Yes there is. Basically, the last legislation that affected the counties themselves was the Detached Parts Act of 1844 which cleaned up most of the little exclaves. Any alterations to "counties" after that point wasn't to the counties themselves, but to the newfangled local authorities (so County Councils, County Borough Councils etc) created in the 1888 Local Government Act. The 1974 changes in England and Wales, for example, abolished all the local authorities that existed at that point (except within Greater London), and created a whole load of new ones - they didn't touch the historic counties themselves. Hence it's not about "turning the clock back", as they still exist intact.roadtester wrote:Excuse my ignorance but is there an agreed consistent definition of what constitute “historic counties” or does it depend on what year you want to turn the clock back to?
The Historic Counties layers on SABRE Maps show the counties, bar the odd small exception such as Dudley being an exclave of Worcestershire within Staffordshire which isn't shown for clarity.
So-called "Ceremonial counties" don't actually exist with that name or in the form that the likes of Wikipedia like to claim - they're actually "Counties for the Purposes of Lieutenancy" and are collections of Administrative Counties for that purpose alone. They're also actually not lawful to be signed in TSRGD - only council areas and Historic Counties are allowed.Owain wrote:My understanding is that ceremonial counties are signed in some places, at the discretion of whatever authority is willing to install a sign.
There's a number of Historic County boundary signs in existence - for example there are a few on the Yorkshire/Durham border across the Tees.