Favourite Picture 5

  OOOO gotcha so thats pretty far up north to?

  Thats a great picture!!!;-)

Hi Debbie:  I think the Yorkshires are considered part of N. England, but it's still a pretty decent distance from the Scottish border.

Cool, Paul.  But I wonder why the other counties aren't called Ridings and why only E. Yks is called a Riding.

Well, that's quite a loaded question from several angles, bar to say, from 1974, the new East Riding of Yorkshire wasn't exaclty the same as the former East Riding of Yorkshire due to a major shake up of authorities and county boundaries. Berkshire gained parts of Buckinghamshire but lost parts of Berkshire to Oxfordshire, so looking at places in former times, looks as though they're in the wrong counties by today's map.

As well as Vikings adding their names to places, so were the Saxons, notable in counties ending in -sex, such as Sussex for South Saxons, Essex, East Saxons, and Middlesex, the central Saxons, though Middlesex as a county today, doesn't actually exist anymore as it increasingly became part of Greater London.

Former Roman major settlements had  Chester as part of their name, so there were various peoples having their effect on English place names in one way or another.

Just for info, Yorkshire being such a big county it was seperated up into 'three' areas for administration reason, These were the North, East and West Ridings.  'Riding' is derived from the Viking word for 'one third'.

Regards Roy J.