c4countdown

There have been several conversations at CO-events about where the north/south divide is, so I thought it would be worth doing a thread on it. Where do you think the divide is? Do you even think there is such a divide? Would you have some other sort of divide(s) instead, or not have any? Here is the place to discuss all of that. If you have a look at the map below, I would say that the northernmost southern counties are Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. So anything above is northern and anything below is southern. Obviously it's not a straight line, and the further east you are, the further north you can be without being northern.

Further precision might be possible by actually splitting counties, but the rule of thumb is that "bath" is northern and "bahth" is southern. Things are further complicated by the fact that those in the south-west don't say "bahth", but rather "baath", and don't really have proper southern accents. So maybe the proper divide is south-east versus everywhere else (might as well call it north-west). So looking at the map again, the borderline counties inside the south-east would be Hampshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk. So, yes, Cornwall is in the north-west. Deal with it.

But then if someone put a gun to my head and said I had to come up with a north-south divide that went straight across, that would be rather tricky. It would have to be a compromise. I don't think I'd be sacrificing too much by saying anything north of Bury St Edmunds is northern, and Bury St Edmunds and south is southern.

Edit - on the Wikipedia page, that map has the county names on.

There is very definitely a divide. It's a straight line that passes through Camden Town. (I would be prepared to compromise on the Watford Gap though.)

There's also a south-west/south-east divide, which I'd say is a straight line going through Swindon.

Actually this map basically sums it up (although the 'Birmingham' section is still part of the North):

The Watford Gap is like 70 miles north of Camden, that's quite the compromise.

Fucking lump me in with Birmingham why don't you. :-/

Fwiw, I'd put the divide as going from Whitchurch (on the Welsh border) to Stoke-on-Trent to Mansfield to Newark-on-Trent to Skegness.

EDIT: So basically, this.

Mark Deeks wrote:The Watford Gap is like 70 miles north of Camden, that's quite the compromise.

Just looked this up. Wtf? I thought it was in the general M25 vicinity. What the hell are people playing at?? The people of fake Watford should change their bloody village name. Properly angry about this.

Luton is now my compromise, because fuck. that.

Jennifer Steadman wrote:

Mark Deeks wrote:The Watford Gap is like 70 miles north of Camden, that's quite the compromise.

Just looked this up. Wtf? I thought it was in the general M25 vicinity. What the hell are people playing at?? The people of fake Watford should change their bloody village name. Properly angry about this.

Luton is now my compromise, because fuck. that.

I mean, the fact that you've clearly no idea where anything is does rather put the staunchness of your opinions on the north/south divide in some context.

The Watford Gap isn't a million miles north of my Bury St Edmunds suggestion so I don't think it's an awful dividing point.

I've always thought of the North/South Divide as being a line roughly between the Wash and the Bristol Channel.

What's North and what's South is different. No-one in Liverpool thinks they live in the North. It's the North West. Newcastle is the North.

Not sure about Leicestershire and Rutland, but this is pretty much correct.

Mark Deeks wrote:I mean, the fact that you've clearly no idea where anything is does rather put the staunchness of your opinions on the north/south divide in some context.

Watford, Hertfordshire: 90,000+ people, Premiership football club, 11.5 million Google hits
Watford, Northamptonshire: 224 people, unknown if they even have a Sunday league football club, 500k Google hits

Prolly not an unreasonable assumption to make that the Watford Gap pertains to a place called Watford that people have actually heard of. Especially for someone who only goes on a motorway about twice a year ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

David Williams wrote:I've always thought of the North/South Divide as being a line roughly between the Wash and the Bristol Channel.

What's North and what's South is different. No-one in Liverpool thinks they live in the North. It's the North West. Newcastle is the North.

But then Newcastle is the north east.

Well back in the day there used to be a football league division three north and south.
Coventry city have played in both.
I always think of Northampton as the divide or Milton Keynes at a push

This is easy. To the east, everything north of the Humber. To the west, everything north of the Mersey.

JimBentley wrote:This is easy. To the east, everything north of the Humber. To the west, everything north of the Mersey.

I'm gazing enviously at the glittering lights of Birkenhead right now. And nobody even knows where the Mersey comes from upstream of Runcorn.

David Williams wrote:

JimBentley wrote:This is easy. To the east, everything north of the Humber. To the west, everything north of the Mersey.

I'm gazing enviously at the glittering lights of Birkenhead right now. And nobody even knows where the Mersey comes from upstream of Runcorn.

I was sort of joking to be fair. I think there is a divide, but it's not geographical anymore.

The divide is the border between the City of Nottingham and West Bridgford. WB onwards is the south.

JimBentley wrote:This is easy. To the east, everything north of the Humber. To the west, everything north of the Mersey.

I suspect the residents of the southern part of the West Riding would grumble at being lumped in with those southern pufters.