[Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

Tue Jan 12 10:13:20 UTC 2021

I lived in Avon during a short period when it was still known as Avon (late 1993 to 1995) and Bristol city was one of a number of boroughs within the county, from memory, the others were Bath (Bath city only); Wansdyke (Keynsham, Radstock etc), Woodspring (the south-west, towards Weston Super-Mare) and Northavon (the north bit, which is now called South Gloucestershire I think)

Nick

________________________________
From: Chris Hodges <chris at c-hodges.co.uk>
Sent: 12 January 2021 10:09
To: Nick Whitelegg <nick.whitelegg at solent.ac.uk>; talk-gb at openstreetmap.org <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

I think so too, and it is now, but during the Avon years I'm not sure what the situation was

On 12/01/2021 10:03, Nick Whitelegg wrote:
I thought Bristol was in the "City and County of Bristol" before Avon existed? Not saying I'm right, I just thought this was the case.

Nick

________________________________
From: Chris Hodges <chris at c-hodges.co.uk><mailto:chris at c-hodges.co.uk>
Sent: 11 January 2021 12:09
To: talk-gb at openstreetmap.org<mailto:talk-gb at openstreetmap.org> <talk-gb at openstreetmap.org><mailto:talk-gb at openstreetmap.org>
Subject: Re: [Talk-GB] Traditional Counties and Vice Counties

The problem is each application uses a subtly (or not so subtly)
different set.

While it would be nice to have the boundaries in the data, it would be a
huge effort to get them in bearing in mind the need to cross reference
the boundaries that were in force when each use was set up.  And that's
on top of the complexity of how to represent the data, without too many
duplicates: is the birding county of Avon exactly  the same as the old
postal county of Avon? Probably not because postal counties were odd.
Then there's the cricketing county of Gloucestershire, with the ground
in Bristol - which was in Gloucestershire when the club was founded,
before Avon existed.

On 11/01/2021 11:31, Andrew Black wrote:
>
> On 11/01/2021 00:33, Robert Skedgell via Talk-GB wrote:
>> Another example of a niche use of traditional counties is sport. For
>> athletics purposes. I was born in Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands and
>> live in Stratford, London, but can compete in county championships in
>> Warwickshire or Essex.
>
> I think there are loads of similar instances.  I have just joined the
> ramblers (just before LD3!). The Bromley branch is in Kent not  London.
>
> I think there are a number of issues in different parts of country
>
> 1. "Middle aged counties" like Avon and Cleveland that have gone but
> the old regime has not  quite been reinstated.
>
> 2. Areas in london that were never part of the London postal district
> but are now in greater london,  I have given up arguing that Bromley
> is not in Kent.
>
> 3. Possibly similar  issues in metropolitan counties in W midlands, G
> Manchester, former yorkshire....
>
> Not sure there is any easy answer to this.  I recall a discussion
> about it during August a few years back (remember reading it whilst on
> holiday!). Can't remember the details
>
>
>
>> On 08/01/2021 10:59, Chris Hodges wrote:
>>> Traditional counties (for some value of "traditional", that's not the
>>> same as ceremonial) are still used for some niche purposes. This is
>>> particularly obvious to me living in Avon, which is neither current nor
>>> ceremonial.
>>>
>>> One example is wildlife records - here's the British Trust for
>>> Ornithology's list of counties:
>>>
>>> https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/birdtrack/bird-recording/county-bird-recorders
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Whether, and how, we should map these is tricky.  I'm not sure anyone
>>> else has. I had hoped to find a bird records county map to demonstrate,
>>> but failed to do so
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> On 08/01/2021 10:34, Andy Townsend wrote:
>>>> On 08/01/2021 09:00, Mark Goodge wrote:
>>>>> Secondly, there's no such thing as "the" traditional county
>>>>> boundaries anyway. They were fluid, and subject to change. The
>>>>> Victorians, in particular, were inveterate tinkerers with local
>>>>> government and were forever tweaking the boundaries, a little here
>>>>> and a little there. So any traditional county boundary data can only
>>>>> ever be a snapshot of what the boundaries were at any particular
>>>>> point in time. And there's no consensus about which is the most
>>>>> "correct" snapshot to use. Even the Historic Counties Trust, which
>>>>> aims to promote awareness of the traditional counties, offers
>>>>> boundary data in different definitions. We can't possibly include all
>>>>> of them in OSM, but picking just one of them means making an
>>>>> editorial view as to the most appropriate snapshot. In the absence of
>>>>> an agreed traditional county standard for OSM, leaving it up to
>>>>> individual mappers will inevitably result in inconsistencies.
>>>>>
>>>> I think (and I'm guessing a bit here) that the "traditional" ones
>>>> partly in OSM are the immediately-pre-1974 ones.  Modelling the
>>>> pre-1974 changes sounds like something best done in OpenHistoricalMap,
>>>> and to be honest sounds like a nice lockdown project for someone
>>>> interested in such things.
>>>>
>>>> I can also see where you're coming from about whether the traditional
>>>> ones should be in OSM at all.  In some cases the boundary is
>>>> signposted (the "traditional East Riding" at Stamford Bridge in
>>>> Yorkshire certainly is), and in many cases boundaries will follow
>>>> natural features that haven't moved, but in some cases (e.g. Crayke,
>>>> formerly a Durham Exclave until some early Victorian tinkering, now in
>>>> Yorkshire, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bettss-Crayke-map.png )
>>>> I don't think they do.
>>>>
>>>> Best Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
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