Home » Opinion » Rants » What county do you really live in?

« iPod audiobook problems | Main | Javascript SymWinOpen function pain »

What county do you really live in?

I live in Croydon. Most people think this is in London and for government administrative purposes it is. However historically it is still Surrey and I always include that in my postal address. I came across a site today, The Association of British Counties which is a society dedicated to promoting awareness of the continuing importance of the 86 historic (or traditional) Counties of Great Britain. What's the point you ask? Letting politicians carve up the UK into areas which suit them for auditing and voting purposes every few years reduces out heritage and local identity. For example; say that you were looking up your family history and discovered that your Grandparents were from a village in Huntingdonshire - where would you start to look?

I work in E14 in Docklands - it's actually in Middlesex but I only just found that out. London itself is built on four counties. The ABC site can tell you where you actually live and gives some great advice on how your address can properly reflect where your home really is whilst still using the post code.

Posted by Simon at December 13, 2005 11:22 AM

Social Bookmarks:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • co.mments
  • del.icio.us
  • digg
  • Furl
  • Ma.gnolia
  • RawSugar
  • Reddit
  • Spurl
  • TailRank
  • YahooMyWeb


Trackback Pings

Comments

1 January 4, 2006 1:05 AM Aidan

Croydon is south London. Clearly. I always hated that Surrey postmark when I used to live there - even in the clearly-more-Surrey-than-South-London cut-off segment of South Croydon.
But it's a London borough. So it's London, folks.
As is Sutton. Not Epsom. Not Caterham. But Sutton. South London.
And as is the place I live now - the geographical mirror image of Croydon's positioning - Barnet. Okay, so there are 'north-London'-feeling parts, and 'Hertfordshire'-feeling areas. But it's a London borough. It's close enough. It's (just about) cool enough.
Most of all... It's not Home Counties. Enough. Honestly.
Get used to it, country-dwellers.
It's spreading...

2 May 3, 2006 2:03 AM matcroydon

I'm all for local identity, and wish people would stop leaving off the village names within Croydon - Shirley, Addiscombe, Woodside, Selhurst are all disappearing as names, some faster than others. So I'm not going to start putting 'Greater London' on my business cards.

But if you're saying I should feel more affinity with Guidford than with Dalston, then sorry, I can't. The old counties give a nice idea of where we came from and what our history is, though I dare say Surrey hasn't had much of an identity for longer than the rest of the country. But I'm a Londoner, a South Londoner at that, pleased to have a Mayor, pearly kings and a choice of local curry houses. And frankly so is much of the Surrey fringe, Epsom and Ewell, and Staines should be made to join us and start paying out taxes for the roads and buses they all use too.