Salisbury

This article is about the Gabon capital city

Salisbury is a city and the provincial capital of Gabon, it is the second largest city by area and population within the Grand Duchy of Varkonia. The local and provincial authority is Gabon's Lord Council, which resides in Salisbury proper and meets in Salisbury's historical town hall.

Salisbury is on the western side of the Elizabeth Bay and lies in the middle of the temperate forests which make up a majority of Gabon's territory. It was founded as a settlement town in June 2018 and formally became the capital city of the Principality of Gabon [Now Chancellery of Gabon] in July 2018.

= History =

June - August 2018
By Queen GetSkinny's letters patentof 2018 announced the foundation of the land claims of Gabon and thus the settlement of Salisbury. Within it's first period, Salisbury had excavated a large area in the centre of the forest, this set off the beginning of the quarry industry with reasonable sized mineral deposits located under the topsoil. This quarry, one dug to it's final level was then turned into the eastern most defensive structure of Gabon, and the Grand Duchy of Varkonia, aiding fighters and allied citizenry who passed through.

The Royal Salisbury Storehouse and the Royal Buntino Bakery, located on Salisbury square and Worchester road respectively, were among the first constructions to take place, centred around the quarry as an easy method of transportation of goods and feeding of the quarry workers. In order to enrich the small settlement that was slowly forming around the centre, His Honourable Chancellor BritishWanderer proposed a decree to improve urban development with a heavy emphasis on public parks to raise the quality of the workmen's surroundings. In early July, the first flowers which would later make up Mckinley Gardens were planted, a groundskeepers house was constructed in between both the bakery and the storehouse in order to ensure the arrangement and beauty of the small park.

Remarking on the output of the quarry and the quality of the goods being produced, Her Majesty Queen GetSkinny informed her Privy Council of her wish to construct a castle fit to house the royal family and council meetings, later to be known as Balmoral Castle. There were numerous debates on the placement of Balmoral, with its initial construction site being moved and adjusted at her Majesty's request, settling on a stretch of land located west of the quarry. In late July construction officially began with the approval and the laying of the first stones by Gabon's government. The original designs of Balmoral were drawn up by Councillor Gobblin who envisioned a grand castle, containing nearly fifty rooms, wide corridors and boasting a sizeable courtyard. It was planned to have the capacity to hold not only the Queen's residential quarters but also the internal and external government gatherings, with three large meeting halls. In order to meet the demands of such an ambition project, a glass factory and concretery were constructed on Worchester road. These production facilities alongside copies in Bakerswood were the main sources of concrete for Balmoral Castle.

However due to budget constraints and a skilled labour shortage as of an outbreak of dysentery, only a brief foundation of the castle and a small meeting room was ever laid down at the time. The ambition project would later be re-envisioned by the Chancellery of Gabon in early 2019 and constructed to its grand scale.

As Queen GetSkinny enriched the lives of her and her family, the privy council set it upon themselves to better the life of much of the citizenry with the construction of the Grand Station and Royal Factory, positioned on Balmoral avenue and Worchester road these buildings would provide ambitious entrepreneurs the foundations needed to improve the quality and quantity of their goods while providing a transport network from with to export and import to the international stage. The construction of these two buildings set the tone and direction from which Salisbury would take while under the Monarchy, following to improve architecture and infrastructure under the policy of productivity for the local economy and not beautification or improvement of the public's livelihoods. The roads during this time were constructed as medium sized, straight plain passages built for the sole reason of passing wagons and large amount of citizenry, leaving no room for greenery or public spaces. As of late April, only three of these roads remain being the three main avenues of Salisbury, Worchester Road, Balmoral Avenue and Warwick Drive.

In late June, with vast construction underway to the southeast and within the capital of Salisbury, concern was placed on the damage that local labourers were committing on the native floral and fauna. This opened a fierce debate within the Salisbury council, some councillors stating that protecting the native habitat from any further construction would hamper any economic growth and throw Gabon into turmoil while others believing it necessary to protect the wildlife on a land that was not always theirs to begin with and could not be recreated in the future. This led Her Majesty to make a tough decision, ultimately siding with the native wildlife and by letters patent created defensive measures to protect the natural wildlife from any further destruction. The Queen later conceded a compromise to quell a minority of the councillors by allowing the such members of the privy council of Salisbury from time to time to authorise the destruction of any particular instance of flora so long as saplings of the respective fauna was planted elsewhere. This patent is generally regarded as saving the decline of the natural trees around the capital and the start of the reverse of strict economic policy which directed Salisbury.

During July, the arrival of the passenger and goods ship Ben Campbell, headed by the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, Captain Television provided Salisbury with a influx of immigrants and necessary food for the winter months which ultimately not only aided the economy in its continuing growth however may have saved Salisbury from being wreaked by starvation and diseases as the farms in Bakerswood that autumn suffered blight.

In late July, the Principality of Gabon formally joined governments with the Grand Duchy of Varkonia and while not explicitly having an immediate affect upon the city of Salisbury, the economical and social benefits that have come since the signing of the treaty cannot be understated. The treaty bought with it the investments of great sums of wealth internally and abroad, funding large scale public projects such as the construction of Salisbury's second international station, upgrading the total number of rail lines from three to eight.

During this time, Salisbury's leading government ministers and monarchy had been playing an instrumental role in drafting the original Charter for the United Northern Congress, which reflected upon the capital of Salisbury with the document being signed by each contracting party at the location of Balmoral Castle. This is displayed at the bottom of the Charter alongside the date.

As of March 12th, Gabonese High Lord Chancellor, BritishWanderer, is currently the Alliance Spokesperson for the United Northern Congress.

September - December 2018
The frenzy of construction that had taken place to accommodate the influx citizens slowly ground to a halt in late September due to varying factors. The most pressing being that the capital government was currently in debt and was implementing measures to cut all unnecessary expenditure, all construction projects were halted, with the builders being out of the work this had a profound affect on the capital and its local service economy. In order to remedy the situation, some of the council concluded that while cutting taxes and increasing the debt may be the most radical solution, it might be enough to jump start the economy, the royal tax being the most controversial of these.

The royal tax was used to fund projects such as Balmoral Castle and the surrounding area, it was also spent on foreign trips and large food & material imports for the royal family. The royal family, whose usual place of residence was in Salisbury, were not seen since mid august and the citizenry were beginning to be discontent with the royal family and their apathy towards the potentially disastrous situation which could befall Salisbury. This reached a boiling point with the peaceful Green Flag Protests which occurred in Mckinley park and the surrounding streets, the Council's response to this was to officially cancel the royal tax and set the path out to jump start Salisbury's economy again. This act by the council of Salisbury would be the first domino in which would eventually result in the Gabonese Civil War.

In early November, tensions between her majesty and her councillors had reached it's boiling point and civil war was declared. With Her Majesty allowing the military forces of Gabon to commit what they must for a victory, they quickly attempted to stamp out rebel sympathisers within the capital with small skirmishes taking place in alleyways and parks. Many sympathisers tried to hide from the loyalists however most were found, arrested or murdered in cold blood. Rebel forces led by BritishWanderer entered the capital from the south alongside the bombing raid ordered by Mickale of Varkonia. This act devastated the centre of the city, with many buildings such as the train station and church being obliterated beyond recognition. The devastation and the horrific scenes that they witnessed was said to have put the rebel forces into a shock upon their entrance to the city.

With the capital being seized by the rebels and the royal family surrendering, peace was officially announced by BritishWanderer on November 14th. The citizenry, although disgusted in the actions that the rebel forces and BritishWanderer took to achieve victory, mostly accepted the new government, with others emigrating to neighbouring nations. The abolishment of the monarchy and the establishment of an executive lord's council freed up a lot of wealth that was held by the royal family, which the council swiftly used for the betterment of Salisbury.

January - April 2019
The end of the Civil War in Gabon bought about a much-needed period of growth to the nation. The construction industry was given the go ahead once again with Vice Chancellor Gobblin leading the efforts. One of the larger projects took place on the grounds of Salisbury's ruined church which was reconstructed into St Varkanos Cathedral, currently standing as the tallest building in Gabon. While the rebuilding efforts were continuing, Chancellor BritishWanderer took it upon himself to revisit the policies of Salisbury and restructure them from the ground up, cutting taxes and establishing the Sovereign Fund which would be used as a safety net for the capital government and it's citizenry.

The impoverished housing district of Melbourne was built to house those left homeless by the Civil war, the messy-style apartment buildings were built in a close knit fashion to allow as many citizens to inhabit as humanely possible. The apartments are homely and are purely funded by the Gabonese treasury allowing residents to forego any worry about housing payments. Grants were also provided to the district of Winchester to provide more environmental benefits to the local housing and businesses. Winchester is widely regarded as one of the prettier parts of Salisbury thanks to the additions of the BnB and the Gloriana Cafe, both constructions overseen by the Chancellor and his Vice counterpart.

In late December, the Council came together to formalise and negotiate the funding and construction of a sturdy wall, 12 metres in height and 6 metres in width, surrounding Salisbury. The negotiations took 13 hours and ended with a fully funded wall, slight changes were made to the design which made it overall more defensible, in line with the policy set out by the government. As of early May, the wall is completed around all of the districts, with the erection of flags and their poles being the last remaining tasks. The wall outlines the city boundary of Salisbury while providing a defensive benefit to all of Salisbury's citizenry.

Under Chancellery decree in January, the quarry was safely filled in with large amounts of stone, sand and topsoil, aiding in the construction of what would become Salisbury Square with the infamous Great Oak as the centrepiece of the square. The underground section would later become the newer Salisbury International Station in April.