The Counties of England

I am increasingly interested in the history of baking recipes, particularly the geographic origin. So often a region’s produce would determine the creation of a recipe; nowadays, thanks to supermarkets, what your area produces is less important in governing what you bake or eat. For instance, I live in the region of England that grows nearly all of Britain’s cucumbers...do I eat more cucumbers than you? Probably not.

As a little side project to my Caked Crusader blog, I am going to try to find a cake or bake (tart, pie, biscuit etc) for every county in England. I expected drawing up a list of counties to be an easy task – the work of seconds with the assistance of the internet. Think again! Counties are a minefield (not literally, thank goodness). They change for postal and governmental reasons far more often than you’d think, so I have decided to use the traditional counties (also called the historic counties) as my guide. If you’d like to read a little more about the traditional counties The Association of British Counties website has more information on it than you could ever wish for!

I can’t do this alone – if you have a recipe for a cake, pie, tart or biscuit linked to where you live then please, please, pretty please, consider sharing it with me. I can be emailed via the “contact me” button displayed on the right hand side of my site. Thanks in advance!

Here are the traditional/historic counties of England with the main towns/cities in brackets):

1. Bedfordshire (Bedford, Luton, Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Biggleswade, Sandy)
2. Berkshire (Reading, Bracknell, Maidenhead, Newbury, Windsor, Wokingham, Abingdon)
3. Buckinghamshire (Aylesbury, Milton Keynes, Slough, Buckingham, High Wycombe)
4. Cambridgeshire (Cambridge, Wisbech, Ely, March, Whittlesey, Chatteris, Linton)
5. Cheshire (Chester, Stockport, Ellesmere Port, Birkenhead, Wallasey, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Crewe)
6. Cornwall (Bodmin, Truro, Camborne, Redruth, St. Austell, Falmouth, Penzance, Newquay)
7. Cumberland (Carlisle, Whitehaven, Workington, Penrith, Keswick, Brampton)
8. Derbyshire (Derby, Chesterfield, Glossop, Ilkeston, Long Eaton, Swadlincote, Buxton, Matlock, Ashbourne)
9. Devon (Exeter, Plymouth, Torquay, Paignton, Barnstaple, Tiverton, Newton Abbot, Tavistock)
10. Dorset (Dorchester, Poole, Weymouth, Sherborne, Wimborne Minster, Shaftesbury)
11. Durham (Durham, Sunderland, Stockton-on-Tees, Darlington, Hartlepool, Gateshead, Washington)
12. Essex (Chelmsford, Basildon, Romford, Southend, Colchester, Harlow, Brentwood, West Ham)
13. Gloucestershire (Gloucester, Bristol, Cheltenham, Stroud, Cirencester, Tewkesbury)
14. Hampshire (Winchester, Southampton, Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Basingstoke, Newport)
15. Herefordshire (Hereford, Ross-on-Wye, Leominster, Ledbury, Bromyard, Kington)
16. Hertfordshire (Hertford, Watford, St. Albans, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, Hatfield)
17. Huntingdonshire (Huntingdon, St. Ives, St. Neots, Ramsey, Yaxley)
18. Kent (Maidstone, Canterbury, Bromley, Rochester, Margate, Folkestone, Dover, Greenwich)
19. Lancashire (Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, Preston, Bolton, Warrington, Barrow-in-Furness)
20. Leicestershire (Leicester, Loughborough, Hinckley, Melton Mowbray, Coalville, Lutterworth)
21. Lincolnshire (Lincoln, Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Boston, Grantham, Stamford, Skegness, Louth)
22. Middlesex (City of London, Harrow, Enfield, Staines, Ealing, Potters Bar, Westminster )
23. Norfolk (Norwich, Great Yarmouth, King's Lynn, Dereham, Cromer, Hunstanton)
24. Northamptonshire (Northampton, Peterborough, Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough)
25. Northumberland (Alnwick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Morpeth, Hexham, Berwick-upon-Tweed)
26. Nottinghamshire (Nottingham, Mansfield, Worksop, Newark, Retford, Southwell)
27. Oxfordshire (Oxford, Banbury, Witney, Bicester, Henley-on-Thames, Carterton, Thame)
28. Rutland (Oakham, Uppingham. Cottesmore)
29. Shropshire (Shrewsbury, Telford, Oswestry, Bridgnorth, Whitchurch, Market Drayton, Ludlow)
30. Somerset (Taunton, Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Yeovil, Bridgwater, Wells, Glastonbury)
31. Staffordshire (Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Cannock, Lichfield)
32. Suffolk (Ipswich, Bury St. Edmunds, Lowestoft, Felixstowe, Sudbury, Haverhill, Bungay)
33. Surrey (Guildford, Croydon, Woking, Sutton, Kingston-on-Thames, Wandsworth, Wimbledon, Brixton)
34. Sussex (Chichester, Brighton, Worthing, Crawley, Hastings, Eastbourne, Bognor Regis, Horsham)
35. Warwickshire (Warwick, Birmingham, Coventry, Nuneaton, Rugby, Solihull, Stratford-upon-Avon)
36. Westmorland (Appleby, Kendal, Windermere, Ambleside, Kirkby Lonsdale)
37. Wiltshire (Trowbridge, Salisbury, Swindon, Chippenham, Devizes, Marlborough, Warminster)
38. Worcestershire (Worcester, Dudley, Kidderminster, Stourbridge, Halesowen, Malvern, Evesham)
39. Yorkshire
North Riding (Northallerton, Middlesbrough, Scarborough, Whitby)
East Riding (Beverley, Hull, Bridlington, Driffield, Hornsea, Filey)
West Riding (Wakefield, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Halifax, Harrogate)
York (within the Walls)