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Astonfields Balancing Lakes

Birdwatching sites in EnglandLakes of StaffordshireLocal nature reserves in StaffordshireSalt marshes of the United Kingdom

Astonfields Balancing Lakes is a local nature reserve on the north-eastern edge of Stafford, in Staffordshire, England. The main purpose of the balancing lakes is flood defence; the site has also been developed for wildlife habitats. Its area is about 4 hectares (9.9 acres), and it is designated a Grade 1 Site of Biological Importance.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Astonfields Balancing Lakes (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Astonfields Balancing Lakes
Isabel Trail,

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N 52.8211 ° E -2.1119 °
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Astonfields Balancing Lakes

Isabel Trail
ST16 3HN
England, United Kingdom
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William Salt Library
William Salt Library

The William Salt Library is a library and archive, in Stafford, Staffordshire, England. Supported by Staffordshire County Council, it is a registered charity, administered by an independent trust in conjunction with the Staffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent Archive Service, which also operates the county archives from an adjacent building. The core of the library is the large collection of printed books, pamphlets, manuscripts, drawings, watercolours, and transcripts built up by William Salt (1808–1863), a London banker. After his death, Helen, his widow donated the collection to Staffordshire and the library opened in 1872. In 1918 moved to its present home in Eastgate Street, a Grade II* listed house completed in 1735. The library continues to collect and preserve printed material relating to Staffordshire and represents a major source for local and family history in Staffordshire. The library's holdings are available for consultation by the public free of charge.The library is supported by the Friends of the William Salt Library. As well as raising funds for the library to enable it to purchase items for the collection, the Friends also help in practical ways, such as packaging and cleaning items in the collection.Colin Dexter undertook much of the research for his eighth Inspector Morse novel The Wench is Dead (published in 1989) at the library. Dexter recalled that he spent "a good many fruitful hours in the library" consulting contemporary newspaper reports of the murder of Christina Collins, on which the novel was based. He subsequently became patron of the library's 135th anniversary fund-raising appeal.

Staffordshire
Staffordshire

Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked ceremonial and historic county in the West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the south-east, the West Midlands county and Worcestershire to the south, and Shropshire to the west. The largest settlement is the city of Stoke-on-Trent; the county town is Stafford. The county has an area of 1,713 square kilometres (661 sq mi) and a population of 1,131,052. After Stoke-on-Trent (258,366), the largest settlements are Tamworth (78,646), Newcastle-under-Lyme (75,082) and Burton upon Trent (72,299); the city of Lichfield has a population of 33,816. For local government purposes Staffordshire comprises a non-metropolitan county, with nine districts, and the unitary authority area of Stoke-on-Trent. The county historically included the north-west of the West Midlands county, including Walsall, West Bromwich, and Wolverhampton. Staffordshire is hilly to the north and south. The southern end of the Pennines is in the north, containing part of the Peak District National Park, while the Cannock Chase AONB and part of the National Forest are in the south. The River Trent and its tributaries drain most of the county. The river has its source near Biddulph and flows through Staffordshire in a southwesterly direction, meeting the Sow just east of Stafford before turning north-east at its confluence with the River Tame and exiting into Derbyshire immediately after Burton-upon-Trent. Staffordshire contains a number of Iron Age tumuli and Roman camps, and was settled by the Angles in the sixth century; the oldest Stafford knot, the county's symbol, can be seen on an Anglian cross in the churchyard of Stoke Minster. The county was formed in the early tenth century, when Stafford became the capital of Mercia. The county was relatively settled in the following centuries, and rapidly industrialised during the Industrial Revolution, when the North Staffordshire coalfield was exploited and fuelled the iron and automobilie industries in the south of the county. Pottery is the county's most famous export; a limited amount is still produced in Stoke-on-Trent.