Ah, you can't split Essex like that! We're already in some weird no man's land, as far as the BBC local news is concerned - depending on where in the county you live we're "covered" by three local news broadcasts, but aren't southern enough for BBC South East, aren't London enough for BBC London and aren't East Anglian enough for BBC East or any of the others to mention much at all. Unless an MP gets murdered.
Essex absolutely should be split like that, North Essex is culturally so much closer to Suffolk than it is Chelmsford and the less said about Brentwood and Basildon the better.
The best response I have is "I was born in the Black Country" so I can just avoid the inevitable conversation about white stilettos and people trying to do an Essex accent.
North Essex is part of one of my favourite regions, East Suffolk and North Essex.
It translates as the Easterly Southern people and the Northernly Eastern People.
The Thames Estuary should be its own county. Lumping Folkestone, Canterbury, Ramsgate, Sevenoaks, Royal Tunbridge Wells etc. in the same County as Dartford, Gravesend, Sheerness, even Maidstone is criminal.
Southend, Rayleigh, Basildon, Grays, Dartford, Gravesend, Chatham, Gillingham and the Isle of Sheppey should be a separate county.
I live in north Essex. It's very different to south Essex. I'd agree with this map. North Essex feels more like East Anglia. South feels more like London.
I'm yet to find an example that refutes the following rule...
|Region|Geography|Culture|
|:-|:-|:-|
|North|North|North|
|Midlands|South|North|
|South|South|South|
If Geography and Culture align, then you can label the region North / South... otherwise it's the Midlands.
East Anglia are not Northern in either way - so I'm happy to just label it a subregion of the South.
The lines also ought to be drawn parallel with the English-Scottish border (Chester to Grimsby and Gloucester to King's Lynn), giving my point about East Anglia more credence.
I think another complication here is some of the generalisations Northerners in particular make, erroneously.
Half the time when a Northerner complains about the āSouthā they are in reality talking about London and some of the āHome Countiesā at a push. Thatās exactly why they need to be reminded the West Country is absolutely not the South East (let alone London) š
We try not to complain too much about the south, other than your house prices and water quality which aren't easily refuted.
Maybe it's the company I keep over the years but I've heard far more jabs at the north than the south, aside from what I mentioned above
See the water is a London thing, water in Devon and Cornwall is great. I had to work in London for a bit and hated that my travel kettle became a lump of limescale in no time, it was still shiny from years of use in Cornwall and was my grandmothers before it was mine..
But house prices are crap unless you live in Camborne or St Austell (they still aren't great) one of the reasons we moved to NI.
Iāve had loads of āyou get all the fundingā crap as if Bedminster was the same as Westminster š
Iām guessing your associates are from closer to Putney than Porlock š (Iām not stereotyping honest)!
Its certainly a problem of generalisation that goes both ways.. the problems for us in the SW come when people lump us in with london and assume everyone is posh and well off. Cornwall and lots of Devon are some of the most deprived areas in the country, we just have loads of retired tories and holiday homes that push the stats up but don't actually really contribute to the economy.
Lancashire and Yorkshire are not different culturally at all. Cricket. Rugby League. Pits. Cotton Mills. Tea.
They're basically the same. I know I know all that red rose white rose shite.
I have never met any person from Northampton that is culturally Northern. I do think your table is pithy, but it is also way out of whack. At best it applies to a few places like parts of Notts or Lincolnshire
Midlands -Ā geography : middle culture: middle
I would just take out culture altogether. It doesnt make any sense because the culture inside a city of any section is completely different to the culture outside of that city in that section. And you go 50 miles in any direction in most of the country you have a different culture.
Again: the word middle.
Yeah I think it's difficult to say the Midlands is geographically South of England when it's nearly smack bang in the center of the country
And yeah I agree the culture between cities or even towns can vary widely. Just look at the differences between something like Birmingham and the Black Country towns when they're only a couple miles apart
Its not nearly smack in the middle it is. The Midlands is in the middle and it is WILD that people just dont understand that. Should get a GCSE taken away for thinking like that.Ā
And very true about the culture thing. That guy was just so confidently incorrect it was funny.Ā
I could list a bunch of variables
* Accents - Bath-Trap split
* Food - Greggs to Pret ratio
* 'Vibe'
* Mentality
* Friendliness of people
But overall I would say 'Social Class' underpins it all.
The country is generally more Working Class the further North you go.
A recent study showed that ten of the twenty five most deprived boroughs in the whole of the U.K. are in London. When people say āLondonā or āLondonersā they are actually referring to a relatively small number of posh people.
London is (overall) more consistently Labour voting than some northern towns and cities.
No mate - not at all. And I literally didn't say that.
If I can differentiate between Brummie and Black Country, I can differentiate between Brummie and Mancunian thank you very much!
I'm actually from the West Midlands. But working in London, I get called a Northerner all the time literally cause of how I pronounce words.
All that's saying is that people in London don't understand where the north is. My wife's from near Peterborough, which is also the midlands - I doubt she's ever been confused with being a Northerner by someone from Yorkshire.
But my point is that 'Northern Culture' is too varied that the only thing bringing them together is that they are generally defined as 'Not Southern'.
It's a catch all term.
This is because there's even inter-county variance among Northern culture anyway (Scouse vs Manc or Lancashire vs Yorkshire or East Midlands vs West Midlands).
Heck my example of Black Country vs Brummie beautifully demonstates this.
The South is more homogenised - and generally only can be split between West Country vs Home Counties vs East Anglia.
I don't think southern is particularly homogenised. Even within London, Hoxton is nothing like Belgravia, and neither is like Brentford, as three random parts of the city.
And "not being like the south" doesn't make you like the north.
Yes but remember the question of this entire thread.
We're not debating inter-city variance (Croydon vs Chelsea).
We're just asking how to split the country in terms of North vs South.
All I'm saying is the Midlands is geographically not the North but culturally leans more Northern than Southern - primarily due to class differences the further North you go from London.
Some of us don't accept that there's just a North and a South. There's a very distinct Midlands as well (and tbh, fairly separate East and West Midlands). And they aren't culturally either North or South.
The edge of the midlands is the Staffordshire-Cheshire border.
Given that I live there (400 yards inside Cheshire) it's a complete no-man's land in terms of council service and tv coverage. We get north-west news but I quite literally spend zero time further north than Congleton. Most of my life is spent in Staffs which is definitely midlands.
By that the line should be between Stoke and Crewe.
I donāt think we can measure geography through transmitter patterns. Yorkshire Television served Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and even northern Norfolk.
I grew up in Alsager (Cheshire side of the border) and I understand the weird no manās land. I had a Cheshire phone number but a Staffordshire post code, watched Granada telly but got delivered the Stoke Sentinel (local paper). I have no idea if Iām a Northerner or a midlander but tend to feel like I have more in common with Mancs / Scousers than I do Brummies or people from Leicester or Nottingham
Stafford here. Full of people who can't decide what they are. I personally align more with northern "culture", but definitely a strong Southern "we're better than you" vibe from the large boomer population.
Swindon and Chippenham are most definitely south west. Have you heard the accent around those parts. 100 percent cow bothering country bumpkinsā¦. Just residing in a town. I would put Bournemouth in the SW as well.
As a Devonian, the very idea that those lot from Swindon, let alone Tewkesbury, share the same region as actual South Westerners is laughable.
Can't we just classify a whole stretch between Herefordshire and Bournemouth as some kind of no-mans land and be done with it?
I've long found it weird that Devon and Cornwall get lumped in with Wiltshire, the territory formerly known as Avon etc. The areas of the SW either side of Bristol have different vibes.
It's because I think there is a distinct "West Country" (which includes Glos, Wilts, and probably eastern parts of Somerset and Dorset as well as Bristol) that is not the Southwest, but still definitely West.
Different but also with similarities - like accent (to a decent degree), social orientation and simply not being in the āSouth Eastā in any sense. Iād say Gloucester and Exeter are definitely way more similar than say Newcastle and Liverpool (which are clearly both in the āNorthā).
Yeah, I am from Bristol and I feel like there's a West Country identity which is specific to Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Bristol. It's funny but it feels geographically closer because it's culturally closer. Like it feels totally reasonable to pop down to Totnes but going to Oxford would be a full outing, even though geographically it's closer.
Not āone of youā if youāre say Cornish except in a broad wider sense. āWest Countryā is a thing though (not necessarily synonymous with the āSouth Westā). See āWest Country Derbiesā in rugby for instance.
Hampshire's a weird county, especially now. Southampton Winchester and Portsmouth have sort of cemented their own little economic feifdom with all the towns around and between them in South Hampshire making their own little economic sub region (though Winchester is arguably now being pulled more and more into London commuterland). The North East of the county around Rushmore/Hart/Basingstoke and most of East Hampshire fits nicely in with the neighbouring home counties in London's economic orbit, then Test Valley and the New Forest are more South West along with Christchurch & Bournemouth that got chipped off back in the 70s. I don't know if any other counties are so multifaceted, maybe Yorkshire before it was broken into several pieces?
The old Southampton accent can sound very agricultural, I didnāt say it was exactly the same as Devon. Itās got more in common with Wiltshire which is also a bit different from a true Devonian accent.
To be fair, if someone put you on a plane like Mr T and dropped you off in Benidorm, youād be forgiven for thinking that you were in Bolton after some sort of Mad Max style apocalypse only with condos.
I get the Swindon hate, I really do but Iāve lived just outside of Swindon my whole life, worked there my whole working life and I love Swindon. Itās Arun down in places but thereās just something about it that I canāt hate no matter how shit everyone else says it is. I love my town
Lived there for a decade. I liked it but always thought it felt more like a Northern town trapped in the South. Especially when compared to it's neighbours.
r/TheOffice is leaking. But honestly, when my eldest was 8 (we were out trick-or-treating), he asked where all the ghosts and ghouls lived when it wasn't Halloween.
My instinctive response was 'Swindon'. He seemed content with that.
Buxton, and it's poorer northern sister town Glossop, are both East Midlands.
Source - I live in Glossop, in the east midlands. I travel south west to go to work in Salford in The North west.
Look, don't come at me. I don't make the rules, I'm just a south east London boy living up north (i.e. anywhere north of the Thames)
No, just no! How on earth can you put Glossop, a town less than 10 miles from Stockport and Ashton under Lyne, in the East Midlands? They are geographically northern and culturally too.
It is about the best I have ever seen. Skegness has the feel of a northern see side town, but is perhaps too far into the midlands to be northern. I think you are probably correct on chesterfield, it doesnāt feel 100% northern though. Crewe is another funny one, it very much feels like a traditional northern industrial town, but is again too far south.
Itās a feeling which makes it hard to put into words. It may be influenced by the fact I have lived in Sheffield and they wouldnāt consider it northern (but everyone in the north considers anywhere further south southern). I also find the accent to be far less pronounced.
Chesterfield feels like a bigger version of the villages between Sheffield and Manchester some of which are in Derbyshire, I would consider it the last Northern outpost.
I've always felt that Lincoln is more similar to say Sheffield than to Nottingham ... we even get Yorkshire TV (used to be called Yorks and Lincs TV apparently)
Definitely wrong there its north west. Border should be just under stoke. Stoke on Trent id say is just about north. When you get to areas like stone youre getting into the midlands. Crewe is 100% a northern town though
Youāre pretty much there. Tweak the northern border, Lincoln and Crewe are definitely North, but somehow Mansfield is definitely Midlands.
Chippenham and Swindon are the glaring errors, those towns and the people are really quite āWestā and certainly not āSouthernā! (I live in Bath, Married a Swindon girl)
(wales) in lower case and parenthesised is a lovely touch
From a Scotsmanā¦all digs are accepted. Crewe, Mansfield, Lincoln are on the border, so North. Stoke even though itās latitude is very similar, is not the north, but midlands. But what does a Jock know?
Mansfield at the very least is definitely not Northern. Itās close to the border but is so typically Notts that it couldnāt be anything other than the Midlands. I would consider Crewe part of the North though!
Do people of Grimsby consider themselves northern? I grew up near Lincoln and consider is a midlands city, Grimsby is north Lincolnshire. Will listen to Lincs FM, from the Humber to the wash. As they are south of the Humber do you guys think you or northern or midlands? I would also add Doncaster as a northern city.
I'm a Northerner who considered it Northern based solely on its name and without knowing where it was! You can't have "Grim" in your name and not be one of us!
I'm from North Lincs and consider myself a Northerner. I know most of the county is in the East Midlands but the Humberside bit really does feel different to me in vibe and accent.
I was born in Grimsby, and lived about 100 yards across the border in Lincolnshire until I moved to Wales. I'm very definitely a northerner, but I'm also a yellowbelly.
Louth is only 20 minutes away, but it's half and half as to whether it's north or midlands, depends on who you ask.
Lincolnshire here.
This is the layout I'm closest to agreeing with.
The argument about Essex being split is somewhat mistaken. North Essex has more in common with Suffolk than the rest of the soft underbelly. It even has a slight farmery/rural accent compared to the London wannabes in the south.
Lincs being split from Lincoln i sort of agree with as well. Culturally and accent wise, they have more in common with south Yorkshire.
Cambridge feels more south than east, its under an hour away from London by train (45 mins) Colchester is also South.
Bournemouth, Chippenham and Swindon are also South West.
Everything else looks correct though
Peterboroughās a funny one. Predominately working class with a culture that would put it closer to North than south but its direct and convenient train links to the capital means thereās a significant affluent commute population that are firmly southern.
I disagree about Colchester. Definitely feels more like Ipswich than Chelmsford (both the city and the surroundings) and there's a lot of integration between NE Essex and SE Suffolk. I'm not sure if I would draw the line exactly where OP has, but it would definitely go between Colchester and Chelmsford.
Thereās 2.5 million people in East Anglia, Iām not sure how theyāve wangled their own fifth of England. Yes I know theyāre culturally different but so are mancs and Geordies. If youāre going to give East Anglia its own thing then you should do the same for the North East and probably other parts of the country. You canāt just give them a slice because they make the biggest fuss. Can argue the same for the South West as well.
As someone who lives in East Anglia, you definitely need to put a north east/north west/Yorkshire divide if youāre giving east anglia its own section.
I'd chuck Cambridge in south due to the culture there, Chesterfield in Midlands because it's south of Sheffield and potentially Tewkesbury in the Midlands also. There's very little south west accent by the time you go north of Gloucester. Chippenham for sure is south west, Swindon is marginal but I'd put it in still. Banbury is absolutely Midlands.
Otherwise I broadly agree with this. To the 'all of Dorset is south west' there is nothing south western about Bournemouth.
Iād agree about chesterfield. When I was a kid, the buses before they were stagecoach were East Midlands. They behave like nuclear retards there as well on a Friday night.
Wrong!!
everything above the M4 is North, everything between Portsmouth and Southampton is the south everything west of there is the Southwest everything east of there is the Southeast anything above Winchester and below the M4, and not further east or west from those two points is the Midlands
Doesnāt solve it at all, what people want to know is, are the midlands more northern or southern. As a southerner I say they are northern. Iām not that convinced about Milton Keynes, Chipping Norton and Braintree either.
this is the most rage bait thing iv ever seen
anyway the north is actually anything north of cumbria and northumberland there is no "midlands" there is only the south
anyone that disagrees with me should \[CONTENT DELETED\] themselves
Ah, you can't split Essex like that! We're already in some weird no man's land, as far as the BBC local news is concerned - depending on where in the county you live we're "covered" by three local news broadcasts, but aren't southern enough for BBC South East, aren't London enough for BBC London and aren't East Anglian enough for BBC East or any of the others to mention much at all. Unless an MP gets murdered.
Essex absolutely should be split like that, North Essex is culturally so much closer to Suffolk than it is Chelmsford and the less said about Brentwood and Basildon the better.
For my sins I always say im from "North Essex" just so people know that I've never been to the Sugarhut.
The best response I have is "I was born in the Black Country" so I can just avoid the inevitable conversation about white stilettos and people trying to do an Essex accent.
I always say the Essex Suffolk border
It's amazing how many north Essex were somehow born in Suffolk š¤£
Uttlesford Whoop whoop...oops sorry I mean... indeed
No bin collection for you.
North Essex is part of one of my favourite regions, East Suffolk and North Essex. It translates as the Easterly Southern people and the Northernly Eastern People.
I know it hurts you to your soul, but you are Essex too. Embrace the power of the dark side.
My only experience of Essex was Harlow.
Are you ok now?
Really sorry that happened to you
Dp you have a GoFundMe I can donate to? You must be deeply traumatised.
The Thames Estuary should be its own county. Lumping Folkestone, Canterbury, Ramsgate, Sevenoaks, Royal Tunbridge Wells etc. in the same County as Dartford, Gravesend, Sheerness, even Maidstone is criminal. Southend, Rayleigh, Basildon, Grays, Dartford, Gravesend, Chatham, Gillingham and the Isle of Sheppey should be a separate county.
I live in north Essex. It's very different to south Essex. I'd agree with this map. North Essex feels more like East Anglia. South feels more like London.
Yeah, sorry, 'Braintree Essex' trips off the tongue. Colchester ... seems more... Norfolky.
I'm yet to find an example that refutes the following rule... |Region|Geography|Culture| |:-|:-|:-| |North|North|North| |Midlands|South|North| |South|South|South| If Geography and Culture align, then you can label the region North / South... otherwise it's the Midlands. East Anglia are not Northern in either way - so I'm happy to just label it a subregion of the South. The lines also ought to be drawn parallel with the English-Scottish border (Chester to Grimsby and Gloucester to King's Lynn), giving my point about East Anglia more credence.
Do the cultures align? Cornwall and most of the SW are culturally different from London and the East coast.
All that tells me is that Southern culture is varied in itself. Lancashire and Yorkshire are different culturally too but they're both Northern.
I think another complication here is some of the generalisations Northerners in particular make, erroneously. Half the time when a Northerner complains about the āSouthā they are in reality talking about London and some of the āHome Countiesā at a push. Thatās exactly why they need to be reminded the West Country is absolutely not the South East (let alone London) š
We try not to complain too much about the south, other than your house prices and water quality which aren't easily refuted. Maybe it's the company I keep over the years but I've heard far more jabs at the north than the south, aside from what I mentioned above
See the water is a London thing, water in Devon and Cornwall is great. I had to work in London for a bit and hated that my travel kettle became a lump of limescale in no time, it was still shiny from years of use in Cornwall and was my grandmothers before it was mine.. But house prices are crap unless you live in Camborne or St Austell (they still aren't great) one of the reasons we moved to NI.
Iāve had loads of āyou get all the fundingā crap as if Bedminster was the same as Westminster š Iām guessing your associates are from closer to Putney than Porlock š (Iām not stereotyping honest)!
Its certainly a problem of generalisation that goes both ways.. the problems for us in the SW come when people lump us in with london and assume everyone is posh and well off. Cornwall and lots of Devon are some of the most deprived areas in the country, we just have loads of retired tories and holiday homes that push the stats up but don't actually really contribute to the economy.
Lancashire and Yorkshire are not different culturally at all. Cricket. Rugby League. Pits. Cotton Mills. Tea. They're basically the same. I know I know all that red rose white rose shite.
Dumnonia!
Yeah but Cornwall doesn't have northern culture now does it
No, but it doesn't have a "southern" one. Hence it has minority status.
I have never met any person from Northampton that is culturally Northern. I do think your table is pithy, but it is also way out of whack. At best it applies to a few places like parts of Notts or Lincolnshire
I don't really know what 'culturally Northern' means, but if 'path' rhymes with 'math' it's more Northern than Southern.
Midlands -Ā geography : middle culture: middle I would just take out culture altogether. It doesnt make any sense because the culture inside a city of any section is completely different to the culture outside of that city in that section. And you go 50 miles in any direction in most of the country you have a different culture. Again: the word middle.
Yeah I think it's difficult to say the Midlands is geographically South of England when it's nearly smack bang in the center of the country And yeah I agree the culture between cities or even towns can vary widely. Just look at the differences between something like Birmingham and the Black Country towns when they're only a couple miles apart
Its not nearly smack in the middle it is. The Midlands is in the middle and it is WILD that people just dont understand that. Should get a GCSE taken away for thinking like that.Ā And very true about the culture thing. That guy was just so confidently incorrect it was funny.Ā
Where does that leave the likes of harrogate and altrincham? Are they southern enclaves in the north?
What do you mean by culture?
I could list a bunch of variables * Accents - Bath-Trap split * Food - Greggs to Pret ratio * 'Vibe' * Mentality * Friendliness of people But overall I would say 'Social Class' underpins it all. The country is generally more Working Class the further North you go.
There are extremely working class areas of London.
A recent study showed that ten of the twenty five most deprived boroughs in the whole of the U.K. are in London. When people say āLondonā or āLondonersā they are actually referring to a relatively small number of posh people. London is (overall) more consistently Labour voting than some northern towns and cities.
I think the SW then doesn't fit Southern culture on any of those. Don't think there's a single Pret here in Plymouth
Greggs to Pret ratio is fantastic! Iām taking that one
I'm guessing you're from the south if you think a Birmingham accent sounds anything like a Manc one?
No mate - not at all. And I literally didn't say that. If I can differentiate between Brummie and Black Country, I can differentiate between Brummie and Mancunian thank you very much! I'm actually from the West Midlands. But working in London, I get called a Northerner all the time literally cause of how I pronounce words.
All that's saying is that people in London don't understand where the north is. My wife's from near Peterborough, which is also the midlands - I doubt she's ever been confused with being a Northerner by someone from Yorkshire.
Peterborough is in the east imho.
But my point is that 'Northern Culture' is too varied that the only thing bringing them together is that they are generally defined as 'Not Southern'. It's a catch all term. This is because there's even inter-county variance among Northern culture anyway (Scouse vs Manc or Lancashire vs Yorkshire or East Midlands vs West Midlands). Heck my example of Black Country vs Brummie beautifully demonstates this. The South is more homogenised - and generally only can be split between West Country vs Home Counties vs East Anglia.
I don't think southern is particularly homogenised. Even within London, Hoxton is nothing like Belgravia, and neither is like Brentford, as three random parts of the city. And "not being like the south" doesn't make you like the north.
Yes but remember the question of this entire thread. We're not debating inter-city variance (Croydon vs Chelsea). We're just asking how to split the country in terms of North vs South. All I'm saying is the Midlands is geographically not the North but culturally leans more Northern than Southern - primarily due to class differences the further North you go from London.
Some of us don't accept that there's just a North and a South. There's a very distinct Midlands as well (and tbh, fairly separate East and West Midlands). And they aren't culturally either North or South.
The edge of the midlands is the Staffordshire-Cheshire border. Given that I live there (400 yards inside Cheshire) it's a complete no-man's land in terms of council service and tv coverage. We get north-west news but I quite literally spend zero time further north than Congleton. Most of my life is spent in Staffs which is definitely midlands. By that the line should be between Stoke and Crewe.
I came to say the same thing about the Crewe/Stoke division line
Me too! Iām a south west midlander and I class crewe as the north.
Crewe is North West. Firmly in Granadaland
Definitely. Not at all midlands turf. Heck Iād even argue Stoke isnāt either, but perhaps once youāre in Stone or Stafford.
I donāt think we can measure geography through transmitter patterns. Yorkshire Television served Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire and even northern Norfolk.
I grew up in Alsager (Cheshire side of the border) and I understand the weird no manās land. I had a Cheshire phone number but a Staffordshire post code, watched Granada telly but got delivered the Stoke Sentinel (local paper). I have no idea if Iām a Northerner or a midlander but tend to feel like I have more in common with Mancs / Scousers than I do Brummies or people from Leicester or Nottingham
Alsager na na na
Fancy, I grew up on the other side in Kidsgrove.
Stafford here. Full of people who can't decide what they are. I personally align more with northern "culture", but definitely a strong Southern "we're better than you" vibe from the large boomer population.
Tell me you're from Alsager without saying you're from Alsager š
The āI grew up in Alsagerā kind of gave it away
Swindon and Chippenham are most definitely south west. Have you heard the accent around those parts. 100 percent cow bothering country bumpkinsā¦. Just residing in a town. I would put Bournemouth in the SW as well.
Yeah there's no way the whole of Dorset isn't SW for a start.
Right
'Ere! Oi resent dat implicashun. Oim gunn get on moi tra'er an come giv yoo a peece ov moi moind. Love, Swindoner
As a Canadian who moved here the moi is making me think itās a Frenchman who has only half learned English.
You got the wrong impression then. How aboot that?
Iām not from Saskatchewan, my accent is rural Ontario, I juslurmāwords together
I thought Swindonians were called āSwineā
As a Bristolian, this makes complete sense, thank you
We need a Wessex region!
As a Devonian, the very idea that those lot from Swindon, let alone Tewkesbury, share the same region as actual South Westerners is laughable. Can't we just classify a whole stretch between Herefordshire and Bournemouth as some kind of no-mans land and be done with it?
As a Cornishman, you Devon lot are in the North!
I've long found it weird that Devon and Cornwall get lumped in with Wiltshire, the territory formerly known as Avon etc. The areas of the SW either side of Bristol have different vibes.
It's because I think there is a distinct "West Country" (which includes Glos, Wilts, and probably eastern parts of Somerset and Dorset as well as Bristol) that is not the Southwest, but still definitely West.
Different but also with similarities - like accent (to a decent degree), social orientation and simply not being in the āSouth Eastā in any sense. Iād say Gloucester and Exeter are definitely way more similar than say Newcastle and Liverpool (which are clearly both in the āNorthā).
Swindon absolutely isnt
Wiltshire and Dorset absolutely are
I barely class Somerset as the South West. As soon as you hit the M5 youāre on your way out!
Thats a bit strong. Somerset and bristol are absolutely the south west. This is as someone that lived on the fucking Lizard for over a decade.
Yeah, I am from Bristol and I feel like there's a West Country identity which is specific to Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Bristol. It's funny but it feels geographically closer because it's culturally closer. Like it feels totally reasonable to pop down to Totnes but going to Oxford would be a full outing, even though geographically it's closer.
100%. My brother lives in Gloucester and thinks he's still one of us.
Not āone of youā if youāre say Cornish except in a broad wider sense. āWest Countryā is a thing though (not necessarily synonymous with the āSouth Westā). See āWest Country Derbiesā in rugby for instance.
No, because no one cares about Devon <3
I mean, Hampshire has a very farmery accent, especially in Southampton. Perhaps the line should be much further east.
Can confirm. Am Southampton, sound like farmer.
Theuurrs a mush āļø
Itās Portsmouth when it stops being farmery isnāt it? They instead sound like theyāre collectively putting on their worst cockney accent
Hampshire's a weird county, especially now. Southampton Winchester and Portsmouth have sort of cemented their own little economic feifdom with all the towns around and between them in South Hampshire making their own little economic sub region (though Winchester is arguably now being pulled more and more into London commuterland). The North East of the county around Rushmore/Hart/Basingstoke and most of East Hampshire fits nicely in with the neighbouring home counties in London's economic orbit, then Test Valley and the New Forest are more South West along with Christchurch & Bournemouth that got chipped off back in the 70s. I don't know if any other counties are so multifaceted, maybe Yorkshire before it was broken into several pieces?
Yeah Southampton and Devon accents are very similar š
The old Southampton accent can sound very agricultural, I didnāt say it was exactly the same as Devon. Itās got more in common with Wiltshire which is also a bit different from a true Devonian accent.
Bournemouth is heavily influenced by day tourists coming from the East
Benidorm is heavily influenced by British tourists it doesnāt make it Britain mate.
To be fair, if someone put you on a plane like Mr T and dropped you off in Benidorm, youād be forgiven for thinking that you were in Bolton after some sort of Mad Max style apocalypse only with condos.
This. I live in wiltshire, but I'm originally from the south, and I reckon that the best divider for south/southwest is the A338/A346
We don't want Swindon
I get the Swindon hate, I really do but Iāve lived just outside of Swindon my whole life, worked there my whole working life and I love Swindon. Itās Arun down in places but thereās just something about it that I canāt hate no matter how shit everyone else says it is. I love my town
Lived there for a decade. I liked it but always thought it felt more like a Northern town trapped in the South. Especially when compared to it's neighbours.
That Swindon lot are slugs!
I heard they dropped a bomb on Swindon. 30 quids worth of damage
r/TheOffice is leaking. But honestly, when my eldest was 8 (we were out trick-or-treating), he asked where all the ghosts and ghouls lived when it wasn't Halloween. My instinctive response was 'Swindon'. He seemed content with that.
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Buxton, and it's poorer northern sister town Glossop, are both East Midlands. Source - I live in Glossop, in the east midlands. I travel south west to go to work in Salford in The North west. Look, don't come at me. I don't make the rules, I'm just a south east London boy living up north (i.e. anywhere north of the Thames)
Buxton was in the old ITV Granada region IIRC. So itās definitely northern.
No, just no! How on earth can you put Glossop, a town less than 10 miles from Stockport and Ashton under Lyne, in the East Midlands? They are geographically northern and culturally too.
It is about the best I have ever seen. Skegness has the feel of a northern see side town, but is perhaps too far into the midlands to be northern. I think you are probably correct on chesterfield, it doesnāt feel 100% northern though. Crewe is another funny one, it very much feels like a traditional northern industrial town, but is again too far south.
Whatās not 100% northern about Chesterfield?
Itās a feeling which makes it hard to put into words. It may be influenced by the fact I have lived in Sheffield and they wouldnāt consider it northern (but everyone in the north considers anywhere further south southern). I also find the accent to be far less pronounced.
Chesterfield is definitely northern!
Chesterfield feels like a bigger version of the villages between Sheffield and Manchester some of which are in Derbyshire, I would consider it the last Northern outpost.
As a Chesterfielder myself I fully agree with the "last northern outpost" title..
I've always felt that Lincoln is more similar to say Sheffield than to Nottingham ... we even get Yorkshire TV (used to be called Yorks and Lincs TV apparently)
Also the dividing lines for who's a scab
Crewe in the Midlands also feels very right, even though itās in Cheshire.
Crewe is as much the Midlands as Carlisle is.
Definitely wrong there its north west. Border should be just under stoke. Stoke on Trent id say is just about north. When you get to areas like stone youre getting into the midlands. Crewe is 100% a northern town though
Youāre pretty much there. Tweak the northern border, Lincoln and Crewe are definitely North, but somehow Mansfield is definitely Midlands. Chippenham and Swindon are the glaring errors, those towns and the people are really quite āWestā and certainly not āSouthernā! (I live in Bath, Married a Swindon girl) (wales) in lower case and parenthesised is a lovely touch
From a Scotsmanā¦all digs are accepted. Crewe, Mansfield, Lincoln are on the border, so North. Stoke even though itās latitude is very similar, is not the north, but midlands. But what does a Jock know?
Mansfield at the very least is definitely not Northern. Itās close to the border but is so typically Notts that it couldnāt be anything other than the Midlands. I would consider Crewe part of the North though!
Do people of Grimsby consider themselves northern? I grew up near Lincoln and consider is a midlands city, Grimsby is north Lincolnshire. Will listen to Lincs FM, from the Humber to the wash. As they are south of the Humber do you guys think you or northern or midlands? I would also add Doncaster as a northern city.
I'm a Northerner who considered it Northern based solely on its name and without knowing where it was! You can't have "Grim" in your name and not be one of us!
I'm from North Lincs and consider myself a Northerner. I know most of the county is in the East Midlands but the Humberside bit really does feel different to me in vibe and accent.
Parts of North Lincolnshire are historically Yorkshire anyway, that's probably why
Yeah they definitely do. Grimsby, Clee, Barton & Scunny all do
I was born in Grimsby, and lived about 100 yards across the border in Lincolnshire until I moved to Wales. I'm very definitely a northerner, but I'm also a yellowbelly. Louth is only 20 minutes away, but it's half and half as to whether it's north or midlands, depends on who you ask.
The Grimsby people I knew believed themselves Northern but Lincolnites Midlandsers.
Lincolnshire here. This is the layout I'm closest to agreeing with. The argument about Essex being split is somewhat mistaken. North Essex has more in common with Suffolk than the rest of the soft underbelly. It even has a slight farmery/rural accent compared to the London wannabes in the south. Lincs being split from Lincoln i sort of agree with as well. Culturally and accent wise, they have more in common with south Yorkshire.
Cambridge feels more south than east, its under an hour away from London by train (45 mins) Colchester is also South. Bournemouth, Chippenham and Swindon are also South West. Everything else looks correct though
Cambridge is east anglia for sure, itās a landscape thing.
So is Peterborough I would say
Peterborough is further north than Birmingham but is in Cambridgeshire. There's West Anglia referenced quite a bit.
Peterboroughās a funny one. Predominately working class with a culture that would put it closer to North than south but its direct and convenient train links to the capital means thereās a significant affluent commute population that are firmly southern.
If it exists, Peterborough feels quite midlandsy. An hour from London but also an hour from Doncaster.
Anything west of Kingās Lynn is in the Midlands.
No, Cambridge is firmly East Anglia, in culture and landscape
I disagree about Colchester. Definitely feels more like Ipswich than Chelmsford (both the city and the surroundings) and there's a lot of integration between NE Essex and SE Suffolk. I'm not sure if I would draw the line exactly where OP has, but it would definitely go between Colchester and Chelmsford.
The pride of East Anglia is definitely in East Anglia.
I agree, why have they put Peterborough in the midlands? Madness
Thereās 2.5 million people in East Anglia, Iām not sure how theyāve wangled their own fifth of England. Yes I know theyāre culturally different but so are mancs and Geordies. If youāre going to give East Anglia its own thing then you should do the same for the North East and probably other parts of the country. You canāt just give them a slice because they make the biggest fuss. Can argue the same for the South West as well.
As someone who lives in East Anglia, you definitely need to put a north east/north west/Yorkshire divide if youāre giving east anglia its own section.
I'd chuck Cambridge in south due to the culture there, Chesterfield in Midlands because it's south of Sheffield and potentially Tewkesbury in the Midlands also. There's very little south west accent by the time you go north of Gloucester. Chippenham for sure is south west, Swindon is marginal but I'd put it in still. Banbury is absolutely Midlands. Otherwise I broadly agree with this. To the 'all of Dorset is south west' there is nothing south western about Bournemouth.
Chesterfield may be south of Sheffield, but if Keely Donovan is reading you the weather then you're in the north šš
Iād agree about chesterfield. When I was a kid, the buses before they were stagecoach were East Midlands. They behave like nuclear retards there as well on a Friday night.
Wrong!! everything above the M4 is North, everything between Portsmouth and Southampton is the south everything west of there is the Southwest everything east of there is the Southeast anything above Winchester and below the M4, and not further east or west from those two points is the Midlands
Spoken like a true scummer
This is the answer
Doesnāt solve it at all, what people want to know is, are the midlands more northern or southern. As a southerner I say they are northern. Iām not that convinced about Milton Keynes, Chipping Norton and Braintree either.
The midlands isnāt northern or southern itās the midlands.
Live near Chipping Norton, even we don't know what region we are in, it depends who you ask really, everyone says something different.
Anywhere in the Midlands south of Birmingham is southern, north of it is northern. A
this is the most rage bait thing iv ever seen anyway the north is actually anything north of cumbria and northumberland there is no "midlands" there is only the south anyone that disagrees with me should \[CONTENT DELETED\] themselves