Completing the 40×40: #11 Visit Every Ceremonial County in England

Why I want to visit every Ceremonial County

What even is a ‘Ceremonial County’? All will be revealed.

First, a brief introduction:

Back in the day, I had a 40×40 list, a list of 40 things to do before I was 40.

Well, I turned 40 and upgraded the list.

One of the things on that new list?

Finish the old list!

One of the things on that list?

Visit every ceremonial county in England

If Wiki is to be believed, and why wouldn’t you believe them, there are 48 Ceremonial Counties of England.

They are distinct from just normal counties, which tend to be administrative in nature, in that they represent areas as they were prior to 1974. This was before the Government started playing about with names and boundaries.

There are also fewer of them than there are regular counties – therefore making this challenge a little easier.

Not, unfortunately, easy enough to complete before my 40^th, so it has been carried over to the new list.

On the road again…

When I initially came up with the idea to add this to the list, I had grand plans of days out on the train or bussing to new cities.

In fact, I was able to tick three counties off in one day, just by travelling to Uni – although Bristol doesn’t really count, what with me living there, and I had to walk the whole half a mile to South Gloucestershire to catch the bus anyway.

That then took me to Somerset (Bath is technically in BANES; Bath and North East Somerset, but for the purpose of this task I totally got to tick off Somerset)

As I had, in essence, given myself 3 counties for free, I chose to do the rest of the challenge properly.

While in my youth I had visited a lot of England: the Lake District, Middlesbrough, Shrewsbury, London, Hull, none of these counted as I would need to visit them after declaring my intention to visit if you see what I mean.

You can’t go around adding stuff to your Bucket List and then saying “already done that” and ticking it off.

That kind of skulduggery is only allowed on household to-do lists. (It is acceptable, for example, to list the jobs you have already done, cross them out and then add ‘drink coffee’ to the list and then take the rest of the day off. Laundry can always wait… in fact, if you wait long enough the kids grow out of it and you don’t have to wash it at all #TrueStory).

Further afield

My list pretty much stayed at those 3 lone counties until my Mum, Pat, whisked me off to Birmingham to see Wet,Wet ,Wet.

This not only enabled me to tick West Midlands off the county list but also allowed me to tick ‘see a large music concert’ off.

Later that same month we travelled to Reading on the train. It was a stop-over on our way to Gatwick, but as we got off the train and made footfall in the county, I was able to add Berkshire to my ‘visited’ list, even if it was for about 30 minutes.

Once we got to the airport I was also able to tick off West Sussex. We then went off to Prague, but that is a whole other task that I no doubt write up at some point.

Ticking off the list

My eldest daughter, Harri, had a boyfriend who lived in Chippenham, which made dropping her off at his house, a three-county trek.

However, we had always just stayed in the car while she jumped out, and came home again. We decided to ‘treat’ ourselves to a Mcdonalds’ on one of our drop-off missions, and as it is well known what happens at the drive-in, we decided to get out of the car.

On making that all-important footfall we were able to tick Wiltshire off the list.

And these were the only counties that got ticked off before the end date of my challenge… so, of course, it got carried over.

In April 2017 we went to Japan – which, obviously isn’t a county in England, but it did require us having to go to Heathrow Airport, so I was able to tick off Greater London.

2018 was been a great year for county ticking:

There was Dorset, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire all in one weekend, although Oxfordshire was a stopover at Bicester services for coffee, so I intend to go back to see the place properly at some point. (In fact, I got to go stay in Oxford at my friend Carolyn’s house in February 2020 just before the lockdown)

Then in June, we stopped off in Hertfordshire on our way to the Colchester Medieval Fayre, in Essex.

2019 wasn’t as busy in terms of visits – although compared to 2020…

We had to pop down to Southampton to grab a pair of tortoises (don’t ask!), so I was able to mark off Hampshire

There was also a trip to Lynmouth and Lynton, so not only have I ticked off a new county, Devon, and added to my coffee count, but I also made inroads into my ‘Visit 50 coasts’ task.

And with full props to Wiki, here is the full list:

The following are the 48 ceremonial counties of England, as presently defined:

• Bedfordshire, consisting of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Luton
• Berkshire
• Bristol
• Buckinghamshire, including Milton Keynes
• Cambridgeshire, including Peterborough
• Cheshire, consisting of Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton and Warrington
• City of London^{[N 2]}
• Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly
• Cumbria
• Derbyshire, including Derby
• Devon, including Plymouth and Torbay
• Dorset, including Bournemouth and Poole
• Durham, including Darlington, Hartlepool, and Stockton-on-Tees north of the River Tees
• East Riding of Yorkshire, including Kingston-upon-Hull
• East Sussex, including Brighton and Hove
• Essex, including Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock
• Gloucestershire, including South Gloucestershire
  Greater London excluding the City of London
• Greater Manchester
• Hampshire, including Portsmouth and Southampton
• Herefordshire
• Hertfordshire
• Isle of Wight
• Kent, including Medway
• Lancashire, including Blackburn with Darwen, and Blackpool
• Leicestershire, including Leicester
• Lincolnshire, including North Lincolnshire, and North East Lincolnshire
• Merseyside
• Norfolk
• North Yorkshire, including Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, York, and Stockton-on-Tees south of the River Tees
• Northamptonshire
• Northumberland
• Nottinghamshire, including Nottingham
• Oxfordshire
• Rutland
• Shropshire, including Telford and Wrekin
• Somerset, including Bath and North East Somerset and North Somerset
• South Yorkshire
• Staffordshire, including Stoke-on-Trent
• Suffolk
• Surrey
• Tyne and Wear
• Warwickshire
• West Midlands
• West Sussex
• West Yorkshire
• Wiltshire, including Swindon
• Worcestershire

The task at hand

My list is currently a bit ‘south’ heavy, but as my little car isn’t particularly reliable I do worry about going too far in it. Maybe my initial train and bus idea wasn’t such a bad one?

Hannah has discovered a donut shop in Shrewsbury, so I feel a trip to Shropshire coming on.

She also really wants to visit Liverpool, once we are all allowed out that is.

Which county should I visit next? Any great places I really need to see? Let me know in the comments.

But as of yet, this task is – sadly…

2022 update:

In an effort to tick off a number of tasks this year, I have booked trips to both Liverpool (Merseyside) and the Lake District. Not only will I tick off two new counties, but I will also be attending a large conference, and drinking coffee in each of the new cities I will visit.

On top of that, I will be attending the Malvern Flower Show, so Worcestershire will get ticked off too.

15 down, 33 to go…

(December update: I’ve got 28 left to go!)

2023 update:

After being dropped off at the wrong airport by KLM, I have managed to trip Greater London from my list. Incrediavly stressful at the time, but an extra tick to my county list

Han and I went to the Splendour Festival in Nottingham in July, and due to my ‘Motorway Aversion’, we went via Leicester, popped to Derby, and then stopped in Coventry on the way home – so four counties in one weekend.

We have a show in London planned and can therefore tick off ‘City of London’.

Finally, The Boy and I are returning to the Lake District this year for the LICAF. As I will be driving this time, I can plan a few stops into our journey,- mainly Shropshire and Greater Manchester.

This means that we end the year with just 20 counties left to visit, mainly in the north and the east. Still can’t believe I haven’t been to Cornwall for 6 years. I will need to add that one on my list for next year, along with a a long weekend to the east.