Rail station with wrong county name: should they be renamed?

[William3000]

With local authorities boundary changing over time, there seems some stations bearing county name seems not accurate.

Take an example of Hayes in Bromley, it's still named as Hayes (Kent). The area has long been incorporated into the local governance and ceremonial county of Greater London, which is not relevant to Kent any more.

It's pretty much the case of Sutton named as Sutton (Lodnon) not Sutton (Surrey) or Stratford (London) not Stratford (Essex), which both are also incorporated into Greater London in 1965 as Bromley do.

Should they be renamed to reflect more accurate and updated situation?

No - the historic counties are a constant whereas modern administrative boundaries are continually changing.

 

[zwk500]

Basically a lot of the boundaries and the identities that go with them are fluid. I'd not describe the pre-existing descriptions as "wrong", merely not fitting with current administrative boundaries

I suspect there are more than a few areas of London where if you knocked on 10 doors in a street and asked 'how do you describe where you live?' you'd get a good range of different answers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 May 2023 ==

No - the historic counties are a constant whereas modern administrative boundaries are continually changing.

Only constant from the final boundary changes. The historic counties also changed their boundaries in the 1000 or so years they existed prior to their replacament.

 

[William3000]

I suspect there are more than a few areas of London where if you knocked on 10 doors in a street and asked 'how do you describe where you live?' you'd get a good range of different answers.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 May 2023 ==


Only constant from the final boundary changes. The historic counties also changed their boundaries in the 1000 or so years they existed prior to their replacament.

That’s true I guess but historic counties haven’t been replaced - they still exist in a legal sense but clearly administrative boundaries in many instances make more sense in terms of delivery of public services even if they don’t have the cultural history.

 

[Dai Corner]

That’s true I guess but historic counties haven’t been replaced - they still exist in a legal sense but clearly administrative boundaries in many instances make more sense in terms of delivery of public services even if they don’t have the cultural history.

Do you mean ceremonial counties (those to which the King appoints a Lord Lieutenant as his representative)? They're not necessarily the same name or extent as earlier counties or current Council areas.

 

[William3000]

No I was talking about historic counties - ceremonial counties tend to reflect the mid 1970s county boundary changes.

 

[Dai Corner]

No I was talking about historic counties - ceremonial counties tend to reflect the mid 1970s county boundary changes.

I didn't know they existed in a legal sense. To take an example I know of, historic Somerset included Weston-super-Mare, Bath and parts of Bristol which are all in different administrative areas now. (Depending on how you treat county boroughs and how far you go back).

What is the legal entity which includes those and modern day Somerset?

 

[Ianigsy]

I recently saw a letter in a national newspaper signed from someone who described himself as being in "Upminster, Greater London", which I thought very odd. I've spent a lot of time with people from there, and got the impression that the principal loyalty remained to the historic county, not the new one. The local authority were even contemplating renaming themslelves "The London Borough of Havering, Essex" not long ago....

I often wonder how Scottish arrivals in the capital respond to the London Borough of Havering.

It’s probably more necessary now that we have online booking and potential passengers are doing more of the leg work themselves and not everybody will be familiar with geography. If I walked up to my parents’ local station in Birkenhead and asked for a ticket to Moreton, I’d be sold a ticket to Moreton (Merseyside) -there’s no guarantee that I mean that one, but they probably don’t sell tickets to the others from one year to the next.

 

[6Gman]

Are local authorities important in telling stations apart? For one thing, they keep getting their boundaries (and sometime names) changed, which inevitably causes confusion and ambiguity when used for other purposes.

When the GLC was created, the postal addresses of the outer parts mostly kept their old county names (The inner parts had central London postal areas already.) So Ashford was still in Middlesex, Sutton in Surrey, etc. The Post office stopped asking for counties in addresses a bit after 1996, but most people didn't notice immediately since they were never asked to stop using them.

So those old counties (and that includes Middlesex, which had no other official existence from 1965) are still familiar to a lot of people. That includes people who live there - who still put it in their address, and people who live miles away - who have no reason to know anything about local government boundaries.

(coughs)

Sandwell & Dudley

(coughs)

 

[AM9]

Slightly OT here, not surprising some residents of Bromley, Sutton, Kingston & Romford etc feel closer to their old county - the 30-ish year old relief road in Bromley Town centre is called the Kentish Way, built 30-ish years after Bromley became a London borough.

I feel the Greater London annexation should not have happened in 1965, the outer boroughs should have been left with their old counties, with only the inner boroughs officially recognised as "London". Other places such as Watford, Dartford & Staines, also inside the M25, are not even in London.

Outer London residents are finding out to their cost at being forced into the unpopular ULEZ extension, which Watford etc residents will avoid, as their towns got sucked into the swamp from 1965.

Although I was born in Ilford, Essex, just visiting the place fully justifies it's formal London location. The ULEZ needs to be extended to the M25, (i.e. the GLE area) as there is virtually unbroken urban sprawl out that far, and backround pollution levels are way above areas outside the M25.

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Hale near Atrincham, on the Mid Cheshire line, is now officially referred to as Hale (Manchester) - a source of annoyance to its rather well-heeled residents. Historically it was in Cheshire, but now in Greater Manchester (Met Borough of Trafford).

 

[W-on-Sea]

I often wonder how Scottish arrivals in the capital respond to the London Borough of Havering.

Quite! "Next to Barking".....

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

We still have the CLC route between Manchester and Liverpool (Cheshire Lines Committee), despite the line not passing through Cheshire at all when constructed (it remains north of the Mersey throughout).
Today it does pass through modern Cheshire, and so does a part of the Chat Moss route, thanks to Warrington and Widnes transferring from the old Lancashire.
CLC also owned other lines in the area (eg parts of the Stockport-Altrincham-Northwich-Chester Northgate line).
People forget that Stalybridge and the western slopes of the Standedge and Woodhead routes were also in Cheshire.
So was the whole of the Wirral, Altrincham/Sale and Stockport (the Mersey was the historic boundary between Cheshire and Lancashire, and for centuries between Mercia and Northumbria).

 

[Mikey C]

Although I was born in Ilford, Essex, just visiting the place fully justifies it's formal London location. The ULEZ needs to be extended to the M25, (i.e. the GLE area) as there is virtually unbroken urban sprawl out that far, and backround pollution levels are way above areas outside the M25.

Ilford is only in TfL Zone 4, so nowhere near the edge of London. Other than the corridors along the GEML, District Line, A12 and A127, there are large Green Belt areas to the east and northeast of London within the M25, some in London, some in Essex. All full of farmland and country parks.

 

[AM9]

Ilford is only in TfL Zone 4, so nowhere near the edge of London. Other than the corridors along the GEML, District Line, A12 and A127, there are large Green Belt areas to the east and northeast of London within the M25, some in London, some in Essex. All full of farmland and country parks.

Ilford was very near to the London (LCC) border before 1965, indeed the River Roding at the bottom of Ilford Hill was the western limit of Essex county. Untilthe end og WW2, the development along the A12 petered out between Seven Kings/Chadwell Heath and Romford with Harold Hill not coming until the '50s/'60s. Similarly, along the A13, places like Elm Park Beacontree heathand Rush Green had large gaps of open land, so the current continuous urbanisation certainly does alter the pollution profile over and above the average increase of road traffic. Even the old A11 route* has now filled in as far as Debden.
* That would be the A121, - the A11 now runs through Epping Forest which is a Royal Forest so development isn't possible there, (as is Hainault Forest). Chigwell is still in Essex.

 

[Basil Jet]

Even the old A11 route* has now filled in as far as Debden.
* That would be the A121, - the A11 now runs through Epping Forest which is a Royal Forest so development isn't possible there, (as is Hainault Forest).

The A11 doesn't currently exist between Bow Interchange and Stumps Cross.

 

[AM9]

The A11 doesn't currently exist between Bow Interchange and Stumps Cross.

OK, my mistake, - I remember Epping New Road as the A11, (now A104 & B1393, designed to obscure it's trunk routing to push traffic onto the M11). The point that I was making is that within the London Boroughs from Essex to the Herts border, much of the open space that was there when the GLC (now GLA) was created, has been devoured by housing. The open countryside north of the GLA Havering/Redbridge Waltham Forest border is outside London.