Places that don't really fit in their region

[anti-pacer]

I live in Crewe and I can assure you it is definitely in the North West !!! :mad:

But you're further south than places like Chesterfield, Lincoln, and other places in the East Midlands. You're also further south than parts of Staffordshire.

Whilst you are part of the North West, geographically you're borderline Midlands.

 

[meridian2]

Dudley. Out of time and place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU4m3TF8Xbc

 

[northwichcat]

But you're further south than places like Chesterfield, Lincoln, and other places in the East Midlands. You're also further south than parts of Staffordshire.

Whilst you are part of the North West, geographically you're borderline Midlands.

It's important to remember the border between England and Scotland isn't a horizontal line so logically the border between the North and Midlands wouldn't be a horizontal line either.

 

[anti-pacer]

It's important to remember the border between England and Scotland isn't a horizontal line so logically the border between the North and Midlands wouldn't be a horizontal line either.

But it's more likely to be horizontal in England because with the exception of Yorkshire, our regions are more directional and compass point related. The North West is called so for obvious reasons, as is the South East and so on. The Midlands are called so because they're in the middle of the country, so below the North and above the South, geographically speaking. Therefore it seems nonsensical to describe somewhere like Crewe as being in a Northern region, when somewhere like Chesterfield is in a Midlands region despite being further north. It defeats the object of their names.

The Scottish border is irrelevant, although it is funny that Alnwick (England) is further north than Annan (Scotland). However, these are in a way national borders and not the compass point related regions we have in England - Yorkshire aside.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I always think of Crewe, being in Cheshire, as the north west whilst Stoke, being in Staffordshire, is definitely the Midlands. But then I'd consider Derbyshire to be the Midlands even though a big chunk of Holme Moss is in it.

It's all just a state of mind.

 

[J-2739]

Sheffield, to me, has always had that Midland feel to me. The fact that EMT serves there might be the reason.

I don't know why, but North Kent and South Essex seems like it's own region to me also.

True, there's Wakefield Grammar, a fee paying private school so there must be some brass about, and no shortage of fancy cars outside Wakefield Station doing the London commute. Even Barnsley, hardly a synonym for gentility, has lovely Cawthorne.

I go to that school.

The central area is nice, as well as Notton and Newmillerdam. Hall Green less so.

The only nice area of Barnsley is the west and the Oakwell stadium...

 

[Bletchleyite]

Some places in this country are in regions that don't geographically make sense. For example, Glossop in Derbyshire. Officially part of the East Midlands but only represented at government level. Utilities, media, transport and its location point to the North West.

As regions aren't political constructs, it barely matters.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's all just a state of mind.

Yes, this. It's where you associate to, that's all; it has almost no other meaning.

 

[sk688]

Some parts of greater London, do feel very different from more central areas of London

For example, North of Harrow Weald and Stanmore, and after Pinner on the Met Line, it does feel pretty rural and not at all hustle and bustle, and there are acres of trees and Greenland and forest.

Granted some of these areas come under harrow/hillingdon council and are served by the the tube, but they feel much more rural. Chorleywood or Carpenders Park feel nothing like West Hampstead or Marylebone

 

[anti-pacer]

As regions aren't political constructs, it barely matters.

Regions are political though, it's the government who created them. That's really all they are.

Take the East of England. Only a fool in Tring would admit to being in the East. The government think it is though.

 

[northwichcat]

I always think of Crewe, being in Cheshire, as the north west whilst Stoke, being in Staffordshire, is definitely the Midlands. But then I'd consider Derbyshire to be the Midlands even though a big chunk of Holme Moss is in it.

It's all just a state of mind.

It's normal to consider a county as part of a region, rather than part of a county being in one region and another part being in another region. If a crow flew directly east from my Cheshire home when it got near Sheffield it would be literally on the South Yorks/Derbyshire border but if it flew directly west it would fly north of much of the Wirral (which is mainly in Merseyside.)

Just looking at a map now Connah's Quay is on the Wirral and north of the River Dee but is in Flintshire, Wales so there's another place which doesn't really fit.

 

[northwichcat]

Sheffield, to me, has always had that Midland feel to me. The fact that EMT serves there might be the reason.

At one point the class 158 centre cars were taken from the Liverpool-Norwich route and moved to the York-Blackpool route. Some might say the East Midlands was robbed to pay the North but given the former serves 3 significant Northern cities you could say the Northern cities of Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield were robbed to pay the Northern cities of Preston, Bradford and Leeds.

 

[jonathan01n]

I used to live in Northern Ireland. Some parts of ROI is norther than Northern Ireland!

 

[Harbornite]

This is a historic example but Halesowen was once an exclave of Shropshire.

 

[anti-pacer]

I used to live in Northern Ireland. Some parts of ROI is norther than Northern Ireland!

Indeed they are, including the most northerly point on the island of Ireland.

 

[jonathan01n]

Indeed they are, including the most northerly point on the island of Ireland.

Northern Ireland should be Northeastern Ireland instead.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Regions are political though, it's the government who created them.

But they have no actual useful function, so back to irrelevance.

And they existed long before the Government said anything. I hail from the North West but live in the South East (not the East, that's East Anglia). Neither has any practical political significance.

 

[anti-pacer]

But they have no actual useful function, so back to irrelevance.

And they existed long before the Government said anything. I hail from the North West but live in the South East (not the East, that's East Anglia). Neither has any practical political significance.

I think now the RDA's no longer exist they have much less significance.

 

[meridian2]

I think we agree that some counties with regional associations go much further north and south than those links suggest. Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are midlands counties in most people's eyes, but in their upper reaches have cultural, industrial and regional accents that are indisputably northern. Nottinghamshire has Finningley at the top, which is way into Yorkshire latitudes, more northerly than many unarguably "northern" places, and Normanton on Soar in the south which is firmly in the bucolic, cheese producing Leicestershire Wolds.

Cheshire is an anomaly, as someone from Newcastle upon Tyne or Penrith would see it in a midlands context, but as a dormitory county for Manchester its links are to the north. My barometer of the south is when the terracotta bricks of the midlands turned to the yellow ochre bricks of London from the train window.

 

[anti-pacer]

I think we agree that some counties with regional associations go much further north and south than those links suggest. Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are midlands counties in most people's eyes, but in their upper reaches have cultural, industrial and regional accents that are indisputably northern. Nottinghamshire has Finningley at the top, which is way into Yorkshire latitudes, more northerly than many unarguably "northern" places, and Normanton on Soar in the south which is firmly in the bucolic, cheese producing Leicestershire Wolds.

Cheshire is an anomaly, as someone from Newcastle upon Tyne or Penrith would see it in a midlands context, but as a dormitory county for Manchester its links are to the north. My barometer of the south is when the terracotta bricks of the midlands turned to the yellow ochre bricks of London from the train window.

Cheshire is an odd one indeed. Liverpool orientated in the west of the county, Manchester orientated in the east, but influenced by Stoke in the south.

As for Warrington, it's just confused. Are they Mancs, are they Scousers?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Surrey County Cricket Club are based in Vauxhall and their cricket matches are covered by BBC London. Not the TV station but the radio station. This includes online commentary and updates to BBC London. However They don't provide live updates to BBC Surrey, despite the fact it is a Surrey County Cricket Club. In fact Surrey hold a week long cricket festival in Guildford once a year, so they see themselves as Surrey.

Vauxhall is in the area that was originally part of Surrey so it is historically correct that Surrey Cricket Club are still based there.

Incidentally, Surrey County Council's HQ is still in Kingston upon Thames, which is another area that is no longer within the Surrey boundary.

 

[Tetchytyke]

As for Warrington, it's just confused.

It only seems confused because they shifted Warrington from Lancashire- where it traditionally was- into Cheshire in 1974. My old English teacher was Wire and he was still bitter about it 25 years on

 

[anti-pacer]

It only seems confused because they shifted Warrington from Lancashire- where it traditionally was- into Cheshire in 1974. My old English teacher was Wire and he was still bitter about it 25 years on

I would have thought moving your town from Lancashire into Cheshire was a step up the social ladder.

That's nothing against the red rose county by the way. I grew up there in sunny Colne from 1981-1990, after moving from Bradford at the age of just 7.

 

[northwichcat]

It only seems confused because they shifted Warrington from Lancashire- where it traditionally was- into Cheshire in 1974. My old English teacher was Wire and he was still bitter about it 25 years on

The red brick houses in Warrington generally resemble houses in Cheshire more than houses in Lancashire.

 

[meridian2]

The red brick houses in Warrington generally resemble houses in Cheshire more than houses in Lancashire.

The reddest red brick I've seen in Britain, are in Wigan. A kind of glazed crimson I don't recall seeing anywhere else.

 

[backontrack]

Just looking at a map now Connah's Quay is on the Wirral and north of the River Dee but is in Flintshire, Wales so there's another place which doesn't really fit.

That's new to me! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connah's_Quay

 

[northwichcat]

That's new to me! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connah's_Quay

The map I referred to might have wrongly given the impression about which side of the river Connah's Quay was on but the map on your link clearly shows Flintshire extending on to the Wirral.