Watford vs Bradford

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Watford ( (listen)) is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England, 17.5 miles northwest of Charing Cross. It is situated on the River Colne, and initially developed as a small market town until the Grand Junction Canal encouraged the construction of paper-making mills, print works, and breweries. While industry has declined in Watford, its location near to London and to good transport links has attracted several companies to site their headquarters in the town. It contains Cassiobury Park, a public park that was once the manor estate of the Earls of Essex, and Watford Football Club, a professional team who in the 2020/21 season play in the Championship after being relegated following the 2019/20 season from the Premier League – the highest level of English football. The town developed on the River Colne on land belonging to St Albans Abbey until the 16th century. During the 12th century a charter was granted allowing a market, and the building of St Mary's Church began. The town grew partly due to travellers going to Berkhamsted Castle and the royal palace at Kings Langley. A mansion was built at Cassiobury in the 16th century. This was partly rebuilt in the 17th century and another country house was built at The Grove. The Grand Junction Canal in 1798 and the London and Birmingham Railway in 1837 resulted in Watford's rapid growth, with paper-making mills such as John Dickinson at Croxley, influencing the development of printing in the town.

Two brewers, Benskins and Sedgwicks, amalgamated and flourished in the town until their closure in the late 20th century. Hertfordshire County Council designates Watford to be a major sub-regional centre. Several head offices are based in Watford. International conferences and sporting events have also taken place in Watford, including the 2006 World Golf Championship, the 2013 Bilderberg Conference and the 2019 NATO summit which all took place at The Grove.Watford became an urban district under the Local Government Act 1894 and a municipal borough by grant of a charter in 1922. The borough, which had 90,301 inhabitants at the time of the 2011 census, is separated from Greater London to the south by the parish of Watford Rural in the Three Rivers District. Watford Borough Council is the local authority with the Mayor of Watford as its head – one of only 18 directly elected mayors in England and Wales. Watford elects one MP for the Watford constituency. Prior to the establishment of this constituency in 1885, the area was part of the three-seat constituency of Hertfordshire.

Source: Wikipedia

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Bradford (listen) is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. It is located approximately 8.6 miles (14 km) west of Leeds and lies in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. Its population within the council area was estimated in 2019 to be 539,776, which makes Bradford the third-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region after Leeds and Sheffield, the north-England's fourth-largest, the sixth-largest in England and seventh-largest in the United Kingdom. Bradford also forms part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area, which in 2001 had a population of 1.5 million and is the fourth largest in the United Kingdom.Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Bradford rose to prominence in 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"; this in turn gave rise to the nicknames "Woolopolis" and "Wool City". 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.

Bradford became a municipal borough in 1847, and received its charter as a city in 1897. Since local government reform in 1974, Bradford's city limits have been within the City of Bradford metropolitan borough. From the mid-20th century, deindustrialisation caused Bradford's textile sector and industrial base to decline, and since then, it has faced similar economic and social challenges to the rest of post-industrial Northern England, including poverty, unemployment and social unrest. Bradford has a significant economy within the Yorkshire and the Humber region; it is the third-largest at around £10 billion, which is mostly provided by financial and manufacturing industries. Bradford has also emerged as a tourist destination, becoming the first UNESCO City of Film with attractions such as the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford City Park, the Alhambra theatre and Cartwright Hall.

Source: Wikipedia