Chester; The North or The Midlands?

[enteirah]

The Chester meet is at the end of January. However one thing that seems to come up frequently (usually from the same people I note) are complaints that it's not in the North, but rather in the Midlands. Instead of throwing back and forth wild claims, I decided to do some proper research to find out a more definitive answer on this, as I had some spare time this morning.

Whilst a few websites argue it's in the Midlands, these usually seem to be tourism related, where they naturally want to claim as many places as possible. The general consensus though; it's a part of the county of Cheshire, which also used to encompass Liverpool (a place no one disputes is in the North) before they were split off to the 'Merseyside' area. The county of Cheshire is still one of those which falls into the official English region of 'North West England' (one of 9 regions England is split into) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_West_England

Chester may be at the very edge of the North (deliberately so as it was designed to be easily reachable from the Midlands), but as Northernfurs covers the North West, North East and Yorkshire regions, I think it's safe to say it's still in the North. :P

Comments

[crystamartin.livejournal.com]

Won't stop people complaining about it though.

[stuart-otterson.livejournal.com]

Can't argue with Wikipedia! (can change it though hehe)

It's north enough for me personally.

[patter-snowfox.livejournal.com]

Its up North, part of the Danelaw and certainly too close to the coast (and Wales) to count as the Midlands.

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

I've lived all my life in the Midlands. Chester ain't Midlands.

Though Liverpool is historically Lancs, not Ches. =:P

[enteirah]

I think the information I'd managed to dig up was that *very* historically it was unsure where the boundary for Cheshire/Lancashire fell exactly, but some really old texts had hinted towards it being at the River Mersey (thus the South was Cheshire, and the North was Lancashire). Doesn't Liverpool sit on both sides of the Mersey (though whether it did historically is another thing)?

[loganberrybunny.livejournal.com]

It depends on what you mean by "*very* historically", I suppose, since Lancashire as a county was established rather later than Cheshire. By 1207, when King John granted Liverpool its charter, Lancashire was in existence, and at least in modern times up until the formation of Merseyside the city has always been considered part of Lancs.

You're right that the Mersey is the traditional boundary between Cheshire on the west and south banks (Wirral, Runcorn etc) and Lancashire on the east bank and to the north - but the west bank is never considered part of Liverpool itself, despite being part of the same conurbation, any more than Wolverhampton is considered part of Birmingham.