please empty your brain below
Interesting - an alternative approach would be to start with the county towns, construct a Voronoi diagram and then see how that compares to the current county boundaries. I am tempted to try that some time!

I didn't know Alnwick was considered the county town of Northumberland - I thought it was Morpeth. (It should be Newcastle in my opinion, and then probably the most off-centre of all.)

Alan | 15.01.22 - 7:18 a.m. | #

Surely Buckingham is the county town of Buckinghamshire not Aylesbury?

dg writes: never risk a surely.

Anon | 15.01.22 - 7:29 a.m. | #

Cambridgeshire of course had Ely Cathedral slightly further north, in the times when churches were in charge. You’ve also had Huntingdonshire appear and disappear.

Kirk | 15.01.22 - 7:35 a.m. | #

My instant thought was about how the rivers affected the growth of towns, and how trade affects the size of towns, and how Christianity affected choose of county towns (e.g. Diocese headquarters made towns more important in the Middle Ages and and and and (wow your little geographical idea really got me thinking about county towns)! Thank you 😊

Verity | 15.01.22 - 7:40 a.m. | #

Interesting, informative and thought provoking. I imagine I would have done it exactly the same way. Except of course I wouldn't have found a reason to have done it.

Frank F | 15.01.22 - 7:51 a.m. | #

Those are modern country boundaries though. If Middlesex has been included, then London would be very off-centre.

Mikey C | 15.01.22 - 7:59 a.m. | #

The things you find to cogitate never cease to surprise. Just a small point though there is only one “e” in Bridgwater Somerset

Richard | 15.01.22 - 8:14 a.m. | #

Most of your n.bs. would apply to Surrey having one location absorbed into the LCC and the other into the GLC.

Mike | 15.01.22 - 8:15 a.m. | #

When did Kingston stop being the county town of Surrey?

Debster | 15.01.22 - 8:29 a.m. | #

You stated you’d be using ceremonial counties, not the modern ones, but you’ve included South Yorkshire which is a made up modern county. Most of S Yorks was once W Yorks, with some parts taken from Derbyshire.

dg writes: S Yorks is a ceremonial county.

Also Yorkshire related, if we take all three (yes, three, count ‘em) ridings as a whole, York is pretty central.

Dazzling Darren | 15.01.22 - 8:33 a.m. | #

County towns are where they are as a result of about 1500 years of history. To try and answer questions about their locations it would be best not to look at modern Cerimonial counties* but a map of medieval England. Then look at locations (on navigable rivers mostly) or on sites where post-norman invasion barons had to defend themselves against a sullen if not outright belligerent population.

County boundaries were based on land holdings of the rich and powerful and had many detached sections which were not swept away until Victoriam times.

Once you start doing this you get differnt answers; Carlisle was better sitauted when Westmorland existed, Alnwick was better placed before the now defunct Hexhamshire was absorbed into Northumberland, but Oxford was right on the boundary of its county when Berkshire extended up to the Thames to the west of the city.

A fascinating topic.

* Sorry to ramble on and I do know you said we would do this differently.

Alan JS | 15.01.22 - 8:39 a.m. | #

If you had included the late lamented City & County of Bristol there would have been no doubt as to the "centrality" of the county town!

strawbrick | 15.01.22 - 8:51 a.m. | #

Trowbridge became Wiltshire's county town due to it's good railway connections.

"When the county council was formed in 1889 Swindon and Salisbury were the two largest places but Trowbridge was the one place that could be easily reached by rail from all parts of the county. This meant that members of the county council could attend meetings and return home the same day. The claims of the more centrally placed Devizes were thus overcome ..."

Martin'O'Holcombe | 15.01.22 - 9:02 a.m. | #

Maidstone was established as the home of Kent's County Hall when the county did extend further north-west, as this blog explains.

Lancashire's County Hall is in Preston and Derbyshire's is in Matlock, both in place before any late 20th century alterations to boundaries.

Man of Kent | 15.01.22 - 9:30 a.m. | #

It's not a coincidence that the most 'regular' counties in terms of centrality as well as name and size are all in the Midlands. It's the result of the conquest of Mercia by Wessex.

Wessex was always divided into shires; the south eastern kingdoms were incorporated as single counties whereas East Anglia with its established split between the North Folk and South Folk became two. But Mercia was much larger and needed counties imposed on it. (Lincolnshire is anomalously big but it was under Danelaw at the time.)

Geoff | 15.01.22 - 9:47 a.m. | #

Surrey County Council only left Kingston in the last few years but just because County Hall was there doesn’t make it a county town. I’d argue that Surrey doesn’t and hasn’t for many years have a county town.

David | 15.01.22 - 10:00 a.m. | #

A subject I have often pondered, but never seen written about previously. The tradiditional county-towns of most Welsh border counties are even more off-centre - Flint, Montgomery, Radnor and Monmouth are all perched precariously on the edge of each shire. Presteigne, which succeeded Radnor as county-town, is also right on the edge. Present-day successors are more central.

cau1khead | 15.01.22 - 10:01 a.m. | #

Why are the North West county towns all so far off-centre? I'm pretty sure the clue is in the 'caster': all three are on the marches/borders of what were, up until the 13th/16th century, hostile countries. Defensibility and communications would have been far more important than visible centrality ..

Harry | 15.01.22 - 10:23 a.m. | #

Aylesbury is nicely central in Bucks but being such a long thin county, residents at the far extremities can still feel rather overlooked. Major improvements for cyclists and pedestrians for instance seem to happen mainly in Aylesbury.

Andrew S | 15.01.22 - 10:40 a.m. | #

Surrey County Council moved its HQ from Kingston to Reigate (not Guildford) on 1st January 2021

Lincoln is decidedly off-centre - it is less than 2miles from the border with Notts at is closest.

Reading may be central to Berkshire in an east-west direction, but the county's wasp-waisted shape means it is also right on the border with Oxfordshire to the north, and only three miles from Hampshire to the south. Before the loss of the Vale of White Horse to Oxfordshire and the gain of Slough from Bucks (hardly a fair exchange!),the geometric centre of Berkshire may have been in Oxfordshire.

Lancaster was probably more central when Lancashire extended all the way to the Mersey in one direction and Barrow in Furness in the other.

However, I would imagine many county towns were not chosen to fit counties. On the contrary, the counties were defined according to which large/easily defended town they were closest to. Tf you were to generate a Voronoi diagram using the county towns you would probably get quite close to a map of the traditional counties)

Timbo | 15.01.22 - 10:47 a.m. | #

Brentford was the county town of Middlesex even though the former county covered much of the present London area.

Tones | 15.01.22 - 6:07 p.m. | #

Chelmsford only seems to be too far South-West because of the effect of the introduction of the GLC in 1965, and the creation of the London Boroughs of Barking and Dagenham, Redbridge, Newham, Waltham Forest, Havering.

This effectively removed the old SW corner of the County where prior to that date it was bounded on its SW border by the River Lea, and Chelmsford was thus more centrally placed than it now appears.

IanD | 15.01.22 - 8:16 p.m. | #

> technically it should be Longridge

Apropos of not much, that's not far from the centroid of the island of Great Britain itself.

That makes Lancashire feel rather more important than it is - and perhaps points out the way in which London is not really very central to GB, and even less to the UK.

mark addy | 15.01.22 - 9:02 p.m. | #

You missed Middlesex, with the county town on the southern border.

dg writes: Middlesex is not a ceremonial county.

Abingdon used to be county town of Berkshire which was also on the edge and then it got swallowed up by next door Oxfordshire, which in turn make Oxford more cemtral to that county.

mr jif | 16.01.22 - 7:42 a.m. | #

Brentford might have been thought of as a county-town but it had no official status other than where Middlesex Parliamentary elections were held. And that must have been annoying enough, travelling down from Potters Bar to Brentford on horse, coach or foot. Clerkenwell and its Quarter Sessions would have had a better claim.

If you wanted somewhere central then Wembley would have been your place, but lacked towns back then.
Middlesex's largest town would have been Uxbridge, with Brentford following.
( see here )

Martin'O'Holcombe | 16.01.22 - 9:52 a.m. | #

Absolutely right on Lancaster. A bit closer for the County Palatine’s weird bit around Barrow-in-Furness. But even more off centre when that also included most of Manchester and Liverpool. The powers that be must have followed the same logic as County Hall and all the main administration for today’s Lancashire County Council is in Preston. But Preston doesn’t have a castle. And you can’t really disassociate Lancaster from Lancashire given the name.

Ian Chapman-Curry | 16.01.22 - 11:19 a.m. | #

Readers may enjoy this map of the enclaves and exclaves of our counties before they were rationalised, largely in the 1800s. The link is centred on the amazing exclaves of Derbyshire that are now in Leicestershire.

Jim | 16.01.22 - 10:31 p.m. | #

Chester is pretty non-central to Cheshire. Parts of the city are in Wales (see recent controversy over Chester FC's ground).

dg writes: see specific post

Jeff | 17.01.22 - 1:01 p.m. | #

Extract from "the global book of the internet", second ed. published 2047:

"If it is ever of your need to troll English natives such that they waste enormous amounts of time arguing among themselves, all that's needed is to seed an effective discussion about the various iterations and forms of English administrative regions known as 'counties'; their past, present and future. You will find that your targets are subsequently consumed for hours if not days by the unreconcilable intricacy of this otherwise mostly inconsequential topic"

Paul | 17.01.22 - 1:55 p.m. | #

See also The Middlesex Conjecture: Even if you specifically don't mention it, Middlesex will eventually become the focus of conversation.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 17.01.22 - 3:34 p.m. | #











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