Talk:Hereford and Worcester

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Untitled[edit]

Maybe my memory is faulty - but I remember the name Wyvern being proposed for what became Hereford and Worcester. It was a combination of "Wye" Valley and "Malvern" Hills. Don't know how official it was...Lozleader 22:10, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

And interestingly, there is a Wyvern FM covering Herefordshire and Worcestershire!

My copy of The Process of Local Government Reform 1966-1974 by Bruce Wood has this to say about the namings:

The Bill also named the new counties [which had not been named in the White Paper]. Most, of course, were continuations of existing counties, but a few caused problems. Tyneside was not a name to command support in Sunderland and was changed during parliamentary proceedings to Tyne and Wear. Malvernshire was a compromise for the combined Herefordshire-Worcestershire county, but, again, was unpopular locally and, contrary to the Government's policy of seeking to avoid lengthy names, later became Hereford and Worcester. Cumbria, Humberside and Avon all proved generally acceptable, but Teesside was altered to Cleveland in order to demonstrate that this physically small county was not to be thought of as little more than an extension of the only recently created Teesside county borough.

Morwen - Talk 22:21, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the BBC claim that Casualty's hometown, Holby, is in "the fictional county of Wyvern [...] in South West England, not far from the Welsh border." [1] This has apparently been shown on screen. Wyvern has a similar story, except with Wye and Severn which seems more plausible, and [2] dates the radio station to 1982, with that explanation. There's no heraldic wyvern on Hereford and Worcester arms (1978) - which should surely have been inevitable had the name been proposed before then, whether or not it was rejected. So my guess it was invented before or by the radio station. Morwen - Talk 08:17, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There *used* to be a website with some information on the Hereford and Worcester arms, but it disappeared years ago. Basically it said the College of Arms came up with a design which was thrown out by the county council, somebody locally designing the arms as granted. There might have ben a wyvern in there at one stage. Lozleader 17:45, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the first para at the top of this talk page. Hooray! My memory works. Lozleader 23:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yay. Also, this talk page is evidently where I got the idea that the arms had a Wyvern on. Morwen - Talk 23:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removed paragraph[edit]

I've removed the following paragraph, which had carried a "citation needed" since August 2008, from the end of the lead section:

Its formation was hugely unpopular in Herefordshire, a county of The Welsh Marches rather than the Midlands, and a decade after its abolition it remains controversial.

Several things wrong with that. Firstly, as already mentioned, the lack of any references. Next, the first bit implies that it was only Herefordshire where H&W was unpopular, which isn't the case: I've lived in Worcestershire since 1976 and always disliked the combined county. And finally, I can't see how "a county of The Welsh Marches rather than the Midlands" can ever be anything other than POV. The Council of Wales and the Marches included Worcestershire, after all, which is certainly a Midlands county. The form of words in the para I've taken out only makes sense if you consider Marches and Midlands to be mutually exclusive, which in my experience few people do. Loganberry (Talk) 01:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Also, I have been a Malvernian for six decades and can confirm that although the people didn't take to the streets with pitchforks, the loss of the traditional shire was not appreciated at all by Worcestershire people.--Kudpung (talk) 22:41, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

District table[edit]

Hi there...just thought I'd mention that I've copied over the H&W district table to the article I've been working on about Worcestershire's boundaries. Hopefully there's no objections for this, however if you want me to remove it...let me know. Cheers! Bellow558 (talk) 10:16, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Merger opposition[edit]

Currently the article states "The merger aroused much opposition from Herefordshire people, many of whom regarded it as not a merger but a takeover by Worcestershire". While that may have been true it is not sourced and further the merger was disliked as much by residents in Worcestershire. As both counties were over 1,000 it was inevitable that residents of both counties resented a merger over which they did not have a direct say. However unless there is a sourced argument for it — the obvious one would be the a source stating the reasons why John Major thought it politically expedient to dissolve the merger — it remains unsourced speculation so I am removing it. -- PBS (talk) 12:21, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]