County of Bristol

Reads 1772 • Replies 29 • Started Saturday, February 21, 2015 4:43:06 PM CT

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Message thirstyrabbit beers 2001 º 16:43 Sat 2/21/2015 Can anyone explain why County of Bristol is lumped in together with County of Gloucestershire here in the "Regions" stats? What are your thoughts on this? I was looking forward to complete my 20th English county tick but I guess it’s not to be at this time.
Message SarkyNorthener beers 5200 º places 142 º 16:54 Sat 2/21/2015 I think it’s based on the historic counties of a England. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historic_counties_of_England
Message andrew_drinks beers 234 º places 7 º 17:00 Sat 2/21/2015 There’s no such county! You have Somerset and Gloucestershire, and Bristol as a city is split between the two. I can only assume it’s on here because it would be pretty confusing t have some Bristol breweries in one county and the others in the other.
Message SaintMatty beers 10537 º places 381 º 17:19 Sat 2/21/2015 Yeah, never heard of Bristol being a county before.

Message BeerViking beers 9209 º places 134 º 17:19 Sat 2/21/2015 Originally posted by andrew_drinks There’s no such county! You have Somerset and Gloucestershire, and Bristol as a city is split between the two. I can only assume it’s on here because it would be pretty confusing t have some Bristol breweries in one county and the others in the other. Thou knowest not of what thou speakest. Bristol became a county as well as a city in 1373. It was a county for 600 years - I remember the celebrations - before briefly (in historical terms) becoming part of County Avon. It’s been a proud city and county again since Avon was abolished (to general rejoicing) in 1996. I suspect the lumping in with Gloucestershire here is because that’s what CAMRA does, though why CAMRA does it I don’t know!
Message andrew_drinks beers 234 º places 7 º 17:36 Sat 2/21/2015 On the contrary, that’s my old patch! It has been a county in the past, it’s only a county now in the sense that the City of Bristol is a unitary authority... but it’s not a county - otherwise we’d be talking about Bath and North East Somerset as a county too.
Message thirstyrabbit beers 2001 º 17:45 Sat 2/21/2015 Okay, I get it. It’s like a low alcohol beer - "technically" a beer but not really
Message andrew_drinks beers 234 º places 7 º 17:45 Sat 2/21/2015 Got it

Message downender beers 11237 º places 531 º 17:51 Sat 2/21/2015 This was discussed to death on the QI forum, the main point being there is more than one definition of a ’county’: http://old.qi.com/talk/viewtopic.php?t=9152&start=0&sid=71bcfc08adc85ffa7df5622ec30bf97c Note also that pretty much everywhere in South Gloucestershire has both a Bristol postal address and a Bristol postcode, but is not and never has been part of the City of Bristol. Separating the two would be a fun job!
Message harrisoni P beers 25367 º places 68 º 01:50 Sun 2/22/2015 Do Gloucestershire play cricket in Bristol? Yes? There’s your answer.
Message chriso P beers 7540 º places 736 º 05:53 Sun 2/22/2015 Originally posted by downender Note also that pretty much everywhere in South Gloucestershire has both a Bristol postal address and a Bristol postcode, but is not and never has been part of the City of Bristol. Separating the two would be a fun job! Indeed. And since the county is no longer part of the postal address, the only way to do this would be by poring over an OS map. Of course, since the county is not part of the postal address we could use any divisions we like - although the mapping system would struggle if we used something it’s not familiar with. Partly for these reasons, we have used "Ceremonial Counties" even though they largely have little practical relevance today. They do, however, have the advantage of widespread usage, familiarity and a degree of geographic coherence. They are also the boundaries that are marked on most maps so it’s possible to check things out reasonably easily in cases of doubt. The alternative would be to use current administrative areas, which would involve including all the unitary authorities. It is not an attractive option. And it will probably all be reorganised again in a few years anyway. There are indeed several definitions of "county" and Bristol did get "city county" status under one of those definitions in the middle ages. However, many other towns and cities have had similar status under one or other of those defintions at some time or other. More on that at http://www.maproom.org/t/brcounties/bristol.php The majority of Bristol is within Gloucestershire’s county borders so it makes most sense to include it there. Having divisions that include "island" cities and towns that are geographically contained within a county on the basis of their administrative status, past or present, may appease some sensibilities but is not terribly useful for the majority of users. As a Somerset man I am a little uncomfortable with parts of Bristol south of the river being included in Gloucestershire but it would not be helpful to users to separate them out. I would like to move to a "metro" based system for places on Ratebeer, in the same way as things are set up in the US but this would be challenging in terms of structure (it’s difficult to design a system that covers all the bases - London puts a lot of spanners in the works) and resources, particularly in the techie area. Resources are scarce, so I’m not sure it’s going to happen any time soon.