English and Welsh counties and parishes used to be as fragmented as any
other European country's. They were exchanged or eliminated in a series of
'reforms' about the same time as parliamentary reform, in the first half of
the 1800s, though some, like Flint county, would remain fragmented until
1974's reorganistation of local government that saw many historic counties
eliminated entirely.
There were fragments and enclaves even along the English-Welsh border.
Here, taken from first edition one inch (1:63360) maps from the 1830s and
1840s are two scans, hand coloured by me, of two of the most complex county
boundaries. Most enclaves were single parishes or part parishes embedded in
a neighbouring county, while some, like these, were much more complex.
Many of the reproduction county maps sold in antique shops show the large
enclaves, as do county atlases. The old one-inch maps, which were reproduced
in book form in about 10 volumes a decade or two back of course show them,
and the volumes of the Victoria County History of England (first volumes
published in the 1800s, and still some counties remain incomplete, over 100
years on), which detail each parish and its churches, monuments and
histories. These are a wealth of information, although the fragmentation was
so pervasive that it did not evoke comment in many of the earlier volumes.
Worcester (shown in green) in the west of England, had an interesting set of
fragments in its SE, intertwined with fragments of Oxford, Gloucester and
Warwick. These were simplified in the 1800s then eliminated as late as the
1930s.
In the NE of the county, was a large enclave centred on Dudley about 6miles
(10km) west of Birmingham. The border around Dudley castle in this enclave
seems to have changed several times.
But most county atlases show a thick stubby peninsula of Worcester sticking
north between Dudley and Birmingham. What they do not show is the true
complexity of the situation, shown in one of the scan.
The other counties involved are Stafford (orange) and Warwick (pink)
The second scan shows Derby county in green, which for centuries had a
laerge fragment to its south, bounded on the west by Stafford and the other
three sides by Leicestershires.
The main town of the fragment is Appleby Magna, and nearby was Ashby de la
Zouch (what unusual English names!).
The river mease formed the western half of the northern boundary of the
fragment. Again most atlases do not show the many smaller enclaves
immediately east of the large fragment, but the true beauty is the fractal
northern boundary shown here, which appears to be a remnant of Anglo-Saxon
field systems. Similar boundaries can be found in pre-1930s Saxony and the
Thuringian states in Germany.
BW
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