The North of England - where does it start?

[Cross City]

If you call your lunch dinner, and your dinner tea, you're in the north.

Yet everybody called them dinner ladies.

 

[Old Yard Dog]

It annoys me when weather forecasters glibly refer to "The North" as I haven't a clue whether they mean northern England or Scotland or both.

 

[nw1]

It annoys me when weather forecasters glibly refer to "The North" as I haven't a clue whether they mean northern England or Scotland or both.

Similarly, I dislike the removal of "central Southern England" from weather forecasts. It's always just southeast or southwest. If you're about halfway along, with Kent and Cornwall both very distant, neither is really applicable!

 

[McRhu]

I remember the magnificent Tony Blackburn doing a roadshow from Newcastle and saying how good it was to be looking out over the North East corner of Britain.

 

[Killingworth]

The Church of England Provinces of Canterbury and York might be another way to define north and south.

In which case the house I live in was in the south when it was built in 1971 but became the north when a few parishes were moved from the Diocese of Lichfield to Sheffield in 1974.

In 829 King Ecgbert of Mercia lead his army to Dore and met King Eanred of Northumbria establishing their border around that place. That border between Yorkshire and Derbyshire largely remained intact until a strip to the south of Sheffield was taken into Sheffield in 1934. The church took 40 years to catch up.

 

[yorksrob]

The Church of England Provinces of Canterbury and York might be another way to define north and south.

In which case the house I live in was in the south when it was built in 1971 but became the north when a few parishes were moved from the Diocese of Lichfield to Sheffield in 1974.

In 829 King Ecgbert of Mercia lead his army to Dore and met King Eanred of Northumbria establishing their border around that place. That border between Yorkshire and Derbyshire largely remained intact until a strip to the south of Sheffield was taken into Sheffield in 1934. The church took 40 years to catch up.

Britannia Inferior and Britannia Superior in old money.

 

[stevetay3]

Anything above the M4

 

[Killingworth]

Britannia Inferior and Britannia Superior in old money.

What did the Romans do for us? They created the north south divide and the north has felt inferior ever since!

From The Romans in Britain website; https://www.romanobritain.org/6-history/his_romans_split_england.php

The Romans Split Britain in Two​

It was now, that a major change took place in Britain Severus had planned a division of the country into two halves, upper and lower. The reasoning behind this was to reduce the number of legions available to any one governor, thereby cutting down the risk of a governor making a claim to the throne and having a large number of troops at his disposal.

The initial plan was conceived in 197, but it was not until after 211 under Caracalla the scheme was put into practice. Roman tradition was to name divided provinces in line with their actual distance from Rome. The closest or upper (in rank) province was the superior and the further away, lower province was the inferior. Britain was now divided into the south (Britannia Superior) and the north (Britannia Inferior). The superior had a consular governor, while the inferior was ruled by someone of the praetorian rank. The governor had the main bulk of the legions in his division and was based in London. While the northern ruler had just one legion, but many auxiliary troops and was based in York. Troops that were surplus to requirements were dispatched to the Europe. These may have been posted because of reduced requirements or, more likely, because they were the troops brought over from the continent for the campaign against the Scots. In any case, the pattern for the future of Britain for some years to come had been formed.

The Roman Empire in the third century was vastly different in shape and attitude to the Empire of a century before. Whereas the Empire had expanded and conquered territories, especially in the first half of the second century, it was now in a stable non-growing state. It was triumphant and dominant.

On the surface this should have been the best times for the Roman Empire, but in the third century, it was to be ravaged not only by outside sources, but also from within.

 

[yorksrob]

What did the Romans do for us? They created the north south divide and the north has felt inferior ever since!

From The Romans in Britain website; https://www.romanobritain.org/6-history/his_romans_split_england.php

Been down hill ever since

Though I'd read that they were the other way round (North - superior).

 

[RT4038]

Being a northerner, Dinner was what you ate in the middle of the day, even if it was just a sandwich. People in my workplace would refer to their lunch break as 'dinner time' or their 'dinner break'. The early evening meal was 'tea'. This wasn't just about the meal, the period around 6pm was referred to as 'tea time', e.g. my parents would talk about something they'd seen on the 'tea time news'.

The exception was Sundays, when we had Sunday Lunch in the early afternoon. This would be a roast. We then had Sunday Tea which was usually a light snack.

When I moved to London, I quickly changed to referring to Lunch (mid-day) and Dinner (early evening). I also quickly learned that if someone suggested visiting for supper, this was an actual meal and not a couple of biscuits eaten in your pyjamas before bedtime!

Hmmm. I'm a Londoner (Paddington) and dinner time was around mid-day and I took Dinner money to pay for the meal at school, supervised by Dinner ladies. My Dad worked close and came home for Dinner at about 1 o'clock. In my teens, when we moved further out, he couldn't come home in the middle of the day and Dinner was had in the evening.
Maybe longer distance commuting, and family dinner in the evening, was more prevalent earlier in London and the South East, than further North?

 

[Gloster]

Personally, I think that the choice between lunch/dinner/tea/supper is as much, if not more, based on social class and background as geography. There was a thread on this: What do you call the meal between 1200 and 1400 and where do you come from? from 10 August 2021 on. (Sorry, I can’t do a link.)

 

[ChrisC]

My perception as a Brummie:

Draw an imaginary diagonal line south east from the Dee estuary pivoting northeast at Stoke to stop at Lincoln. Chester and Crewe are Northern, Stoke isn't. Chesterfield and Worksop are northern, Mansfield and Lincoln aren't.

Then draw a line from the Severn Estuary at Gloucester to Peterborough, and one from Lincoln to Peterborough to Chelmsford. Anything below the first line is southern anything to the right of the Lincoln - Chelmsford line is Eastern. The gap in the middle is the Midlands. Cheltenham and Northampton are Midlands, Milton Keynes and Oxford are southern.

Anything south of Gloucester and west of a line between Oxford and Southampton is in the South West.

Roughly something like this.View attachment 129003

The red line on this map actually runs along the southern outskirts of Mansfield which would actually put just about the whole of Mansfield in the north!

The counties of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire are interesting ones in the fact that the north of these counties with towns like Chesterfield, Buxton and Worksop being in the north. At the other end of these counties Nottingham and Derby are certainly Midlands cities and so would be considered by many as being in the south. Some parts of the north of both counties are actually slightly further north than Sheffield. I would say that as far as the red line on the map is concerned in relation to Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire it is about right.

I live in a village just south of the red line which definitely, along with Nottingham feels more like the Midlands and therefore the south. I only have to drive a few miles towards Mansfield and it feels like a completely different world and certainly feels like the north. In both counties landscape, building materials, general culture and dialect are very different in the north and the south of each county. Industrial history probably has had a very large influence on this with the areas containing the Derbyshire mills and the mining areas around Mansfield, Chesterfield and generally along the Notts/Derby border historically linking those areas more with the north than the south. In more recent history TV areas perhaps have some influence on this too. Much of the north of Nottinghamshire including Mansfield, Worksop and Retford receive Yorkshire TV and not East Midlands. This is also the case in Chesterfield and much of North East Derbyshire and large parts of the Peak District. Buxton and Glossop are in the NW area for TV.

From a purely landscape and general feel of the area point of view these are my observations. If you travel north up the eastern side of Nottinghamshire up the ECML or the A1 it doesn’t really seem that you move into the north until around Doncaster. Travelling up the M1 there is a definite change between Junctions 26 and 27. By rail travelling up the MML things appear very much more northern well before Chesterfield, probably north of Belper or Alfreton on the Erewash Valley Line. The line which seems to really show the difference between passing from the south to the north is the Robin Hood Line which seems to become gradually more northern as your progress north of Hucknall. I always think it’s coming through the short Annesley tunnel just before Kirkby in Ashfield where the change is most noticeable.

 

[Howardh]

Italy has a north/south divide, with the prosperity being in the North. Arguably Belgium is the same. Any other European countries with such a split, n/s or e/w?

 

[McRhu]

Italy has a north/south divide, with the prosperity being in the North. Arguably Belgium is the same. Any other European countries with such a split, n/s or e/w?

Scotland?…

 

[Howardh]

Scotland?…

East-west? Possibly!

 

[McRhu]

I suppose it’s all relative really. I remember somebody from Dounreay talking about going down South, by which he meant Ullapool.

As regards Scotland, yes indeed the East -West split which I suppose derives from the Glasgow / Edinburgh rivalry in the Central belt.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Italy has a north/south divide, with the prosperity being in the North. Arguably Belgium is the same. Any other European countries with such a split, n/s or e/w?

Germany would be the obvious one, and if you go back thirty-two years Czechslovakia had the more liberal (relatively speaking) Czechs to the west and the more conservative Slovaks to the east.

 

[Bevan Price]

Scotland?…

Rangers v Celtic ??

 

[317 forever]

When I use LNER between Leeds and London I instantly feel like I’ve left the North as soon as we depart Doncaster, feel like I’m in a bit of ‘man in the middle’ at the likes of Retford /Newark / Grantham but suddenly start to feel more ‘southern’ once we hit Peterborough (no idea why considering it’s 85 miles or so from London!)

Aren’t there a handful of people that commute (or used to) between the likes of Leeds and London for work daily?! That would completely confuse my mind being around the more Southern culture by day then back to our Northern ways and a cup of tea by night

When I travelled from London to Edinburgh by train, I was astounded by how long a section was in the North - from Doncaster to Berwick-upon-Tweed.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Feb 2023 ==

Peterborough is a weird one, people often say it's southern but it's further north than Birmingham (if ever so slightly).

For me its right where the Midlands, South and East meet.

And to people in Lowestoft, anywhere west of Peterborough is in the west country

 

[McRhu]

Rangers v Celtic ??

That's a whole different other kind of divide

 

[Howardh]

That's a whole different other kind of divide

Nothing like Queen of the South and the old Gretna!

 

[nw1]

Peterborough is a weird one, people often say it's southern but it's further north than Birmingham (if ever so slightly).

For me its right where the Midlands, South and East meet.

For me Peterborough is firmly and unambiguously Eastern.

Close to the Midlands, yes, but a long way from the South. I'd say the South ends somewhere like Letchworth/Hitchin and after that, it's the East. So Hertfordshire is South but Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire are East.

 

[Cross City]

For me Peterborough is firmly and unambiguously Eastern.

Close to the Midlands, yes, but a long way from the South. I'd say the South ends somewhere like Letchworth/Hitchin and after that, it's the East. So Hertfordshire is South but Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire are East.

Bedford is almost due north of Heathrow airport. Surely that’s not in the east?

 

[nw1]

Bedford is almost due north of Heathrow airport. Surely that’s not in the east?

It's a good deal closer to Essex than Gloucestershire though! (Though to be fair, it's further west than "you think". Conventional wisdom would place Bedford directly north of London city centre; what we think of as the country's north-south axis leans to the west quite considerably - more so than you think).

Not sure what else you'd call it, the difference in latitude between Bedford and Brighton is about the same as that between Bedford and Sheffield, so it can't really be considered as being in the south.

Far south-east Midlands, perhaps?

Though to be honest this sort of area could be put in another region, neither Midlands, South or East. I always think of Bedford/Bucks/Northants as in the "M1 Country" region.

 

[Cross City]

Though to be honest this sort of area could be put in another region, neither Midlands, South or East. I always think of Bedford/Bucks/Northants as in the "M1 Country" region.

Yeah there's a whole area north of London which doesn't really fit into a region, like a banana shape from north of Reading to just west of Cambridge. Oxfordshire for example could be argued to be in the South, West or Midlands.

 

[rapmastaj]

For me, in the Peak District, the line between the Dark Peak and the White Peak marks a very clear border between North and Midlands. To the north you have a classic Pennine landscape of peat bogs, gritstone edges and high moorland. To the south, steeply wooded limestone valleys and flat grassy plateaus. Its such a clear geological divide - you can sit on Eyam Edge and see how the ground under you turns from moors into green limestone fields.

Coming by train, I feel like I've reached the north when I see the crooked spire of St Mary's and All Saints in Chesterfield.

 

[Lost property]

Nobody has mentioned Shropshire, yet, so I won't....given Shropshire is, well, different anyway.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Nobody has mentioned Shropshire, yet, so I won't....given Shropshire is, well, different anyway.

Always thought that Shropshire is essentially not too dissimilar to being a demilitarized buffer zone between the Midlands and Wales.

 

[Cross City]

Always thought that Shropshire is essentially not too dissimilar to being a demilitarized buffer zone between the Midlands and Wales.

Telford do be like Pyongyang tbf

 

[nw1]

Nobody has mentioned Shropshire, yet, so I won't....given Shropshire is, well, different anyway.

Shropshire is, I think, in the Marches, along with Herefordshire, and those parts of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire west of the Severn.

As for the boundaries of the Midlands, well I think the Dark Peak/White Peak one mentioned up-thread is good. Heading west from the Edale area it follows the northern and western boundaries of Staffordshire and the West Midlands metropolitan area, then the Severn, until the Gloucester area. Then it turns east, follows the escarpment of the Cotswolds, cuts across towards Banbury and passes north of Northampton (which is in "M1 Country"). Finally it heads northwards to Leicester and Nottingham, passing a little way east of each, and then roughly northwestwards back to Edale.

In addition to the Marches and M1 Country, I'd also place Oxford and the Cotswolds in its own unofficial "region". South of the Midlands, north of the South, northeast of the West Country and west of M1 Country.