Talk:Yorkshire

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Contents 1 Bigger Counties? 2 Yorkshire dialect 3 Metcalfe 4 Question 5 Yorkshire's Ridings 6 Highest point? 7 Introduction

[edit] Bigger Counties?

What are the two traditional English counties that are bigger than Yorkshire? It appears to be the biggest on the map at Traditional counties of England. -Nommo 19:38, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You are right, my brane malfunctioned. Morwen 19:39, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Yorkshire dialect

This article is badly in need of some information regarding the Yorkshire dialect of English. I have little knowledge of it so can someone with more expertise do the work? Thank thee! :) --Hux 12:32, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Metcalfe

I've removed the following recently added text from the article:

One of Yorkshires most famous clans, the Metcalfes, are descended from the land of Wensleydale in the North West of the county. The Metcalfe Society hold records dating back to Metcalfes living in the area during the 14th century. They were one of the most prominet families in Yorkshire for over five centuries. Sir James Metcalfe (1389-1472) who was born and lived in Wensleydale was a captin in the army which fought with King Henry V in the battle of Agincourt in 1415. Metcalfe is still one of the most common surnames in Yorkshire.

This isn't really relevant to a definiton of Yorkshire. Yorkshire is indeed crucial to the history of this family, but I'm not convinced this family was crucial to the history of Yorkshire. This would be better placed in its own dedicated article, rather than here.

[edit] Question

The Omar Ebrahim bio says that this British opera singer was born in "Greasbrough, York, England." Does anyone know if this a neighborhood of York, or else a town elsewhere in Yorkshire? Badagnani 22:48, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Greasbrough is a separate town in Rotherham Metropolitan Borough. This puts it in South Yorkshire, so nothing to do with York. cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 00:13, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, so the Internet Movie Database is wrong in saying that he's from "Greasbrough, York." They don't know their UK geography!  :) I've made a page for Greasbrough; can you see if it looks right? Badagnani 00:33, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. cBuckley (Talk • Contribs) 18:49, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Yorkshire's Ridings

County Council's were not introduced until 1888/89 (note when they were introduced they didn't always mirror the county boundaries) and the Ridings EXISTED prior to this. It is wrong therefore to state that just because the county councils of the West, North and East Ridings were replaced by monstrosities concocted by pen-pushers in Whitehall in 1974 that the Ridings ceased to exist.

The Ridings of Yorkshire (as geographical entities) were not created by an act of parliament (unlike County Council's and Unitary Authorities etc) and so, as such, cannot be abolished by an act of parliament. This is something successive governments have stated on many occasions over the last three decades.

It's the duty of every patriotic Yorkshireman to use the ridings instead of the administrative "counties" as government reforms of these administrative divisions have redistributed land away from Yorkshire or has deliberately attempted to damage the cohesiveness of Yorkshire, ultimately resulting in the "region" now being called "Yorkshire and the Humber". If they'd left Yorkshire intact with its three ridings and left Lincolnshire out of the picture we would have the prospect of a Yorkshire region, and with it the real prospect of devolved power, for the first time in centuries. They can take our civil government structure, but they'll never take our freedom! 194.203.110.127 12:09, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

although the Ridings still exist as histoic boundaries without which administrative boundaries could not be defined, and they are still used in many other areas.

Like what? --Camembert

yorkshire "west riding" shows that at least 18,800 peple use them, and that is only those on the internet. All the people I know from yorkshire both use and understand the ridings system, and to maintain factual accuracy in the article, I felt that this fact ought to be clarified. Before it read as if the Ridings suddenly "ceased to exist", and this is certainly not the case.

I'm from Yorkshire, and I don't use the ridings system or come across it in life very much. I only understand it because I've made the effort to do so. Maybe people who remember the ridings refer to them in conversation, but I don't think it's used for any practical purpose (apart from clubs and so on established before 1974). A look at the first few pages of the Google search reveals that the vast majority of the hits use the term in a purely historical context (quite a lot of them are genealogical sites). So really, I think the "many other areas" bit is misleading. I'm taking it out. --Camembert

I wasn't trying to mislead, but in my experience they are still used. It no doubt varies from place to place, however. I think it's a little disingenuous to disregard 18,800 hits as being mostly genealogical sites, but I won't replace the term. Incidentally, the various watsonian vice-counties of yorkshire are also directly based upon the Ridings, and WVCs are most certainly used in modern, scientific contexts. 80.255 21:53, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The west and north titles may have have fallen into disuse but in the east it is still used. If I recall correctly the road signs leading into East Yorkshire all read "Welcome to the East Riding of Yorkshire" and the council is called that too: [1]. Wiki-Ed 12:44, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Quite, there is an East Riding Council. I think this is a unitary authority formed from the northern part of Humberside, excluding Hull, when the Humberside County Council was dis-established. It looks like this is included. Andreww 09:36, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Why do we have to say "Sheffield in South Yorkshire", "Leeds in West Yorkshire" etc. in the articles. The administrative counties set up were never supposed to replace the real counties, and this has been stated many times by the British government. We should be stating which counties places are really in. It makes a mockery out of the fact Lancashire play cricket in Manchester, and the Home Counties play in London if we don't recognise the real county names. So we should just say "Sheffield in the West Riding of Yorkshire" etc...

South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire are ceremonial counties of England. These are the most commonly used terms by people living in these areas and are also the terms that are used by the UK government (for example by the ONS). Whilst the city of Leeds could be correctly said to be in the traditional county of Yorkshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire was an administrative division of the traditional county that ceased to be in 1974. It would be incorrect for wikipedia to say that Sheffield is in the traditional county of Yorkshire as large parts of this city are actually in the traditional county of Derbyshire. As the UK government uses the current administrative and ceremonial counties (for example we have "West Yorkshire Police" and "South Yorkshire Police") I think that it is better that wikipedia uses these or nothing—note that the Sheffield article just states that "Sheffield is a city in the north of England" and does not include a county name at all. However, it is entirely appropriate for articles, having given the current administrative or ceremonial county of a particluar place, to, at some point within the article also state the traditional county. But just giving a former administrative division of the traditional county (i.e. the West Riding of Yorkshire) will only lead to confusion. JeremyA (talk) 01:28, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Why do we have to say "Sheffield in South Yorkshire"

Because 'tis, we here in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire have declared ourselves free of the feudal oppression of "ridings" Gonzo 21:40, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Highest point?

Isn't Mickle Fell on the Durham-Cumbria border? Surely the highest point in Yorkshire is Whernside.

Nope. You are thinking of administrative areas. See List of traditional counties of England and Wales by highest point and Mickle Fell. To quote the latter: "It is the highest point of both the administrative county of County Durham and the traditional county of Yorkshire." Owain (talk) 09:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction

This could do with being more succinct. A lot could move to the history section and be summarised at a high level in the intro. Mrsteviec 07:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm also concerned about the population figure being given. Whilst, yes, about five million seems reasonable: the quoted figure is for the Yorkshire and the Humber region. We could, at a pinch, delete from this the populations of North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, add the populations of the Yorkshire parishes now in Lancashire, Cumbria, Durham, etc etc : also the parts formerly in Cleveland. However this would still not be accurate and would anyway count as original research, I feel. What we need is for someone external to us to go through every census output area, assign a traditional county to it, and do lots of adding. To my knowledge nobody has done this - visionofbritain only seem to project current units back in time, not old units forward in time. Morwen - Talk 14:07, 28 September 2006 (UTC)