1900 to 1933, Loughton was governed by the Loughton Urban District Council. From 1933 to 1974 together with Buckhurst Hill and Chigwell it formed the Chigwell Urban District. Since 1996, Loughton has had its own town council.

Loughton is home to two important national archives. The British Postal Museum Store houses objects ranging from the desk of Rowland Hill (founder of the Penny Post), to Mobile Post Office vehicles and an astounding assortment of letter boxes. The archive has public open days once a month. The disused signal box at Loughton is owned by the London Transport Museum and occasionally, guided tours are offered. Funding was pledged in 2006 to help establish a Street Museum in Loughton. There is also an Epping Forest District Museum store in the town, but this is not open to the public.

Rent Houses Loughton Essex

Rent Houses Portsmouth Hampshire

Approximate Population: 197,700

Portsmouth city located in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is the UK’s only island city and is located on Portsea Island. It is commonly nicknamed Pompey. The administrative unit itself has a population of 197,700, which forms part of the wider Portsmouth conurbation, with an estimated 442,252 residents within wider the urban area, making it the 11th largest urban area in England.

Portsmouth is administered by Portsmouth City Council, which is currently a unitary authority.   Portsmouth was granted its first charter in 1194. In 1904 the boundaries were extended to finally include the whole of Portsea Island. The boundaries were further extended in 1920 and 1932, taking in areas of the mainland.

Until April 1, 1997 it was a non-metropolitan district of Hampshire.   Portsmouth remains part of the Ceremonial county of Hampshire.   The city is divided into two parliamentary constituencies, Portsmouth South and Portsmouth North, represented in the House of Commons by, respectively, a Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, Mike Hancock, and a Labour MP, Sarah McCarthy-Fry.

The city council is made up of 42 councillors. There is no overall majority control of the city council, with 19 Liberal Democrat, 19 Conservative, 2 Labour, and 2 members of the Independent group. The Council is currently led by the Liberal Democrats with the two independents forming part of the administration. Gerald Vernon-Jackson is the council leader. Councillors are returned from 14 wards, each ward having three councillors. Councillors have a 4 year term, only one council seat is up for election in each Ward at any one election.

Rent Houses Portsmouth Hampshire

Rent Houses Chester Cheshire

Approximate Population: 77,040

Chester is the county town of Cheshire, England. Lying on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales, it is home to 77,040 inhabitants, and is the largest and most populous settlement of the wider unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester, which had a population of 328,100 according to the 2001 Census. Chester was granted city status in 1541.

A considerable amount of land in Chester is owned by the Duke of Westminster who owns an estate – Eaton Hall – near the village of Eccleston. He also has vast London properties in Mayfair.   Indeed, the clock tower which houses Big Ben was copied on the Duke’s estate home of Eaton Hall and can be seen from the road from Aldford to Chester today.

Grosvenor is the Duke’s family name, which explains such features in the City such as the Grosvenor Bridge, the Grosvenor Hotel, and Grosvenor Park. Much of Chester’s architecture dates from the Victorian era, many of the buildings being modelled on the Jacobean half-timbered style and designed by John Douglas, who was employed by the Duke as his principal architect. He had a trademark of twisted chimney stacks, many of which can be seen on the buildings in the city centre.

Douglas designed amongst other buildings the Grosvenor Hotel and the City Baths.   In 1911, Douglas’ protégé and city architect James Strong designed the then active fire station on the west side of Northgate Street.   Another feature of all buildings belonging to the estate of Westminster is the ‘Grey Diamonds’ – a weaving pattern of grey bricks in the red brickwork laid out in a diamond formation.

Rent Houses Chester Cheshire

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Worthing West Sussex

Approximate Population: 99,600

Worthing is a large seaside town and a local government borough in West Sussex, England.   Around 100,000 people live within the borough itself and 183,000 in the urban area.   Situated in the centre of an 80 km (50-mile) wide bay on the Sussex coast, between Beachy Head and Selsey Bill, the borough of Worthing also lies at the foot of the South Downs, a proposed national park.

The area around Worthing has been populated for at least 6,000 years and contains Britain’s greatest concentration of Stone Age flint mines, which are some of the earliest mines in Europe.   Lying within the borough, the Iron Age hill fort of Cissbury Ring is one of Britain’s largest.   Worthing means “(place of) Worth/Worō’s people”, from the Old English personal name Worth/Worō (the name means “valiant one, one who is noble”), and -ingas “people of” (reduced to -ing in the modern name).

For many centuries Worthing was a small mackerel fishing hamlet until in the late eighteenth century it developed into an elegant Georgian seaside resort and attracted the well-known and wealthy of the day.   In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the area was one of Britain’s chief market gardening centres.

Rent Houses Worthing West Sussex

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Wandsworth Greater London

Approximate Population: 259,881

Wandsworth is a town on the south bank of the River Thames in south-west London.   Wandsworth takes its name from the River Wandle, which enters the Thames at Wandsworth.

Wandsworth appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Wandesorde and Wendelesorde.   It was held partly by William, son of Ansculf and partly by St Wandrille’s Abbey.   Its domesday assets were: 12 hides. It had 5½ ploughs, 22 acres of meadow.   It rendered £9. Since at least the early 16th century, Wandsworth has offered accommodation to consecutive waves of immigration; from Protestant Dutch metalworkers fleeing persecution in the 1590s, to recent Eastern European members of the European Union.

An influx of French Huguenot refugees in the early 17th century is remembered in many local street names.   There is a band of small and expensive terraced housing (known as The Tonsleys) behind Old York Road — the former centre of old Wandsworth — rising to an area of grander, terraced, semi-detached and detached housing along the roads bounded by West Side Wandsworth Common, Earlsfield Road and East Hill.   In contrast, at the base of East Hill is a collection of high-rise council blocks.

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Wandsworth Greater London