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The Shires of Britain

The Shires of Britain are held here for the timeframe The term "Shire" is a traditional name for a division of land, found in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand as well as some other English-speaking countries The word “shire” derives from the Old English “scir” which is from the Proto-Germanic “skizo” (Old High German “scira”), denoting an "official charge," a "district under a governor" and a "care" It was first used in the Kingdom of Wessex from the beginning of Anglo-Saxon settlement, and spread to most of the rest of England in the tenth century, along with the West Saxon kingdom's political domination The Domesday event (in 1086) divided the city of York into shires and the first shires of Scotland were created in English-settled areas such as Lothian and the Borders, in the ninth century--King David I more consistently created shires and appointed sheriffs across lowland shores of Scotland A shire in the early days was governed by an “ealdorman” and in the later Anglo-Saxon period by a royal official known as a "shire reeve" or sheriff. The shires were divided into “hundreds” or “wapentakes,” although other less common sub-divisions also existed. An alternative name for a shire was a "sheriffdom" until sheriff court reforms separated the two concepts The phrase "shire county" applies, unofficially, to non-metropolitan counties in England, specifically those that are not local unitary authority areas. In Scotland the word "county" was not adopted for the shires. Although "county" appears in some texts, "shire" was the normal name until counties for statutory purposes were created in the nineteenth century. In Ireland "shire" was not used for the counties In most cases, the "shire town" is the seat of the shire's government, or was historically. Sometimes the nomenclature exists even where "county" is used in place of "shire" as in, for instance, Kentville in Nova Scotia Across the UK, a shire became synonymous with a county, an administrative term introduced to England through the Norman Conquest, in A.D. 1066 In contemporary British usage, the word "counties" also refers to "shires", mainly in places, such as Shire Hall A few UK counties were archaically known with a "shire" (Devon, Dorset, Rutland and Somerset)--these were dropped at various points while many others have retained the term (Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Yorkshire, etc). Hexhamshire was a county in the north-east of England from the early 12th century until 1572, when it was incorporated into Northumberland. Essex, Kent, and Sussex never bore a -shire suffix, as each represented a former Anglo-Saxon kingdom; similarly Cornwall was a British kingdom before it became an English county. The term "shire" was also never used in the names of the six traditional counties of Northern Ireland [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shire ]

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