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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Ely
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(10,000 in 1991) Cathedral town in Cambridgeshire, on the river Ouse. Until the draining of the Fens the site was an island, the Isle of Ely, and as such was used as a defensive position against the Normans by *Hereward the Wake. The cathedral, visible for miles across the flat landscape, was built in the 11–14C. Its most famous feature is the great central octagon, spanning the entire width of the nave in an exceptionally bold piece of 14C design; the wooden lantern surmounting it required oak corner-posts 19.2m/63ft long. A museum of stained glass was opened in part of the cathedral in 1979.
Close by is the King's School, founded as a monastic school in 970 and re-established by Henry VIII after the *dissolution of the monasteries.
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