This weird and pleasant land: the best and the barmiest of England's countryside



From the country's only salt mine to the world's biggest cabbage, every English county has its quirky claims to fame. Here, Clive Aslet and David Thomas reveal their eccentric secrets.

Hambledon club, where the first straight cricket bats were used



Bedfordshire

More new models of cars first take to the road in Bedfordshire than any other county, at the Millbrook Proving Ground, which has 70km of on- and off-road tracks for testing vehicles. The smallest shire county, its local delicacy is a 'Bedfordshire clanger', a dumpling with meat at one end and jam at the other.



Berkshire

The Ridgeway is said to be the world's oldest road, in use even before Britain separated from mainland Europe, some 200,000 years ago. The county is also home to the world's oldest continuously inhabited castle, Windsor Castle, founded by William the Conqueror.



Buckinghamshire

Britain's most cinematic county is the home of Pinewood Film Studios: Midsomer Murders is shot in the Aylesbury area; the Stoke Poges Golf Club is where Sean Connery's 007 defeated Goldfinger; Slough is the fictional home of The Office; and Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in Marlow. Beaconsfield has the highest household income of anywhere outside London, at almost £75,000 pa.



Cambridgeshire

The last private owner of Cambridgeshire's largest house, Wimpole Hall, was Rudyard Kipling's eccentric daughter, Elsie Bambridge, who died in 1976. She once took her revenge on some sightseers who picnicked on the lawns by tracing their car registration number and having her chauffeur drive her to their suburban home, where she enjoyed a picnic in their front garden.



Cheshire

Britain's richest UK-born man, the Duke of Westminster (worth £7 billion) lives at Eaton Hall, which explains why many smart addresses in his London estate contain the word Eaton. The country's only salt mine is at Winsford.



Cornwall

Cornwall is the only one of England's counties to boast its own language: Warlinnen is spoken by just 2,000 people. It is also the nation's poorest county, with incomes 21 per cent below the national average. The first traveller to write about Britain was a Phoenician trader, who visited Cornwall, looking for tin, in 352 BC.



Cumbria

Cumbria hosts the World's Biggest Liar competition each year.

It was inspired by Victorian pub landlord Will Ritson whose notorious boasts about his home county's achievements included one that local turnips grew so large you could hollow one out and keep a sheep in it. Last year's victor, John Graham, won over judges with a tale of a giant cod he claimed he'd caught by hitting it over the head with a beer barrel.

The Red Arrows are based in Linconshire

Derbyshire

A university study recently concluded that the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire was the least cheerful place in England. In Cromford, the world's first water-powered cotton mill was opened, in 1771, by Richard Arkwright.



Devon

A mythical Devon dog, 'the hound of Dartmoor', inspired Conan Doyle to write the Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound Of The Baskervilles. The first Jack Russell terrier was bred at Swimbridge, near Barnstaple, by Reverend John Russell. Jack's bakery in Plymouth (established in 1597) is the oldest bakery in the world, and supplied biscuits to the Pilgrim Fathers, who left to colonise America in 1620.



Dorset

The citizens of Dorset's biggest town, Bournemouth, were revealed by a recent poll to be the happiest in the country, with 82 per cent declaring themselves content. Its Sandbanks district, built on a sand-dune, boasts the fourth most expensive property in the world.



Durham

The world's first passenger train journey began in Darlington on 27 September, 1825 and ended 26 miles away. The average speed was just 12mph, possibly owing to the world's first wrong leaves on the line. The world's biggest cabbage, at a huge 123lb, was grown in Swalwell in 1865.

The first train journey began in Darlington, County Durham



East Sussex

Brighton is the birthplace of a host of celebrities, including Simon Cowell, Katie Price, Natasha Kaplinsky, violinist Nigel Kennedy and comedian Tony Hawks. Anita Roddick opened her first Body Shop in the town, whose own tourist website promotes it as the UK's gay capital. This might come as a shock to the ghost of author Rudyard Kipling, who spent his later years at nearby Bateman's. The Long Man of Wilmington, cut into the South Downs near Polegate is the largest representation of the human form in Europe.



East Yorkshire

The Humber Bridge contains enough steel cable to stretch one-and-a-half times around the world. Hull has no cathedral, but does have the UK's largest parish church, Holy Trinity. For many years, its telephone boxes were cream, not red. Until August this year, Hull (pop. 257,000) was the biggest city in Europe never to have had a top-division football team.



Essex

Forget those jokes about Essex girls being stupid: Chelmsford County High School for Girls gains the best GCSE results of any school around the country. Chelmsford was the birthplace of Robert the Bruce, national hero of, er, Scotland.



Gloucestershire

The first ever tie in a parliamentary by-election occurred at Cirencester, in 1892. Edward II was murdered (painfully, with a red-hot poker, according to legend) at Berkeley Castle, in 1327. The last battle of the Civil War took place just over 300 years later at Stow-on-the-Wold, in 1646. Gloucester's Walls ice-cream factory is the largest in Europe.



Hampshire

The original Burberry coat was created by Thomas Burberry, of Basingstoke. The first straight, as opposed to hockey-stick shaped, cricket bats were used by the players at the Hambledon club.



Herefordshire

The SAS is based at Hereford, which also houses the world's biggest cider mill, founded by Percy Bulmer, in 1887. It is still perfectly legal to shoot a Welshman in Hereford on a Sunday, provided you use a longbow and are within the cathedral close.

The Humber Bridge in East Yorkshire contains enough steel to stretch one-and-a-half times around the world



Hertfordshire

The world's first Garden City was built at Letchworth, in 1904. England's first balloon flight landed at Standon, near Ware, in 1784. The De Havilland aircraft factory at Hatfield produced the Gipsy Moth plane in which Amy Johnson became the first woman to fly solo to Australia, the World War II Mosquito fighterbomberand the ill-fated Comet jetliner, which suffered from catastrophic metal fatigue, causing a string of accidents.



Isle of Wight

At high tide, the Isle of Wight becomes Britain's smallest county, but at low tide that honour goes to Rutland. The island hosts a twoday annual garlic festival, held at Newchurch.

Kent

The very first white roadlines in Britain were painted on the London to Folkestone Road, near Ashford, 1914. Contrary to the 1942 song made popular by Vera Lynn, bluebirds have never flown over the White Cliffs of Dover, they are natives of the US. Fordwich is England's smallest town, with a population of 300.



Lancashire

A Daily Mail article about poor road conditions, in 1967, inspired John Lennon to write about '4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire'. In 1617, King James I is said to have enjoyed his beef dinner at Hoghton Tower, near Preston, so much that he drew his sword and knighted the meat with the words, 'Arise, Sir Loin'. It has taken the name ever since.



Leicestershire

The world's first package tour was organised by Thomas Cook, in 1841. He took a group from Leicester to Loughborough for a temperance

meeting: so, not too much like Club 18-30, then. When a Leicestershire native asks for a ' croggy' they want a lift on your bike. Stilton cheese was originally made near Melton Mowbray.



Lincolnshire

Some 250 British settlers from Boston, Lincolnshire, helped found the American city of the same name. The Red Arrows are based at RAF Scampton, while the quick reaction Tornado fighters, charged with the air-defence of London, are at Coningsby, ready to scramble within three minutes. The Beehive Inn in Grantham has the world's only living pub sign, a beehive that has been there for 200 years.



The Somerset Exmoor ponies have lived on Exmoor since the time of mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers



Norfolk

The Norfolk town of Thetford was the location for Walmington-on-Sea in the Dad's Army TV series, despite being about 60 miles from the coast. During the Middle Ages, more than 1,000 churches were built in Norfolk, of which some 659 remain, arguably the greatest concentration of churches in the world.



Northamptonshire

The first police car-chase in Britain raced through the streets of Northampton - then, as now, home of the British shoe-making industry - in 1899. The criminal was caught and arrested by Sergeant Hector McLeod. The first use of radar to detect a flying plane occurred at Daventry, in 1935.



Northumberland

Berwick-on-Tweed has changed hands between England and Scotland 14 times, and its citizens would gain an average £1,153 per annum in additional government spending if it changed back to Scotland again. In 1464, during the Wars of the Roses, Bamburgh Castle became the first in Britain to be shot at by cannons.



North Yorkshire

The RAF base at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate, is home to the world's largest communications spying facility, monitoring calls and emails for UK and US intelligence services. Ripon is Britain's oldest city, with a charter dating back to 886. And in York, a Scotsman may be shot within the city walls after dark, with a bow and arrow - except on Sundays.



Nottinghamshire

Jesse Boot, founder of Boots the Chemist, came from Nottingham, where ibuprofen was developed, as well as the Raleigh Chopper bike and HP Sauce. Charles I surrendered at Southwell, admitting defeat in the Civil War. And the 5th Duke of Portland was so shy he built underground rooms at his seat, Welbeck Abbey, with a

tunnel to Worksop station, six miles away.



Oxfordshire

The White Horse cut into the chalk at Uffington is said to be 3,000 years old. Oxford has more published authors per square mile than any other city on earth, and its Ashmolean is the oldest museum in the world.



Rutland

Rutland is the smallest county in England, with just two small towns and 53 villages. It is the only county that does not have a McDonald's and is so small that it forms only part of a parliamentary constituency, Rutland and Melton. But it is the county with the longest life expectancy, 81.7 years; the highest fertility rate,

2.81 children per adult woman; and one of the highest standards of living.



Shropshire

Shropshire is not the home of Shropshire Blue cheese, which actually comes from Inverness, Scotland (the name is a marketing gimmick). The ruined keep at Bridgnorth Castle leans at an angle of 15 degrees, three times as much as the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In Tudor times, Ludlow was the administrative capital of Wales. The Shrewsbury Flower Show, founded in 1875, is the longest-running horticultural show in the world.



Somerset

The Exmoor ponies of Somerset have lived there since the time of mammoths and sabretoothed tigers. Cheddar cheese was discovered 800 years ago, after a milkmaid let a pail of milk go bad, while stored in a cave at Cheddar: the resulting cheese now accounts for more than half of all UK cheese sales.



South Yorkshire

Despite its grimy image, 61 per cent of the city of Sheffield is green space and it has more trees per person than any other European city. The country's first recycling bottle-bank was opened at Barnsley in 1977.



Staffordshire

Marmite was first developed from leftover brewer's yeast at Burton-on-Trent in 1902. Edward Wightman was the last man in Britain to be burned at the stake for heresy, in Lichfield market square in 1612. The village of Flash is the highest in England, at 1,518ft. Alton Towers, near Stoke-on-Trent, is the UK's most popular theme park, with 2.4 million visitors a year.



Suffolk

Britain's first nuclear missile, Blue Danube, was tested at Orford Ness, some 25 miles from Southwold, where Gordon Brown took his summer holiday this year. Lowestoft is Britain's most easterly point. Author Eric Blair took the pen-name George Orwell from the River Orwell, which he loved.



Surrey

Woking's Shah Jahan Mosque is the oldest in Britain, dating from 1889. The biggest vineyard in Britain is Denbies, outside Dorking, which was also where Charles Dickens wrote much of The Pickwick Papers. Abinger Common is said to be the oldest village in England, inhabited since the Stone Age.



Warwickshire

On 5 November 1605, several conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot stayed in the Red Lion pub, Dunchurch, now a private house, waiting to hear whether Guy Fawkes had blown up Parliament. The country's first lawn tennis club was founded in 1872 at Leamington Spa. The first petrol-driven four-wheel car in Britain was made in Birmingham in 1895.



West Sussex

Charlton was the home of the first pack of foxhounds in Britain, founded in 1675. Poet William Blake called the coastal village of Felpham 'the sweetest spot on earth'. It is now a suburb of Bognor Regis, close to Butlins South Coast World holiday camp.



West Yorkshire

The first Marks & Spencer was a stall at Kirkgate Market, Leeds, in the 1880s. Authors Charlotte, Emily and Anne BrontÎ, from Haworth, would have been called Prunty, had not their father changed the family name, inspired by the Sicilian dukedom of Bronte awarded to Admiral Nelson. The first moving film was shot in a Leeds back garden in 1880 by Louis Le Prince.

