what is the most rubbish UK county?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Leicestershire?

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:47 (twenty years ago)

Huntingdonshire. (It's so rubbish it doesn't even exist any more!)

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

Berkshire.

― suckling pig at a rave (alix), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

leicestershire seconded.

― N_RQ, Monday, 19 September 2005 12:52 (twenty years ago)

I was thinking Berkshire too.

But do we really need three Yorkshires?

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:52 (twenty years ago)

Rutland
Huntingdonshire
Cumberland
Westmoreland

(get those out of the way quickly)

― beanz (beanz), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

Buckinghamshire has Milton keynes in it, so Buckinghamshire.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

berkshire without doubt

though leicestershire has to be bad as well. i have no love for buckinghamshire or hampshire either. or surrey

― terry lennox. (gareth), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

Staffordshire has Stoke in it so it must qualify

― beanz (beanz), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:54 (twenty years ago)

Can't really argue with that (xpost to Markelby)
Bedfordshire's kind of pointless, too.

― Matt (Matt), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:54 (twenty years ago)

Lincolnshire is pretty vile.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

I'm sure there are nice bits of Berkshire... somewhere...

The serious answer is, of course, ESSEX - why has this taken 9 posts to come up?

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

I really fvcking hate Berkshire.

There are actually FOUR Yorkshires now, thanks to the abolition of Humberside.

― RickyT (RickyT), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

Is there anything interesting in Cheshire?

― beanz (beanz), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

Essex has character, coast and some interesting landscapes.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:56 (twenty years ago)

I went on a badgerwatch in Cheshire once = classic 4eva.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:57 (twenty years ago)

Ohh yes, Lincolnshire's fairly horrid. Redeemed by Lincoln itself and the fact that my g/f's from Grimsby.

― Matt (Matt), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:57 (twenty years ago)

there are some lovely rural bits of berkshire, reading and slough are downers, though.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 19 September 2005 12:58 (twenty years ago)

The serious answer is, of course, ESSEX - why has this taken 9 posts to come up?

arr, that be cos nobody wanted to offend me, harr.

― g-kit (g-kit), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

we got married in cookham, berks, so NO.

seriously though: why do we need an east and a west sussex?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

Not to mention BRACKNELL

xpost reunification of Sussex would create a powerhouse that would threaten us all.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:02 (twenty years ago)

I had the ignominity (did I spell that right?) of being BORN in Essex (by mistake!) and still I nominate it. Possibly because of it.

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:02 (twenty years ago)

Berkshire's the only county that gives us deer warnings on the motorway, so classic.

Is there anything notable about Northamptonshire, apart from being the furthest place in Britain from the sea? (And Big Hairy Alan Moore, obviously. And Bauhaus, I suppose.)

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

somerset. i grew up there, i should know. worst accent of anywhere in the world ever as well.

no, glastonbury does not in any way redeem it.

― The Lex (The Lex), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

my dad also used to take me to the bracknell jazz festival so try it not.

good call for northants. i can't think of anything either apart from those you mentioned.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:04 (twenty years ago)

Northamptonshire has BAUHAUS!!! And is the home of SPACEROCK. Except wait, aren't Rugby and Corby actually in Warwickshire through some strange gerrymandering? Never mind then.

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:06 (twenty years ago)

corby is in northants. and they're welcome to it.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:08 (twenty years ago)

I probably like most counties, but felt that if I was going to slag one off, it should be one that I had lived near and been to a bit.

I remember, as a toddler, being driven to Reading in my mother's car. I can't remember the real reason we went there, but my memory says that we went there to buy a cauliflour (maybe cabbage), and indeed we did visit a greengrocers whilst there.

― suckling pig at a rave (alix), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

i think leigh-on-sea is a major redeeming feature of Essex. thank ye very much. yarr.

― g-kit (g-kit), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

Cheshire is great because it has Alderley Edge, with its spooky witchy connotations, Alan Garner etc etc.

Gloucestershire is a bit rubbish, though it's image isn't helped by the fact that a Gloucestershire accent sounds like everyone is a yokel who eats mangelworzels for tea.

― C J (C J), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

north essex is nice. i'm sure berks has nice parts, somewhere.

bedfordshire has to be pretty bad to have bedford at its beating heart.

― N_RQ, Monday, 19 September 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

I lived in Essex until I was 16, and there's nowt wrong with it (the bit nowhere near the Thames anyway). I would abolish northern Bucks, and the whole Bedfordshire, Northants, Cambs (apart from Cambridge),
and the south of Lincolnshire for just being flat, boring, empty shite. It's something you have to drive through on the way up north.

― Teh Hobb at work and not logged in, Monday, 19 September 2005 13:11 (twenty years ago)

but then again, there are parts of east oxford where you find the exact same accent (e.g. somerfields in temple cowley)

(cj xpost)

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:12 (twenty years ago)

Not just East Oxford. The rural bits to the north, ie my neck of the woods is full of people eating mangolds and discussing the best way to trap a hare.

― suckling pig at a rave (alix), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:14 (twenty years ago)

Bedfordshire is great for food shopping, thanks to the fact that there's only about four English people still living there.

Anyway, Sussex.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

Bedfordshire is great for food shopping, thanks to the fact that there's only about four English people still living there.

i'm trying to work out if this is an italian thing.

― N_RQ (Enrique), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

hands off gloucestershire they have the perfect country for rolling tractor tyres down hills (steep V-shaped valleys), an amusing activity this weekend just past along with spelling out rude words with human bodies across the same said valleys.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

Sussex is great. Brighton. Beachy Head. Sheep on the downs. Hilly forests in The Weald.

― Teh HoBB still at work, Monday, 19 September 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

I lived in Leicestershire for ten years and detected no sign of any redeeming virtues anywhere, so that. Except there is the pleasure of American tourists mispronouncing it, but I suppose we can keep the London square even if we obliterate the county.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

no.

(henry xpost)

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:19 (twenty years ago)

Surrey, My Glorious Homeland

Politics: Toriest county EVER (except maybe Berkshire)

Concerns of local letter-writers: Stallholders on Guildford market, intolerable noise of strimmers.

Famous cultural output: None. No hold on Roger Waters was born in Bookham.

Contribution to history: Minimal.

Contribution to economy: Half the nations wealth goes home to bed there.

Sporting prowess: County cricket team (not actually based in Surrey). Woking FC. Guildford Flames ice hockey team.

Accent: Bland

Attitude to rest of UK: Indulgent nimbyism.

Attractive?: Yes actually which is why I still like it, even if it'll all be one big golf course by 2030.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)

Not just the Italians Enrique. There's some great halal butchers, those Jamaican mini-supermarket things that pop up in inner-cities, and a bakery owned by someone from Turkmenistan.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)

Leave Leicestershire alone. Sometimes no discerning characteristics (save the Space Centre and some very gentle countryside) is a Good Thing. I'm not too sure about Herefordshire and Northamptonshire. Oh, and Northants is not furthest from the sea, I think that's Ashby, in Leics. PJMiller to thread.

― M (Madeleine), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

Is there anything interesting in Cheshire?

Hollyoaks.

― Crackity (Crackity Jones), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:29 (twenty years ago)

Surrey, My Glorious Homeland
Politics: Toriest county EVER (except maybe Berkshire)
Concerns of local letter-writers: Stallholders on Guildford market, intolerable noise of strimmers.
Famous cultural output: None. No hold on Roger Waters was born in Bookham.
Contribution to history: Minimal.

there's a good craig brown defense of surrey somewhere. the literary output (george eliot, fer example) is not too shabby.

― N_RQ (Enrique), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

Thinking about it, I reckon all counties, no matter how dull, can be redeemed by fantastic countryside, even if it is big-skied and terrifying, such as one finds in Norfolk and Lincolnshire.

― M (Madeleine), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:31 (twenty years ago)

Yes to be honest I don't know how many famous writers come from Surrey. I'm not totally sure why they'd stay in Surrey unless Joanna Trollope style comedies of manners are their 'thing'.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:32 (twenty years ago)

The worst of all counties

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

They hated Lincolnshire on that thread, too. But there's no Herts hate here, thank god.

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:49 (twenty years ago)

HG Wells and George Bernard Shaw stayed in Surrey for a bit. Northamptonshire is beautiful and makes good shoes.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:51 (twenty years ago)

Interesting that the Cleveland hate hasn't manifested itself on this go-round.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

Bah, why all the Lincolnshire-hate?

South Lincolnshire I can understand hating. North Lincolnshire's a lot nicer, though. Even though there isn't anything to do.

There are *four* Yorkshires now, not three. And that doesn't even include Cleveland.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

Oooh, Lincolnshire is a good call.

Someone be an iconoclast and say "Greater London" or "Lancashire".

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:56 (twenty years ago)

Middlesex, ha ha.

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:57 (twenty years ago)

I always forget about Cleveland. Though I suppose it doesn't really exist anymore.

― RickyT (RickyT), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

There are some counties I know absolutely nothing about. What is in Denbighshire?

― Mädchen (Madchen), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

There have to be some nasty Welsh ones surely?

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)

Nothing against the Welsh, like :)

― Mädchen (Madchen), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:03 (twenty years ago)

Herefordshire has good bits. Hereford itself is unbelievably dire though.

― beanz (beanz), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:04 (twenty years ago)

TAFFY WAS A WELSHMAN, TAFFY WAS A THIEF
TAFFY CAME TO MY HOUSE AND STOLE MY FAVOURITE BLUE ADIDAS TRAINERS!!!!

ha-hem. Nothing against the Welsh, like.

― The Brocade Fire (kate), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:06 (twenty years ago)

THE THUNDER ROARED, THE LIGHTNING FLASHED
AND KILLED A PIG IN MOUNTAIN ASH

― C J (C J), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

Haha everything I said on the other thread still stands. Hertfordshire is rubbish. I like the counties that are next to the sea, mainly.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:13 (twenty years ago)

Like Lincolnshire!!!

(I know Archel *has* to like Lincolnshire by default, though, cos it's where her husband was born)

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:14 (twenty years ago)

I've now discovered that even Surrey County Council isn't in bloody Surrey any more. Also that Wansworth was part of Surrey until 1889 so in a sense I've never left!

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:14 (twenty years ago)

I'd forgotten Dasboot would pop up with a previous county-hatin' thread, but hey, there we go. Thanks Nick!

South Lincolnshire is one of my favourite places :(

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:15 (twenty years ago)

yeh hands off Gloucestershire!

i mean it's got the Forest of Dean! which should be a county in itself!!

― Louie_Strychnine, Monday, 19 September 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

Bedforshire is next to nothing. Rutland is even closer to nothing, true, but because of that it should be preserved

Don´t know why but I knew that Yorkshire, Devon or Cornwall would never feature in such a list...why?

― olenska (olenska), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

On the previous thread Tim H argued strongly for Yorkshire as one of the worst, and I think refused to acknowledge the existence of Cornwall.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:20 (twenty years ago)

Yorkshire is full of its own self-importance.

In fact, so is Cornwall in a way.

Lincolnshire is a beautiful place, but not many people seem to appreciate it. It's big and empty in a way that few other places in England are.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:20 (twenty years ago)

Lincolnshire produces slightly... strange citizens though, no? Or is this just my experience?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

Hello!

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

Surrey CC plans to relocate to Woking.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

Well... Matt is technically a genetic mutant (as am I haha what will our kids be like?). BUT HE IS NOT STRANGE.

I have still never been to Lincolnshire, I would like to. Where are the nice seaside places there?

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

Herefordshire & Worcestershire are both pretty shite, but they do both have some nice countryside to redeem them.

Plus, half the country's tramps would be lost without Strongbow Super.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

Yorkshire isn't full of its own self-importance! Some of it has been totally stripped of its dignity! Not talking about North and West Yorkshire here, which are, er, full of their own self importance. I'm talking about South Yorkshire. Still just rubble left, 20 years on from mine closures and steel works ruination. It's a sh*thole. It couldn't possibly think itself important. It's too busy committing suicide.

But yeah all the flatcap whippet stuff is a load of rubbish.

― Zoe Espera (Espera), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:38 (twenty years ago)

oh come off it, none of you know what a bad county is until you've visited wrexham, which i believe is a unitary authority and thus qualifies. beyound all doubt the biggest shithole i have ever visited in my entire life, anywhere in the world. also on of the scariest places i have been, too. you really get the feeling that everyone there is a only ever hair's breadth away from kicking the shit out of each other, the people are foul, there is no culture, it's ugly and posesses absolutely no redeeming features of any kind. in short, it's wales without any nice scenery, massive unemployment, a lot of heroin and very little hope.

― sfxxxx, Monday, 19 September 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

Let's book a holiday to Wrexham!

Even its name sounds like someone vomiting.

― Zoe Espera (Espera), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:41 (twenty years ago)

I suspect stelfox wins here.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 19 September 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

The worst county I know of is the industrial wasteland that now calls itself West Midlands. Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Solihull and West Bromwich. A very grim place indeed. I am rather fond of it though.

― Cathy (Cathy), Monday, 19 September 2005 15:01 (twenty years ago)

don't know counties

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 19 September 2005 16:19 (twenty years ago)

Clackmannanshire's quite rubbish. And it gave the world Alan Hansen. Ayrshire's not that far behind it in terms of usefulness.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 19 September 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)

uselessness, that should be. At least Ayrshire has an airport.

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 19 September 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

know regions a little

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 19 September 2005 16:32 (twenty years ago)

At least Ayrshire has an airport.

And a bacon named after it. Any county which has a foodstuff named after it is ok in my book.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Monday, 19 September 2005 16:43 (twenty years ago)

Fife.

Kirkcaldy, Glenrothes, METHIL

shitholes

― dasein (dasein), Monday, 19 September 2005 16:47 (twenty years ago)

But the East Neuk of Fife is LOVELY!!! Crail, Culross, Anstruther, Lower and Upper Largo, all beautiful places. Also Fife has half of the Forth Rail Bridge so it's exempt from all accusations of rubbishness.

Also, Ayrshire has Culzean Castle and Burns heritage type stuff, so not all bad. If anyone can redeem Clackmannanshire for me, I will be quite impressed (actually, is the Falkirk Wheel in Clackmannanshire, that'd probably do it)

― ailsa (ailsa), Monday, 19 September 2005 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Ayrshire tatties.

Oh and i lived in Prestwick between the ages 10-18.
Didn't miss it when I left, was glad to be back in my 'home' county, but I do kinda miss it now.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 19 September 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

I live in Lincolnshire and would be pretty depressed with the state of the country if any of the rest of it was worse than here.

Aswell as the emptyness and the bugger-all-motorwayness (until recently) there's also the toryness. Lincoln itself is labour, but the rest of the countryside has local pride added to its toryness, making Grantham-born Thatcher pretty much a goddess in some places.

― Cressida Breem (neruokruokruokne?), Monday, 19 September 2005 17:11 (twenty years ago)

Lincolnshire's main motorways were built 25 years ago!

I have still never been to Lincolnshire, I would like to. Where are the nice seaside places there?

Come to CLEETHORPES!!!

It's not the nicest bit of the seaside, but we could at least have a FAP.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Monday, 19 September 2005 17:15 (twenty years ago)

STAFFORDSHIRE

wins!

No county with a coastline can be truely baaad.

― Pvt. Dave Goes Over The Top (scarlet), Monday, 19 September 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

The East Neuk is pretty in parts. However, it smells really weird. When I lived there I noticed that every single one of those towns has it's own uniquely unpleasant smell. Pittenweem has the fish, St Monans has it's putrid harbour, other smells have more mysterious sources. I remember a story in the East Fife Mail where they finally tracked down one legendary stench that had haunted a village for years to a nearby waste processing facility.

― dasein (dasein), Monday, 19 September 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)

No county with a coastline can be truely baaad.
No locals ever went in the water at Prestwick. Probably the same in Ayr & Troon.
Ayr was a lot better than the others though. But the sewage and seaweed and stuff on Prestwick beach was utterly disgusting.
I miss cycling along the promenade though or watching the sun set.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 19 September 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

Are we allowing unitary authorities?

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 20 September 2005 06:02 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.