Staines-upon-Thames
| Staines-upon-Thames | |||
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| Coordinates | 51 ° 26 ′ N , 0 ° 31 ′ W | ||
| OS National Grid | TQ045715 | ||
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| Residents | 52,400 (as of: 2001) | ||
| administration | |||
| Post town | STAINES | ||
| ZIP code section | TW18 | ||
| prefix | 01784 | ||
| Part of the country | England | ||
Staines-upon-Thames (until May 20, 2012 Staines ) is an English medium- sized town with 52,400 inhabitants (as of 2001) in the London area within the M25 motorway ring and close to Heathrow Airport . Staines belongs to the County of Surrey and the Borough of Spelthorne . The city is just under 30 km west of central London on the River Thames . The River Colne flows into the Thames in the west of the city and the River Ash flows in the north of the city.
history
The city has its origins in the Roman settlement of Ad Pontes (on the bridges) on the banks of the Thames. On June 18, 1972, the Staines Air disaster occurred near the city , in which BEA Flight 548 - a Hawker Siddeley Trident 1C - crashed immediately after taking off from Heathrow, killing all 118 people on board; no one was harmed on the ground. This crash was the worst aviation disaster on British soil until the Lockerbie attack with 270 deaths .
On May 20, 2012, the city was officially renamed Staines-upon-Thames to emphasize the location on the Thames, on the other hand to weaken the connection with the character Ali G of the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.
Culture
Staines was made famous in his role as Ali G through comedian Sacha Baron Cohen . He used the city's bourgeois , petty bourgeois reputation to illustrate the internal contradiction of his protagonist, who considers himself a “dangerous gangsta from the ghetto ”.
The city is home to the band Hard-Fi , who try to describe the desolation of the London suburbs with their 2005 debut album Stars of CCTV .
economy
From 1901 to 1947 the automobile brand Lagonda had its headquarters and production facility in Staines, from 1906 to 1912 also the competing automobile manufacturer Staines Motor Company . After the entrepreneur Alan Good Lagonda had to sell for financial reasons and the production was relocated, the company Petter Limited , also owned by Good , a manufacturer of diesel engines , took over these production facilities. The bodywork company Whittingham & Mitchel also had its headquarters and production facility in Staines for a short time after the Second World War , before it increasingly turned to marine equipment and moved on.
For several years, Staines-upon-Thames has been the headquarters of NDS UK, a company specializing in conditional access systems and digital rights management .
Sons and daughters (selection)
- Nicholas Chamberlain (born 1963), Anglican bishop
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Staines becomes Staines-upon-Thames to shake off Ali G link , bbc.co.uk, accessed May 20, 2012
- ↑ Bottom: If you want to turn dirt into gold. In: tagesschau.de. November 4, 2010, archived from the original on November 7, 2010 ; Retrieved November 20, 2013 .