Thursday 13 October 2016

Four counties

In reaching Great Haywood today, we formally completed the circuit known as the Four Counties Ring. Our cruise had taken in rather more than that, since it started with a trip to Fazeley and back for a BCF weekend at the beginning of September. It took in a few days' diversion up the Macclesfield Canal. And it has ended with us overshooting the terminus, in order to fill up with diesel at the Taft wharf, before putting Erin Mae to bed for the winter.

I puzzle a little over the four counties. Staffordshire, Cheshire and Shropshire are straightforward, but Wikipedia has West Midlands as the fourth. That's correct – Pendeford at the junction of the Staffs & Worcs and the Shroppie is certainly in the West Midlands. But West Midlands as a county came into existence in 1974, and I wonder whether the ring's name didn't exist before that. Perhaps it is more recent, since it would seem to be a tourist / leisure industry appellation – a route that holidaying boaters can take. If the name existed before 1974, however, it must have had a different county as the fourth. But Wolverhampton, of which Pendeford is a suburb, was historically in Staffordshire, reducing the number of counties to only three! Maybe it used to be called "The Three Counties Ring".

We've encountered some groups doing the ring in a week. I expect they've had a lot of fun, but they must have had limited time to explore anything along the way. Our own trip, since we left Great Haywood junction, has taken us 36 days and has been very enjoyable. Only during the last couple of days have we got a bit wet and cold. And we're virtually home. We're back a little earlier than originally planned, but needs must, as they say.

And if anyone had the solution to the Four Counties conundrum, I'd be glad to hear it!

8 comments:

  1. The West Midlands County came into being in 1974 and was abolished in 1986. The Ring was named during this period. Prior to 1974 the bit that became part of the West Midlands was in Staffordshire. The 1974 re-organisation was a mess but was only ever intended to re-organise the governance of the counties rather than the counties themselves, but it all got too complicated.
    After further re-organisations in the 1990s when Stoke-on-Trent was removed from Staffordshire (in governance terms) the Ring should now really be called "The Three Counties, One Metropolitan Borough and One Unitary Authority Ring" (These being Cheshire, Staffordshire & Shropshire; Wolverhampton and Stoke-on-Trent". As I say, it's a mess but in geographical terms it's the THREE counties ring and it would have been called that had it been named before 1974!

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    1. Jim, that's magnificent! Your reply got me re-interrogating Wikipedia – I'd never realised how complicated it had all got. Maybe we should start a ginger group to lobby at IWA rallies or something for Three Counties. When I were a lad, everyone knew what a county was. Middlesex was mine and they played cricket. They still do, but it must be the only bit remaining of the Middle Saxons.

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    2. I'm up for that. Personally I always refer to it as the three counties ring anyway!

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  2. Ah! If only I had my copy of Bradshaw with me (it's on the boat).

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    1. Halfie – is that the railway guide you're talking about? Do they have rings as well?

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  3. No, Bradshaw's Canals and Navigable Waterways of Britain (if I have remembered the title correctly). Of 1904 (I think). Every waterway is listed with its owner, length, locks, junctions, maximum size of craft and counties passed through. The author was Henry Rodolph de Salis who undertook his own research navigating most of the network as it was then. An amazing feat.

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    1. Ah, that's a new one for me. I associate Bradshaw with Michael Portillo's Great Train Journeys.

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  4. Yes, Bradshaw published both "guides". By the way, the word "gongoozler" is given its definition in the waterways Bradshaw.

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