# 'Midlands and the North', or Mercia and Northumbria?



## kebabking (Jan 18, 2018)

name change?

'the Midlands' is a shit term, its not really the name of a place, it only describes it in relation to other places - which is crap. not being a proper Northerner, though having lived in the North several times and very happily, i'm not really qualified to say whether 'the North' is a good term, so i'll defer to the Northern folk.

poll.


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## Pickman's model (Jan 18, 2018)

the northern souls


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## cheesethief (Jan 18, 2018)

A: Where is 'Mercia'? 
B: That'll be the Midlands...


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## Magnus McGinty (Jan 18, 2018)

Mercia ran right down to London and Northumbria contained Eastern Scotland. 
I think it’s fine as is.


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## StoneRoad (Jan 18, 2018)

Does the "Northumbria" include what is now the Lake District and the Border Reivers area ?


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## lazythursday (Jan 18, 2018)

I think 'the north' is a pretty good term and northumbria just seems a bit too twee for the modern north. I totally understand if our downtrodden midlands brethren wish to reclaim the term Mercia though, it does have a much nicer ring to it.


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## Magnus McGinty (Jan 18, 2018)

StoneRoad said:


> Does the "Northumbria" include what is now the Lake District and the Border Reivers area ?



Yes. And part of Scotland...


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## kebabking (Jan 18, 2018)

StoneRoad said:


> Does the "Northumbria" include what is now the Lake District and the Border Reivers area ?



i assumed it would be the old, litteral meaning - the land north of the Humber - rather than the modern county.


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## cybershot (Jan 18, 2018)

'The North' is basically anything above the M25 these days isn't it to the London 'yoof'


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## chilango (Jan 18, 2018)

StoneRoad said:


> Does the "Northumbria" include what is now the Lake District and the Border Reivers area ?



No.

Much of Cumbria (Yr Hen Ogledd, Rheged, Strathcylde whatever) wasn't part of Northumbria and only joined a unified England later iirc.


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## weepiper (Jan 18, 2018)

c800AD.


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## danny la rouge (Jan 18, 2018)

It depends on which dates you want to use as the template, but perhaps the English and Welsh forums could be rearranged thusly:







The Danelaw forum would cover the north and east (including London), and Alfred's Kingdom would include much of the south west, excluding those areas where the Britons were not under Alfred's rule.  It would be up to those remaining areas to decide which forum to join or form their own.

*runs*


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## Magnus McGinty (Jan 18, 2018)

kebabking said:


> i assumed it would be the old, litteral meaning - the land north of the Humber - rather than the modern county.



The ‘modern county’ is called Northumberland not Northumbria.


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## Vintage Paw (Jan 18, 2018)

I like 'The Midlands.' It sounds kind of naff. It's apt.


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## DotCommunist (Jan 18, 2018)

I like the Danelaw myself. We'd probably still be drinking foaming ale from horns and bullying churls if it wasn't for edward the elder


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## DotCommunist (Jan 18, 2018)

depending on where in anglia/midlands/danelaw I've lived depends which sets of 'local news' and 'regional programming' I get. This used to be more novelty when there was more regional variance rather than the homogeneous bland gruel we call modern local news.


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## Shirl (Jan 18, 2018)

Yorkshire and surroundings


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## Tom A (Jan 24, 2018)

The People's Republic of Northumbromercia.


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## LDC (Jan 24, 2018)

First thing I thought when I saw the name of this sub-forum was 'fucking typical Londoners lumping the Midlands and the north together.' 

Surely the north should have its own sub-forum, then the Midlands can just be ignored.

I'm a southerner by birth (and lived there most of my life) btw, although have defected to Yorkshire and couldn't be paid enough to go back.


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## friedaweed (Jan 29, 2018)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> First thing I thought when I saw the name of this sub-forum was 'fucking typical Londoners lumping the Midlands and the north together.'
> 
> Surely the north should have its own sub-forum, then the Midlands can just be ignored.
> 
> I'm a southerner by birth (and lived there most of my life) btw, although have defected to Yorkshire and couldn't be paid enough to go back.


I've been campaigning for this for years. 

They've even got a separate forum for some Sunday league team they all follow


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## farmerbarleymow (Jan 29, 2018)

North should have it's own forum.  What Midlanders choose to get up to is their business. 



Shirl said:


> Yorkshire and surroundings



Don't be daft - we don't want to be accentuating the negative aspects of the North like by focusing on  Yorkieshire.  

It'd be better as the 'The North (grudgingly including Yorkshire, but only because we can't get rid of them)'


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## moochedit (Jan 29, 2018)

lazythursday said:


> I totally understand if our downtrodden midlands brethren wish to reclaim the term Mercia though, it does have a much nicer ring to it.



Either Midlands or Mercia is fine just don't lump us in with the north or south


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## moochedit (Jan 29, 2018)

kebabking said:


> name change?
> 
> 'the Midlands' is a shit term, its not really the name of a place, it only describes it in relation to other places.



So does "the north" and "the south".


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## farmerbarleymow (Jan 29, 2018)

moochedit said:


> Either Midlands or Mercia is fine just don't lump us in with the north or south



The 'inbetweenies'; 'neither one or t'others'; 'sandwich fillers'; etc.


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## mx wcfc (Jan 29, 2018)

I have a client with "Mercia" in its name.  I was talking about them to someone and actually said "Mercia are in, er, Mercia"  Comes from reading too much AS history.  And I don't think Northumbria ever had much sway over the lake district,  But like someone said above, it depends when, precisely you are talking about.  London was a Mercian town right into Alfred's reign, albeit Mercia was generally under Wessex control in later times.  And most of Berkshire was a Mercian possession for many years in the mid Saxon period.	

Edward the Elder did a lot to sort things out, but it was Athelstan who finally made England England.


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## JimW (Jan 29, 2018)

Elmet by moonlight.


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## Kaka Tim (Feb 5, 2018)

Shirl said:


> Yorkshire and surroundings



Greater Yorkshire.


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## moose (Feb 9, 2018)

Surely Yorkshire should have its own forum, so they can witter on about gods-own-biggest-baps-teabags-baht'at, out of sight and out of mind.


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## farmerbarleymow (Feb 9, 2018)

moose said:


> Surely Yorkshire should have its own forum, so they can witter on about gods-own-biggest-baps-teabags-baht'at, out of sight and out of mind.



We should emulate Trump and fortify the border while we're at it, to keep them safely contained.


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## Pwerus (Mar 18, 2018)

I always felt like using the names of the old pre-England petty kingdoms made more sense than just making up names like "North England". I don't care for "The Midlands" but "Mercia" just makes more sense. Not just in sites like these, but the way the government draws county borders and all sorts of things like that.


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