Discussion regarding counties

thenorthern · 24 Aug 2019

Moderator note: Split from https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/trivia-ceremonial-counties-with-the-most-stations.189738

Royal Mail Counties don't always match civil counties as Manchester is still classed as Lancashire and Stockport is still classed as Cheshire in Royal Mail terms despite them both being in Greater Manchester.

Also the county is based on the postal town not the location the address for example NG10 covers Long Eaton in Derbyshire but the postal town is Nottingham so it would be "Long Eaton, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire". On the other hand Kingsbury in Warwickshire has the postcode B78 and the postal town is Tamworth so its written as "Kingsbury, Tamworth, Staffordshire". Postcode counties were of course abolished in 1996.

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mailbyrail · 24 Aug 2019

Royal Mail don't use counties for addresses and haven't for at least 20 years.
They state:
When posting something to someone in the UK, write the address like this:
Addressees' name
House number and street name
Locality name (if needed)
Town (please print in capitals)
Full postcode (please print in capitals)

They do recognise that may people continue to include a county of one description or another in an address but of course as this thread shows, it's totally unreliable. (It's almost as imprecise as asking how many railway stations in a county? )
Royal Mail simply say:
You don’t need to write the name of the county if you’ve included the town and postcode

oglord · 24 Aug 2019

It is all very well saying "Royal Mail don't use counties" but a lot of this mess is of their making. Their postal counties, which differed from historic counties and administrative areas, were mandatory from 1975-2000. Every piece of mail that came through the door reinforced an identity. The various providers of address validation software still bundle this data that "Royal Mail don't use", which continues to reinforce an identity.

xotGD · 25 Aug 2019

One of the most important reasons in knowing which 'proper' county you come from is cricket. I don't see Greater London or West Midlands in the County Championship.

Gateshead and Hartlepool will always be County Durham and Middlesbrough will always be Yorkshire.

oglord · 29 Aug 2019

There are no such things as "ceremonial counties". Certain local government areas are grouped together for the purposes of appointing a Lord Lieutenant, but that suffers from a similar problem to using local government areas directly -- they are always changing!

Mojo · 29 Aug 2019

oglord said:
There are no such things as "ceremonial counties". Certain local government areas are grouped together for the purposes of appointing a Lord Lieutenant, but that suffers from a similar problem to using local government areas directly -- they are always changing!

Sorry, but you fail to point out that this is merely your opinion of the matter and does not take into account what any reasonable person would consider to be a county. Whilst ceremonial counties might be more formally known as a lieutenancy area; they reflect geographical features, have been defined in law as a county, and relate to local administration in a number of cases except where this would leave a location isolated within its areas [the possible only exceptions being the City of Bristol and the City of London.

In contrast, Historic counties, whilst might be relevant to some and indeed retain many modern-day borders, to a large number of people, bear no relation to modern geography and patterns of living, in many areas have not related to anything administrative for centuries, and do not necessarily reflect cultural borders.

oglord · 29 Aug 2019

Mojo said:
Sorry, but you fail to point out that this is merely your opinion of the matter and does not take into account what any reasonable person would consider to be a county.

Roxburgh, Etterick and Lauderdale is what any reasonable person would consider to be a county?
Dyfed is what any reasonable person would consider to be a county?

Areas called "somethingshire" which are merely approximations of their ancient extent are somehow more useful than the actual thing they are approximating?

xotGD · 29 Aug 2019

Avon, Cleveland, Tyne & Wear, Humberside. These are abominations, not counties.

Mojo · 29 Aug 2019

oglord said:
Roxburgh, Etterick and Lauderdale is what any reasonable person would consider to be a county?
Dyfed is what any reasonable person would consider to be a county?

What have these places in Scotland & Wales got to do with it when Ceremonial counties exist in England?

oglord · 30 Aug 2019

Mojo said:
What have these places in Scotland & Wales got to do with it when Ceremonial counties exist in England?

I feel like I am repeating myself endlessly here -- there are no such things as "ceremonial counties". What Wikipedia has told you "ceremonial counties" are are the areas defined for the appointment of Lords Lieutenant by the Lieutenancies Act 1997 as amended. This Act applies to the entirety of Great Britain.

matacaster · 30 Aug 2019

mailbyrail said:
Royal Mail don't use counties for addresses and haven't for at least 20 years.
They state:
When posting something to someone in the UK, write the address like this:
Addressees' name
House number and street name
Locality name (if needed)
Town (please print in capitals)
Full postcode (please print in capitals)

They do recognise that may people continue to include a county of one description or another in an address but of course as this thread shows, it's totally unreliable. (It's almost as imprecise as asking how many railway stations in a county? )
Royal Mail simply say:
You don’t need to write the name of the county if you’ve included the town and postcode

The house number (or name / business name) and postcode is usually, I think, all that is actually required to route a CORRECT address in the computerised sorting systems. eg 121 Norman Lane, Eccleshill, Bradford BN2 3RQ would fail software validation as Bradford has a BD postcode. The full address is however requested as it is used to pick up on such errors and correct them and also assist the chap actually delivering the letter.

xotGD · 31 Aug 2019

Skipton is in the West Riding. North Yorkshire is an artificial construct.

urbophile · 31 Aug 2019

xotGD said:
Skipton is in the West Riding. North Yorkshire is an artificial construct. And the North Riding needs to add Middlesbrough to the list of busy stations.

All boundaries are artificial constructs!

J-2739 · 31 Aug 2019

David Emmott said:
All boundaries are artificial constructs!

True dat.

xotGD · 31 Aug 2019

David Emmott said:
All boundaries are artificial constructs!

Rivers, watersheds, mountain ranges. These are natural boundaries, and counties and nations naturally divide at them. Look at County Durham - bounded by the Tyne to the north and the Tees to the south. On its proper boundaries.

John Griffiths · 31 Aug 2019

Rivers were often unifiers rather than boundaries. A river valley or basin would provide a natural economic area, and the river a means of transportation and communication within that area. It is watersheds that more often provide natural boundaries.

NorthernSpirit · 1 Sep 2019

I'd use both the Ceremonial and Administrative Counties simply for clarity reasons, as some will use one lot and others will use the other. I use both, however when it comes to Yorkshire - for clarity reasons I use Yorkshire for the Ceremonial part and North, South, East and West Yorkshire for Administrative part, however for both South and West Yorkshire's the County Council was scrubbed in 1986 but to keep it clear I'll use the administrative name used between 1974 and 1986.

For administrative counties (both Shire and Metropolitain) that no longer exist e.g. Berkshire, Avon, Humberside, etc. I'd use the Ceremonial name but insert the word "Former County of..." when speaking in administrative terms, ceremonially I use the counties name singallly.

Ken H · 2 Sep 2019

xotGD said:
Rivers, watersheds, mountain ranges. These are natural boundaries, and counties and nations naturally divide at them. Look at County Durham - bounded by the Tyne to the north and the Tees to the south. On its proper boundaries.

so why does Yorkshire contain a large area that drains into the Lune and Ribble, both of which drain into the Irish Sea.
'Proper' Yorkshire also contains Dent and Sedbergh, more tributaries of the Lune.

oglord · 2 Sep 2019

Ken H said:
so why does Yorkshire contain a large area that drains into the Lune and Ribble, both of which drain into the Irish Sea.
'Proper' Yorkshire also contains Dent and Sedbergh, more tributaries of the Lune.

Why does it matter which coast the river drains towards? The important thing to note is that the Ribble forms a natural border.

Altnabreac · 4 Sep 2019

No one in Stow continues to have any affinity with Midlothian from which it was isolated geographically by the Moorfoot Hills and its inclusion in Midlothian is thought to be related to its ecclesiastical history.

lackridge station being in Lanarkshire is also an outlier from using outdated boundaries where the County boundaries were specifically changed to include housing around the (previously closed station site) in the same county as the village it served. Again you won't find anyone living in Blackridge south of the Barbauchlaw Burn who thinks they are Lanarkshire exiles.

oglord · 4 Sep 2019

Altnabreac said:
No one in Stow continues to have any affinity with Midlothian from which it was isolated geographically by the Moorfoot Hills and its inclusion in Midlothian is thought to be related to its ecclesiastical history.

Maybe so, but for this kind of comparison over time, static boundaries are useful.

Blackridge station being in Lanarkshire is also an outlier from using outdated boundaries where the County boundaries were specifically changed to include housing around the (previously closed station site) in the same county as the village it served. Again you won't find anyone living in Blackridge south of the Barbauchlaw Burn who thinks they are Lanarkshire exiles.

Perhaps thats what 22 years of thinking they lived in "Strathclyde" does to people's idea of identity!

Altnabreac · 4 Sep 2019

oglord said:
Maybe so, but for this kind of comparison over time, static boundaries are useful.

Perhaps thats what 22 years of thinking they lived in "Strathclyde" does to people's idea of identity!

They’re really not that useful when they don’t fit with community ties or developments post 1850.

Also you must be confused as the area in question was only in Strathclyde for less than 15 years (15 May 1975 until 31 March 1990).

oglord · 4 Sep 2019

Altnabreac said:
Also you must be confused as the area in question was only in Strathclyde for less than 15 years (15 May 1975 until 31 March 1990).

I am not talking just about the area around Blackridge, but Lanarkshire and county identity generally.

Altnabreac · 4 Sep 2019

oglord said:
I am not talking just about the area around Blackridge, but Lanarkshire and county identity generally.

In general I agree there is some traditional county identity in some places. But my point is that as settlements expand across previous county boundaries in agricultural areas the identity is much more likely to be related to the village and to the traditional county of that village.

So Blackridge expanded south of the Barbauchlaw Burn in the 1950s. As the village expanded into this area the primary local ties remained to the centre of the village itself and thus to the County of West Lothian. The administrative reality is that this new area of housing was in Lanarkshire Rural District number 7 and then transferred in 1975 to the Motherwell District of Strathclyde region until it was eventually transferred to West Lothian on 1 April 1990.

But there is no real logic to insisting that this area that was formerly open fields has a historic identity as "Lanarkshire" because as long as anyone has actually lived in the area it has been as part of a village associated with West Lothian.

So even if you think historic counties are more useful measures of long term identity than modern administrative areas (and I have some sympathy to this view), it is pointless insisting that no revision of these boundaries can ever be countenanced.

oglord · 4 Sep 2019

Altnabreac said:
But there is no real logic to insisting that this area that was formerly open fields has a historic identity as "Lanarkshire" because as long as anyone has actually lived in the area it has been as part of a village associated with West Lothian.

Indeed. The problem comes when units are appropriated for uses for which they are not suited (see below).

So even if you think historic counties are more useful measures of long term identity than modern administrative areas (and I have some sympathy to this view), it is pointless insisting that no revision of these boundaries can ever be countenanced.

There have always been different sets of overlapping boundaries. Parishes and boroughs/burghs have always crossed county borders. Built-up areas that expand over county borders could still have their own identity and administration despite being in two or more geographical counties. However since 1889/90 and the introduction of the county councils and subsequent rationalisation of local government we now have single-tier authorities that share the name of historic counties, and the subtlety is lost.

adrock1976 · 4 Sep 2019

At one time, the town of Todmorden straddled both Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Todmorden was allocated a Lancashire postcode (OL) with the telephone landline I believe being allocated a Yorkshire exchange dialling code.

oglord · 12 Nov 2019

Local government statistics... utterly scrambled and not counties!

SteveM70 · 12 Nov 2019

adrock1976 said:
At one time, the town of Todmorden straddled both Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Todmorden was allocated a Lancashire postcode (OL) with the telephone landline I believe being allocated a Yorkshire exchange dialling code.

Tod has a Rochdale dialling code, so it’s inconsistent with the postcode but neither is Yorkshire

The old joke goes that the old county boundary ran through the middle of Tod town hall because both counties wanted to claim it, but the reality was that neither did.

The current boundary is a couple of miles southwest, with Walsden the last station in West Yorkshire and Littleborough the first in Greater Manchester

oglord · 12 Nov 2019

SteveM70 said:
The current boundary is a couple of miles southwest, with Walsden the last station in West Yorkshire and Littleborough the first in Greater Manchester

If you base your identity in county councils that existed between 1974 and 1986...

OverSpeed · 13 Nov 2019

oglord said:
From my list, absolutely none. I used the boundary data from http://county-borders.co.uk/ which correctly separates those parts of Birmingham and the Black Country into their correct counties.

Ahh okay if thats the case, Unless i am pretty damn awful at mathematics and geography i only counted 54 stations that were once in warwickshire (Thats not including stations that have closed before or that have opened or re-opened since 1974), and that includes 10 stations in the city of Birmingham (that are still open to this day) 44 stations within the old county of warwickshire (that are still open too!) which would be bumped up to 49 if you included Birmingham international,Coventry arena,bermuda park,kenilworth and stratford upon avon's parkway.

For me and i guess a lot of other people, we are living in the present, not the past and what should only matter is the list of current stations that are in current counties.

Discussion regarding counties

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