h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Rutland is back and Bath is in Somerset again.

Some one saw sense.

(OT)
Are these the same folk who saw fit to call Shropshire-and-that 'Salop'?
Salop. Honestly.
How many counties are there?
Also OT: how can you find shops in London? Is there a website that lists them or something cos everytime I go there are always swanky places selling pashminas or daft places selling crap, and everywhere else sells coffee. Assistance?

Rutland in Humberside? Don't you mean Leicestershire.

With the rise and rise of the Unitary Authorities the notion of counties is falling away. Brighton is no longer part of East Sussex, it is its own little City. The county of South Yorkshire hasn't existed for years, its made up of four Metropolitan Borough Councils: Sheffield, Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham.

I was guessing, as I don't actually know where Rutland is.

s away from ban of marauding Rutles.

Re Shops in London

It depends on what you want to buy - what are you looking for - I might be able to point you to somewhere (hey - I'm a girl! Shopping comes with the package )

Not sure if there is a directory of shops though...

Stay ,
WD

to be pendantic humberside doesn't exsist anymore it's the east riding of yorkshire. changed back about mid 90's

There is a site called this is london, run all the words together and add com in the usual way. It may be helpful.

The best places, depending on what you want aren't necessarily in central London.

Every time the chance of a new city is in the offing, Guildford bravely sticks its hand up. We have a Cathedral, but that doesn't qualify a town for a Royal Charter. As HM's itinary of a royal tour for this Golden Jubilee year doesn't include Surrey, I suspect we have missed out again.

...and the southern part of Humberside is now part of Lincolnshire again.

Somebody (I forget who, sorry!) said that you were only in London if you had a london postcode eg NW SE EC etc. but I live in the *London* Borough of Croydon. Which is in Surrey. Does this count as London or not? It is inside the M25 with London in the title so surely it must be part of greater london?

Croydon is also bidding for city status along the same lines as westminster which makes things even more confusing...

k

well, I don't even live in London, but I tell people I do. I'm about 5 miles out of the nearest London Borough.

Going by the postcode can confuse the issue. Enfield, for instance, has the postcode EN. It used to be part of Middlesex before the boundary changes (1971?) effectively wiped Middlesex off the map. It's since been the London Borough of Enfield. However, the EN postcode also cover parts of Hertfordshire & Essex. Same goes with RM (Romford) and IG (Ilford) postcodes, and probably loads of others.

London ain't what it used to be!

Sue

I thought it was "darn sarf".

Perhaps London is a myth; we just imagine it!

As only yesterday I mapped at work all of these the numbers are- (For England and Wales)

35 Counties which are divided in to 238 Districts

In addition there are 100 Unitary autorities, 33 London Boroughs and 36 Metropolitan Districts which are not in any county.


CH

oopps, that should read Great Britain - ie England, Scotland and Wales. And as most people know there are 6 counties in Northern Ireland.

CH

And in Ireland there are the four ancient provinces of Leinster, Munster, Connaught and Ulster. The last being split between Northern Ireland and Eire, 6 counties in the first and 3 in the other I believe.

Unitary Authorities aren't really such a shiny new idea as we're led to believe - they existed before the 1974 boundary changes and were called County Boroughs.

In my own neck of the woods the old Boroughs of Brixham, Paignton and Torquay became the County Borough of Torbay in 1968, taking on all the responsibilities formerly belonging to Devon County Council. In 1974 the bay became an ordinary borough, once again within Devon. A couple of years ago the council decided (on a power-trip, obviously) to seek unitary status. Having been granted it, they then had to take on County functions once more, such as education, necessitating vast numbers of new Town Hall bureaucrats - and now they complain endlessly about lack of funds.


As far as London is concerned, you have to draw a line between postal addresses and administrive districts. Middlesex still exists as a postal address, but is non-existant in administrative terms, although there is a surprisingly strong campaign for its reinstatement led by none other than chubby TV astrologer Russell Grant! Most Outer London areas are still referred to postally by their traditional counties, so Bexleyheath, for instance, whilst in the London Borough of Bexley (and under Ken's GLA) is still generally addressed as 'Kent'.

As for the City of London, I gather it is sometimes described as England's last 'rotten borough', as the many companies and institutions in the Square Mile get block votes in elections to the Corporation of London.

Counties and even towns are ultimately redundant for postal address purposes. Your house number and post code are all that are actually needed to deliver a letter to you. I've tried it and it works just fine. Of course it is much nicer to be able to say you live in "Rose Cottage" rather than "10/TM44 6EN".

Hey, if you want to get really confused about postcodes then listen to this...
I live in the London Brough of Sutton, but I have a London Borough of Croydon Postcode.
Lots of locals still don't get it, which means my life is full of confusion.
Even worse I live in flat 18, which is in the 18 building in the road. So anyone who is not sure about the flat number of whoever they are calling, rings on our doorbell. This means lots of taxi-drivers argueing with us at all times of the day and night, insisting that we had called a taxi, when we havn't.
We really must move!

My dear old dad lives in Sutton too, but has an SM postcode. So you must be in the east of the Borough, I assume.