50 Fun Facts About Counties of England

Which county's orchards and hop gardens earned it the nickname the Garden of England?

Kent meets the English Channel at the White Cliffs of Dover, where the chalk ridge of the North Downs reaches the sea.

Which historic county, the largest in the United Kingdom, was divided for centuries into three ridings?

Yorkshire's ridings took their name from an Old Norse word meaning a third part, which is why there were exactly three: North, East and West.

Which law officer's title is a contraction of 'shire reeve', the king's agent in an Anglo-Saxon county?

Sheriff lives on in the high sheriff, an unpaid ceremonial officer still appointed each year for every county.

Which English county shares a land border with only one other county and flies St Piran's black-and-white flag?

Cornwall's flag honours St Piran, its patron saint, and the white cross on black is said to recall white tin against black ore.

Which landlocked county, the smallest of England's historic counties, takes a horseshoe as its emblem?

Rutland keeps a curious custom: royalty and peers passing through Oakham must present a horseshoe to the Lord of the Manor, and more than 200 now hang in Oakham Castle.

Which county's Salisbury Plain holds the stone circle of Stonehenge and a large British Army training area?

Wiltshire also holds the Avebury stone circle, and the two monuments together form a single UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Which county contains Sherwood Forest, the legendary hideout of the outlaw Robin Hood?

Nottinghamshire's Sherwood Forest is known for the Major Oak, a vast tree named after Major Hayman Rooke, the antiquarian who described it in 1790.

Which county contains both Scafell Pike, England's highest mountain, and Windermere, its longest and largest lake?

Cumbria is younger than it looks: the county was only created in 1974, by merging two historic counties with pieces of two others.

Which county, home to the seaside resort of Blackpool, takes a red rose as its emblem?

Lancashire's red rose began as the badge of the royal House of Lancaster in the 14th century and now appears on the county's flag.

Which county holds most of the Broads, a network of lakes formed by flooded peat workings?

Norfolk holds most of the 303-square-kilometre Broads, which have over 200 kilometres of navigable waterways and protection similar to a national park.

Which county hosts the Glastonbury Festival and holds Cheddar Gorge in its Mendip Hills?

Somerset's Cheddar Gorge is where Cheddar Man, Britain's oldest near-complete human skeleton, was found in a cave in 1903.

Which county was the home of novelist Thomas Hardy and holds the natural arch of Durdle Door?

Dorset became South Wessex in Hardy's novels, and most of its shoreline belongs to the Jurassic Coast, England's first natural World Heritage Site.

Which county, England's northernmost and least densely populated, has more castles than any other?

Northumberland's castles, among them Alnwick and Bamburgh, are the legacy of centuries as contested border country between England and Scotland.

Which is the only English county with two separate coastlines, on the Bristol Channel and the English Channel?

Devon also holds all of Dartmoor and part of Exmoor, two upland national parks that are the source of most of its rivers.

Which county, whose flag shows a bear and ragged staff, was the birthplace of William Shakespeare?

Warwickshire also produced the novelist George Eliot, who was born Mary Ann Evans just outside Nuneaton in 1819.

Which county contains most of the Peak District and has Kinder Scout as its highest point?

Derbyshire's uplands made history in 1951, when the Peak District became the United Kingdom's first national park.

Which county contains the Potteries, the six towns that merged to form Stoke-on-Trent?

Staffordshire also yielded the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found in Britain, unearthed in a field near Lichfield in 2009.

Which county, abbreviated to Hants, contains the New Forest and the cathedral city of Winchester?

Hampshire's short form comes from Hantescire, the spelling of the county's name recorded in the Domesday Book.

Which county, whose flag shows three Saxon swords called seaxes, contains Colchester, Britain's oldest recorded town?

Essex takes its name from the Old English for East Saxons, the eastern kingdom of the settlers who had crossed from the continent.

By what collective name, first recorded in 1695, are London's neighbouring shires known?

The Home Counties may owe their name to the Home Circuit, the group of law courts that once surrounded London, though the origin is uncertain.

Which county bordering Wales has the old name Salop, so that its residents are still called Salopians?

Shropshire's Coalbrookdale area is regarded as one of the birthplaces of the Industrial Revolution and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Which county is known for Melton Mowbray pork pies and was the site of the Battle of Bosworth Field?

Leicestershire takes a fox as its emblem, because tradition regards the county as the birthplace of fox hunting as it is known today.

Which county holds Sutton Hoo, the Anglo-Saxon royal ship burial whose excavation inspired the film The Dig?

Suffolk's great ship burial is probably that of the East Anglian king Rædwald, and its treasures included a helmet, a sword of state and a lyre.

Which county contains most of the Cotswolds along with the Royal Forest of Dean?

Gloucestershire also stages the annual race at Cooper's Hill, where competitors chase a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese down a slope of around 50 percent.

Which county is officially styled a Royal County because Windsor Castle stands within it?

Berkshire's Windsor Castle was built after the Norman Conquest and went on to become the official country residence of the British monarch.

Which county, the second largest in England, gives its natives the nickname Yellowbellies?

Lincolnshire's nickname has several rival explanations, from yellow facings on the old Lincolnshire Regiment's uniform to a yellow-bellied creature of the Fens, and its origin is disputed.

Which county was governed for centuries by Prince-Bishops with the right to raise armies and mint coins?

Durham's bishops ran it as a county palatine outside the usual system, which helps explain why it is the only English county commonly given the prefix County.

Which historic county, the second smallest in England, was almost entirely absorbed into Greater London in 1965?

Middlesex outlived its own abolition in the post: Royal Mail kept it as a postal county in 1965 because amending addresses across Outer London would have cost too much.

Which island county, separated from the mainland by the Solent, holds Queen Victoria's summer home, Osborne House?

The Isle of Wight is England's largest island at 380 square kilometres, and Osborne House at East Cowes was also Queen Victoria's final home.

Which office holder is the monarch's personal representative in each ceremonial county of England?

The Lord-Lieutenant began as a military post: Henry VIII appointed the earliest ones in the 1540s, and they stayed in charge of each county's militia until 1871.

Which county, birthplace of Lewis Carroll, lends its name to the grinning cat of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

Cheshire's village of Daresbury, where Carroll was born in the vicarage in 1832, now has church windows showing characters from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Which county gives its name to the fermented sauce invented by the pharmacists Lea and Perrins?

Worcestershire sauce has been a generic term since 1876, when the High Court ruled that Lea & Perrins did not own a trademark on the name.

Which county contains Blenheim Palace, built for the 1st Duke of Marlborough and birthplace of Winston Churchill?

Oxfordshire's Blenheim Palace was a reward for a general: John Vanbrugh designed it for John Churchill after his victory at the battle of Blenheim.

Which county holds Bletchley Park, home of wartime codebreaking, and Chequers, the Prime Minister's country retreat?

Buckinghamshire's Bletchley Park was also home to Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic digital computer.

Which county contains the cathedral city of Ely and Holme Fen, the lowest point in the United Kingdom?

Cambridgeshire's Fens are drained marshland kept dry by ditches and dykes, which is how Holme Fen comes to sit 2.75 metres below sea level.

Which county contains Letchworth, the world's first garden city, and the Roman remains of Verulamium at St Albans?

Hertfordshire's Letchworth was begun in 1903 on the ideas of Ebenezer Howard and went on to influence planned towns as far away as Canberra.

Which historic county, now split into East and West ceremonial halves, contains the city of Brighton and Hove?

Sussex was once a kingdom in its own right, named after the South Saxons, a Germanic tribe who settled there during the fifth and sixth centuries.

Which county, created in 1974, is made up of Liverpool, Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral?

Merseyside is where the Merseybeat genre developed, and the county has produced many artists and bands, including the Beatles.

Which county contains the cities of Newcastle and Sunderland and Antony Gormley's Angel of the North?

Tyne and Wear's Angel of the North stands 20 metres tall on a former colliery site, with a 54-metre wingspan, and its design is based on Gormley's own body.

Which county, formed in the 1970s, contains the cities of Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton?

The West Midlands is sometimes described as Greater Birmingham, and its county council lasted only from 1974 to 1986 before its seven boroughs took over.

Which ceremonial county, nicknamed the Square Mile, covers an area of just 2.9 square kilometres?

The City of London is both a county and the smallest city in the United Kingdom by area, and its elections give votes to businesses as well as residents.

Which river forms most of the border between England's two most south-westerly counties?

The River Tamar rises less than four miles from the north coast, yet runs 61 miles south across the whole peninsula to reach the sea on the south coast.

Which county, formed in 1974 around the cities of Bristol and Bath, was abolished in 1996?

Avon took its name from the river that had long divided two older counties, and on abolition its area was shared among four unitary authorities.

Which county south of London, home to Box Hill and Leith Hill, is the most wooded in England?

Surrey has woodland across more than a fifth of its area, about double the average for England.

Which county is famed for its cider and gave its name to a white-faced breed of beef cattle?

Herefordshire's cider makers include Bulmers of Hereford, the firm behind Strongbow, founded in 1887 by Percy Bulmer, the 20-year-old son of a local rector.

Which county of 1974 to 1996 straddled an east-coast estuary and included the port city of Hull?

Humberside was meant to be knitted together by the Humber Bridge, but the county was abolished in 1996 and replaced with four unitary authority areas.

Which county was home to The Pilgrim's Progress author John Bunyan and holds the giant Cardington airship sheds?

Bedfordshire's Cardington sheds were first built for constructing large airships during World War I, and Bunyan came from the village of Elstow, near Bedford.

Which small historic county was the birthplace of Oliver Cromwell and celebrates its county day on his birthday?

Huntingdonshire Day falls on 25 April, and the old county, its borders little changed since the 10th century, was merged away in stages in 1965 and 1974.

Which historic county, whose county town was Appleby, lends its name to a council area formed in 2023?

Westmorland lost its administrative role in 1974 after some eight centuries, but returned to the map with the Westmorland and Furness council area.

Which old division of an English shire had its own monthly court and was called a wapentake in the Danelaw?

The Hundred is first recorded in the 10th-century laws of King Edmund I, and an ordinance of that century had thieves pursued by all the leading men of the district.