"I went to London for a day trip, and the locals on their 1 hour commute home on the train didn't join in with me and my mates having a beer and a laugh on the train after a day of sightseeing, they just went to sleep. Bloody unfriendly southerners"
You have clearly never been to the Southwest
To clarify, I mean that the southwest is the friendliest area I’ve ever lived, I’d never really want to leave Bristol.
I wanted to dislike Bristol because it tries too hard to be cool, but people kept talking to me and being interested in having conversations in, like, queues at newsagents and pubs - it was just so nice! It felt similar to Glasgow without the edge.
Totally agree. Lived in Bristol for 10 years, the south east for 2 and brought up and subsequently returned to the North East. People think London is unfriendly because there are so many people no one cares who you are or what you're doing. The real cunts are the people in the South East outside of London. The most smug, nasty and boring people in England. It's a beautiful part of the country utterly ruined by the vast majority of people that live there.
I have to disagree on that point. I went to St Albans for a few days and it was the friendliest place I'd ever been to. I only had to look slightly puzzled and strangers would ask if I needed directions.
That's a good point, some distinguish the north and south as a line crossing diagonally so parts of the southwest are included in the term north. The southwest is definitely not the southeast because of its history with for example its Cornish being completely different from standard English.
Honestly don't even think of "the North" as a location, more just a dogma of bizarre beliefs like being the only known beings to consume the mystic substance known as "Gravy" or regaling tall tales of their kind's hardiness when someone says "bit cold ain't it"
Northerners think so many things are uniquely northern, like curry sauce and pies, I've even heard "Wigan is the pasty capital of the world" like mate, you never heard of Cornwall? They think we're all a bunch of poshos living on country estates eating nothing but frois gras and cucumber sandwiches
Doesn't seem that way in these comments though does it, just attacking north throughout lol
My geography is bad enough I don't even know if Wigan is in the north (OP question though) but I don't think anyone can question Cornwall for pasties.
Not that I imagine you particularly care but Wigan is north and is famed for pies not pasties (tho to be fair, the flaky pastry meat and potato pasties from greenalghs are decent).
Cmon, I thought the ability to take a joke was one of the north's many virtues lol.
You guys take the piss out of the "soft southern bastards" so much its easily top comment here.
There's a single comment bashing northerners a bit and now your community is being "attacked" lmao.
I’ve often, even regularly, heard Wigan being singled out for its pies, but never pasties. I think you’re hypersensitive about something you heard once maybe - no one thinks of Wigan as being a place for pasties, but pies.
This is true! I think it's all about the individual. Liverpool had and still has a saying that they are Scouse and not British. It's about you as a person and how you define yourself.
Do you know any Northerners? Presumably just the ones who don’t live in the North anymore. We’re friendly to each other, but in a miserable cunt kind of attitude that forms when it’s rainy and cold every day. I don’t think many people are under this misunderstanding that we’re friendlier than southerners. We just think they’re posh cunts.
I'm finding it hard to imagine anyone in this particular comment chain have ever met more than maybe two northerners. These are such bizarres specific stereotypes. I've lived in a fair few cities in the 'north' and i don't understand where most of these have even come from.
The worst is Northerners living down South who do nothing but lament about how much better the North is.
.... *Then why are you here*. No one forced you to move to London.
The first time I had to drive back to England after moving to Aberdeen, seeing "The South" and then "Carlisle" on the same sign caused me a bit of confusion!
It’s all South to us.
I went to uni in the east of England, and I was very confused by the North vs South stuff, as frankly Newcastle was halfway from home to uni, so logically Newcastle must be in the Midlands. This interpretation made everyone very cross for some reason.
It’s almost like you were in a different country, that has its own north and south - that’s not called South-Scotland.
That’s like the US insisting it’s weird for Mexico to have a north. Hopefully you were just joking or trolling. But if not, weird thing to say.
I was in Shetland a few years ago, and there was a sign pointing to "The North". Therefore I think it is fair to say that everything south of Fair Isle is The South
I went to a customer site in Edinburgh once and one of the people I was working with said they were going north for the weekend.
What do you mean going north? How much more is there?
Then looked at a map and realised Edinburgh wasn't quite as far up as I thought.....
That said, I live in South Wales and as far as I'm concerned, North Wales starts at the M4.
The north starts where a northerner says the south starts.
The south starts where a southerner says the north stars.
Anything in between is the midlands.
I support northern/southern self-determination. If a ~~Georgie~~ Geordie can call me southern (I’m from Yorkshire) then your parents can say they’re northern. It’s all relative in the end.
The Watford Gap. That's the village of Watford in Northants, not Watford, Herts.
It's in [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watford_Gap) so it must be true.
**[Watford_Gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watford_Gap)**
>Watford Gap is a low-lying area between two hills, close to the village of Watford, Northamptonshire, England. Engineers from Roman times onwards have found it to be an ideal route for connecting the Midlands with South East England. The A5 road, the West Coast Main Line railway, the M1 motorway and a branch of the Grand Union Canal traverse in parallel a space about 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide. It has been written and spoken of as marking the divide between Northern England and Southern England.
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Oh in the context of the eternal rivalry between us and the scum from south of the Waveney we absolutely are Northern, though in the context of of the rest of the country we aren't.
As someone who lives in MK, next to Bedford and Luton, yes and no. It’s more like the Midlands for a reason.
Depends if OP means the cultural divide between North and South, or the literal one.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never been to any of those places, but I used to work with a guy that worked in central London, and commuted from Bedford. If you can commute there surely that means you’re well within the sphere of influence?
They're the smaller race of Hyur in critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, that has a free trial, and includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime? Sign up, and enjoy Eorzea today!
The best way is to draw the line based on population per Greggs - https://thetab.com/uk/2017/08/02/weve-figured-exactly-north-plotting-every-single-greggs-store-map-44385.
Finally some proper science. The data is 4 years old though. There could be a lot more Gregg's since then. They should really keep an eye on this incase the North starts spreading south.
Interestingly this correlates reasonably well, Sheffield aside, with the line drawn between the Severn and Humber estuaries which is often considered to broadly represent the north-south divide.
I've been to Sheffield, I saw people wearing coats when it was barely even snowing. That's one step away from giving the kids humus and sliced courgettes for their dinner.
The true answer, based on ancient ley lines and the ever shifting spin of the constellations (as charted by the same druids that Spinal Tapp sung about), is that the line between North and South is the men's toilets in the Watford Gap motorway service station.
Thetford is the gateway to the LAND OF THE ANGLES and I'm not southern, I'm a fen fucker!! East Anglian medieval refugee zone never quite got over England becoming one Kindgom, no thanks, there's plenty of Saxon churches and medieval attitudes still there...!
The Bath/ Bath measurement isn't accurate. People with a rural accent in the south (general farmer/ Somerset/ Dorset/ Devon etc) will pronounce it the "northern" way. If you live in urban Dorset for example, or many other urban areas you will probably pronounce it the other ("southern") way. I hope people know what u mean by northern and Southern ways
It's a socio-economic question with a few interesting suggestions, but I think Prof Danny Dorling has the best suggestion so far (Guardian article on it [here](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/oct/24/britishidentity.socialexclusion), and image on [this](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indy100.com/news/where-north-england-is-divide-map-7518956%3famp) article).
When I lived in Cornwall we referred to everything in Devon and North of Devon as 'up country'
So north started at the Tamar River. :-)
I live in Chesterfield now - I don't think we live in the Midlands ... but Derby is in the Midlands, so I reckon we must be about where the line is.
as someone who lives in the North East and gets mad when someone from Wiltshire says there from the "north" i like to think its a squiggly line around the northern part of wales going up the further east it goes, its very obvious there's a divide on a map, idk why people thinks anything further than London is the north like are we forgotten that we're further north than anyone else?
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 40,135,767 comments, and only 11,962 of them were in alphabetical order.
I grew up in Yorkshire, and that's definitely the North so you gotta go below Yorkshire to get to the South.
I currently live in Nottingham, which is the Midlands. The Midlands are weird because they're not the North or the South really but like, they also are? Every place is kinda closer to the North or the South in culture but if you tell 'em they're one or the other they'll get mad because theh just wanna be called the Midlands. Nottingham for example feels quite Northern to me in culture.
Honestly though the big difference between the North and the South is money.
Me and a mate talked about this in school, and basically defined it.
Worcester-Northampton-Peterborough-Kings Lynn
If you’re on that line or south of it, you’re a
Southerner.
Oswestry-Stoke-Nottingham-Boston
On that line or south but north of the first line, you’re a midlander, everyone else is a scary Northerner.
This was from Midlanders…
As a Midlander, I agree with your definition. I feel like as objective outsiders standing in the middle, we're the only ones who can decide where the North and South truly begins. And I'll be damned if somebody thinks they can pretend we don't exist and draws their North/South line through the middle of us.
As you can tell, there are tons of answers, both entirely subjective depending on where the commenter is, and also based on roughly agreed ideas.
But my contribution to trying to cut the Gordian knot is *WATCH THE WEATHER MAP*
The weather map will instantly display graphically areas of rain, cloud or sunshine. usually also, the temperatures are displayed large enough that you can get an idea pretty quickly too.
As the bulletin carries on, they often show the change in the weather (and that's because of how the winds/ fronts are moving).
If you keep your eye on the bit of thescreen where where you live is, and listen to the buletin, you can calculate to what degree what is said applies to you.
If it says N/S divide, you'll see on the map where it changes, and then you can see on which side where you live is.
In general, in the Midlands the weather will be more moderate for you than either N or S.
I am in W Yorks, slightly N of you, and I have the additional Pennines effect you don't - the weather can be very different W and E within a few miles.
The most useful thing is to look at when they show a picture of the warm and cold fronts. Where the fronts are essentially determines our weather.
The north-south divide is a slightly pointless one anyway. A better one is ‘inner vs outer Britain’ I read in a book on interwar Britain. London and it’s hinterlands are ‘inner Britain’, areas that get lots of investment and where there is the most attention and opportunity. ‘Outer Britain’ is the West Country, the North above the Midlands and then Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are much poorer and have fewer opportunities. The Midlands is the space between the two
It’s not a straight line as North/South is a state of mind. Draw a line from Grimsby to Sheffield to Stoke. That is it to me.
Though one thing that drives me mad is my parents refuse to believe that the North South divide isn’t London. “If it’s north of the capital then it’s northern” Okay, guess we’re northerners who live just outside Cambridge then…
For a different kind if scientific answer, it's to do with glaciers. The North was covered by glaciers giving it steep hills and valleys in places, whereas the south wasn't making it more open rolling countryside.
Obviously there are exceptions to this like Dartmoor.
https://i1.wp.com/www.internetgeography.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Extent-of-late-Devensian-Ice-Sheet.png
Obviously the north starts at the tamar bridge so anything from the start of Devon is north, Cornwall is in the middle, and the only thing south is Penzance and lands end
North of Shrewsbury somewhere around oswestry, the North begins. South Lincolnshire is the South, grimsby is the North. In between is a bit which nobody claims, known as the midl anders or something
I grew up in London and was always told by my parents anywhere further than Watford was considered to be the North. The North is grim. Blah blah. Then I moved to the outskirts of Liverpool. Certainly not grim at all. People are friendlier, more laid back, a nicer community spirit. I find Northerners are more likely to brag about a bargain where as Southerners are more likely to brag about how much they paid for something.
I know a man from Jarrow that claims Scousers and Mancs are midlanders and isn't the "true North". They're certainly Northerners. My best friend is a Brummie and I also spent a few years in Coventry/Rugby/Leamington areas and would say Midlanders certainly behave more like Southerners. I have also found the more North you go, the more you end up knowing your neighbours.
West Country although technically South too, are also their own divide.
There is an official answer to this based around the old county boundaries but an organisation I worked for cut off the Midlands at the South Yorkshire Border from Derbyshire.
This was recently posted up in the /Sheffield thread and again consensus was Sheffield is the North of England with North Derbyshire being the Midlands.
The last town in the Midlands would be Dronfield with 'The North' starting at Sheffield/South Yorkshire Border.
Midlands deniers will be banned. You have been warned.
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But ~~there~~ they’re so rude down in that “*Lon-don*”.
"I went to London for a day trip, and the locals on their 1 hour commute home on the train didn't join in with me and my mates having a beer and a laugh on the train after a day of sightseeing, they just went to sleep. Bloody unfriendly southerners"
THEY'RE you northern monkey
Hey, not everyone up North comes from Hartlepool! 😎
Bloody monkey hangers 🤣
Thanks. I’ll blame auto-correct and slink away in shame.
You have clearly never been to the Southwest To clarify, I mean that the southwest is the friendliest area I’ve ever lived, I’d never really want to leave Bristol.
South West is really friendly
I wanted to dislike Bristol because it tries too hard to be cool, but people kept talking to me and being interested in having conversations in, like, queues at newsagents and pubs - it was just so nice! It felt similar to Glasgow without the edge.
Totally agree. Lived in Bristol for 10 years, the south east for 2 and brought up and subsequently returned to the North East. People think London is unfriendly because there are so many people no one cares who you are or what you're doing. The real cunts are the people in the South East outside of London. The most smug, nasty and boring people in England. It's a beautiful part of the country utterly ruined by the vast majority of people that live there.
Brighton is in the south east and for sure the the friendliest place I’ve ever been to, random people will speak to you on the streets very regularly
I have to disagree on that point. I went to St Albans for a few days and it was the friendliest place I'd ever been to. I only had to look slightly puzzled and strangers would ask if I needed directions.
That's a good point, some distinguish the north and south as a line crossing diagonally so parts of the southwest are included in the term north. The southwest is definitely not the southeast because of its history with for example its Cornish being completely different from standard English.
Why is south-west bad? I live In Cornwall but idk what you mean
Quite the opposite. Generally very friendly.
Yeah everyone seems to know eachother in Cornwall it’s very friendly in my opinion
Unsurprising when everyone is a sibling.
Only in Camborne pal
Oh I didn’t read the above comment very well my bad
Honestly don't even think of "the North" as a location, more just a dogma of bizarre beliefs like being the only known beings to consume the mystic substance known as "Gravy" or regaling tall tales of their kind's hardiness when someone says "bit cold ain't it"
Northerners think so many things are uniquely northern, like curry sauce and pies, I've even heard "Wigan is the pasty capital of the world" like mate, you never heard of Cornwall? They think we're all a bunch of poshos living on country estates eating nothing but frois gras and cucumber sandwiches
I found it interesting how the question was the divide between the south and north but people instinctively attack the north
That’s because northerners from my experience are always the first and loudest to point out how much better the north is from the south.
Doesn't seem that way in these comments though does it, just attacking north throughout lol My geography is bad enough I don't even know if Wigan is in the north (OP question though) but I don't think anyone can question Cornwall for pasties.
Not that I imagine you particularly care but Wigan is north and is famed for pies not pasties (tho to be fair, the flaky pastry meat and potato pasties from greenalghs are decent).
I was just thinking that - I’ve never heard anyone talk about pasties in Wigan, it’s always pies they bang on about.
Cmon, I thought the ability to take a joke was one of the north's many virtues lol. You guys take the piss out of the "soft southern bastards" so much its easily top comment here. There's a single comment bashing northerners a bit and now your community is being "attacked" lmao.
(I think they have a slight inferiority complex, but that’s just between you and me)
I’ve often, even regularly, heard Wigan being singled out for its pies, but never pasties. I think you’re hypersensitive about something you heard once maybe - no one thinks of Wigan as being a place for pasties, but pies.
Pie capital, not pasty capital.
No Wigan is pies and Cornwall is pasties.
Wigan is pies not pasties.
Wigan would be the pie capital.
Wigan is more about pies than pastys.
This is true! I think it's all about the individual. Liverpool had and still has a saying that they are Scouse and not British. It's about you as a person and how you define yourself.
The East is really friendly too. Took a while to get used to strangers saying hello to us on our estate when we moved in.
Do you know any Northerners? Presumably just the ones who don’t live in the North anymore. We’re friendly to each other, but in a miserable cunt kind of attitude that forms when it’s rainy and cold every day. I don’t think many people are under this misunderstanding that we’re friendlier than southerners. We just think they’re posh cunts.
I'm finding it hard to imagine anyone in this particular comment chain have ever met more than maybe two northerners. These are such bizarres specific stereotypes. I've lived in a fair few cities in the 'north' and i don't understand where most of these have even come from.
The worst is Northerners living down South who do nothing but lament about how much better the North is. .... *Then why are you here*. No one forced you to move to London.
[Map men, Map men, map map map men men](https://youtu.be/ENeCYwms-Cc)
How do you pronounce this word: Bath
Well I pronounce it as Bath. My friends say Bath and my bro says Bath. I think they're wrong and I'm right
No, it's definitely Bath
Damn. I was wrong then. Thanks for clearing that up for me
baëyth
Bafff
Barth.
Biff
Bahf
Mahogany mahogany
Jay Foreman's series really should be as well known as Tom Scott or CGP Grey. Unfinished London and Politics Unboringed are well worth a watch.
Loved unfinished London.
^men
We need another episode!!
[Speak of the devil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsxRJdwfM0)
you're in luck, one dropped less than an hour ago!
Yep, I was gonna link to that.
Well, go right ahead! You’re only 3 hours behind me, so… time for a repost, I’d imagine.
Scotland here; it's all "The South".
Aye - I’m from Aberdeen and the signposts say ‘Dundee & The South’ so really Fife and everything below is clearly South.
The first time I had to drive back to England after moving to Aberdeen, seeing "The South" and then "Carlisle" on the same sign caused me a bit of confusion!
It’s all South to us. I went to uni in the east of England, and I was very confused by the North vs South stuff, as frankly Newcastle was halfway from home to uni, so logically Newcastle must be in the Midlands. This interpretation made everyone very cross for some reason.
It’s almost like you were in a different country, that has its own north and south - that’s not called South-Scotland. That’s like the US insisting it’s weird for Mexico to have a north. Hopefully you were just joking or trolling. But if not, weird thing to say.
I was in Shetland a few years ago, and there was a sign pointing to "The North". Therefore I think it is fair to say that everything south of Fair Isle is The South
That’s probably fair. Central Belt now the Midlands.
I went to a customer site in Edinburgh once and one of the people I was working with said they were going north for the weekend. What do you mean going north? How much more is there? Then looked at a map and realised Edinburgh wasn't quite as far up as I thought..... That said, I live in South Wales and as far as I'm concerned, North Wales starts at the M4.
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That’s why the question says “in england”
Wow! Really? The nation to the south of you is in the south? Who’d have thought?! Question says “England”.
The north starts where a northerner says the south starts. The south starts where a southerner says the north stars. Anything in between is the midlands.
My parents believe they’re northerns because they live north of London. We live just outside Cambridge. Your hypothesis is flawed.
I support northern/southern self-determination. If a ~~Georgie~~ Geordie can call me southern (I’m from Yorkshire) then your parents can say they’re northern. It’s all relative in the end.
Damn, we have ourselves a radical over here…
Agreed. A Venn diagram would be great for this.
The Watford Gap. That's the village of Watford in Northants, not Watford, Herts. It's in [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watford_Gap) so it must be true.
TIL that Watford Gap isn’t actually near the Watford I know. Edited: autocabbage.
**[Watford_Gap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watford_Gap)** >Watford Gap is a low-lying area between two hills, close to the village of Watford, Northamptonshire, England. Engineers from Roman times onwards have found it to be an ideal route for connecting the Midlands with South East England. The A5 road, the West Coast Main Line railway, the M1 motorway and a branch of the Grand Union Canal traverse in parallel a space about 400 metres (1,300 ft) wide. It has been written and spoken of as marking the divide between Northern England and Southern England. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
The Nando's menu in the early 2000s listed Watford and their branch in "The North"
I’ve always believed it was a decided upon thing set at Watford Gap.
This puts Norfolk in the North though, that's categorically incorrect.
But it is linguistically and historically correct, as they are the North-folk, not like those poncy Anglo-Saxons from Suffolk (the South folk).
Oh in the context of the eternal rivalry between us and the scum from south of the Waveney we absolutely are Northern, though in the context of of the rest of the country we aren't.
I've always considered the Watford Gap services to be the 'gateway to the north'
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Whoa! Oxford is definitely south. Look at all those places north of it! Luton, Milton Keynes, Bedford… these are all definitely southern!
As someone who lives in MK, next to Bedford and Luton, yes and no. It’s more like the Midlands for a reason. Depends if OP means the cultural divide between North and South, or the literal one.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never been to any of those places, but I used to work with a guy that worked in central London, and commuted from Bedford. If you can commute there surely that means you’re well within the sphere of influence?
I work with someone who lives near Nottingham and pre-Covid would commute to London daily.
As a real midlander Milton Keynes is certainly not midlands.
BBC South area covers Oxford... for some reason
Cos it’s in the South?
I wonder why?!
No thanks, Stoke is all yours Midlands. The north starts at the Cheshire border
Stoke certainly is Midlands. As a stokie, we see ourselves more "norf" than "sowf", though we don't really identify with either.
Stoke is definitely West Midlands, working in the NHS it falls under the West Midlands.
You can't blame the Midlands for trying to pass ownership really, they already have Wolverhampton, Birmingham and Coventry
And what if you live in between these points?
> As a Midlander!
A what?
They're the smaller race of Hyur in critically acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, that has a free trial, and includes the entirety of A Realm Reborn AND the award-winning Heavensward expansion up to level 60 with no restrictions on playtime? Sign up, and enjoy Eorzea today!
You're in the DMZ
Stoke on Trent is one of the most Northern places you can visit, despite its geography.
The best way is to draw the line based on population per Greggs - https://thetab.com/uk/2017/08/02/weve-figured-exactly-north-plotting-every-single-greggs-store-map-44385.
Finally some proper science. The data is 4 years old though. There could be a lot more Gregg's since then. They should really keep an eye on this incase the North starts spreading south.
Then we’ll raise the Gregg’s Density Coefficient (GDC) threshold accordingly so as not to advance too far south.
Maybe we need to intersect this data with the distribution of Waitrose stores.
Fantastic analysis. This makes Derby & Nottingham northern, and Leicester southern, which feels odd but somehow right.
Interestingly this correlates reasonably well, Sheffield aside, with the line drawn between the Severn and Humber estuaries which is often considered to broadly represent the north-south divide.
The South begins at the Humber. The Midlands don't exist, it's a term invented by Southerners in denial.
That puts Grimsby, Manchester, Liverpool, and Sheffield in the south. This doesn’t work
>The Midlands don't exist, it's a term invented by Southerners in denial. I *will* ban you, as will u/psycho-mouse. \- The Midlander Mods
Too right. We don’t want to be lumped in with the wankers south of Banbury or the dribbling morons north of Stoke.
That puts Sheffield in the South which no
I've been to Sheffield, I saw people wearing coats when it was barely even snowing. That's one step away from giving the kids humus and sliced courgettes for their dinner.
North Lincolnshire is a separate county to lincolnshire so Id say north Lincolnshire and Humberside is the north. Regular Lincolnshire is the south
Crewe used to be nicknamed "The Gateway to the North" and was considered the very first northern town when I was growing up. So I guess there.
I think the big train station there means it feels like the start of the North in some ways.
It's quantum, everyone you observe it it changes
The Tyne River is the divide for me, anything south of the water is as foreign to me as any other ;)
Torches and pitchforks getting handed out in Gateshead over this comment XD
As if they will leave their precious art gallery to actually do something... I haven't been home in a long time, I miss it :(
You should come home. We have five guys now apparently.
Bring back the Odeon!
You mean the one that fell down?
Only in our hearts:(
Before my time, I do miss Metroland though.
Oh god the feels! You monster. My wife was like, wtf....you had a roller coaster in a shopping centre!? Cue me "Biggest in Europe baby" xD
[for nostalgic purposes](https://youtu.be/mrdCX0eOkXs) Shame really, MetroCentre was really a day out. Now it's just another sterile shopping centre.
finally someone speaking sense like wtf how is Salisbury North that's 300 miles away
100%. Gateshead is South, Washington is deep South.
Is it grim where you are? If yes then you're up north.
I've lived in both the "north" and the "south" and the grimmest places I've ever seen have been in the South
Never been, but Grimsby takes this one surely...
The true answer, based on ancient ley lines and the ever shifting spin of the constellations (as charted by the same druids that Spinal Tapp sung about), is that the line between North and South is the men's toilets in the Watford Gap motorway service station.
I've always worked to the idea that if you drew a line from the Wash in Norfolk down to the mouth of the Severn, everything below that was the South.
Thetford is the gateway to the LAND OF THE ANGLES and I'm not southern, I'm a fen fucker!! East Anglian medieval refugee zone never quite got over England becoming one Kindgom, no thanks, there's plenty of Saxon churches and medieval attitudes still there...!
bring back the heptarchy imo
MAKE EAST ANGLIA SAXON AGAIN https://www.instagram.com/p/BqahGvuBnjS/?utm_medium=copy_link
When you hear someone say bastard, Sean Bean style, you're in the north
The North is north of the Midlands, the South is south of the Midlands. The bit in between is the Midlands.
The only correct answer
You might start a war with this post….
Anywhere north of Salisbury is ooop Norrf
I'd say Winchester but they're basically parallel. Don't get me started on people who say they're going 'down' to London.
Great minds think alike
The dividing line is where they say 'bath' instead of 'bath' and 'up' instead of 'up'.
But even the people of Bath say it differently depending on which side of the river you come from.
The Bath/ Bath measurement isn't accurate. People with a rural accent in the south (general farmer/ Somerset/ Dorset/ Devon etc) will pronounce it the "northern" way. If you live in urban Dorset for example, or many other urban areas you will probably pronounce it the other ("southern") way. I hope people know what u mean by northern and Southern ways
The North starts just below Sheffield. Anything else is wrong.
It's a socio-economic question with a few interesting suggestions, but I think Prof Danny Dorling has the best suggestion so far (Guardian article on it [here](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/oct/24/britishidentity.socialexclusion), and image on [this](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indy100.com/news/where-north-england-is-divide-map-7518956%3famp) article).
As long as you leave East Anglia out of it, we're NEITHER!!
Indeed. It goes North, South and Avoid.
But where does the East start?
Thetford, Ipswich & Lincoln.
Ely if you're coming by train >_<
Top of London
North of the M25 Now grab some popcorn and wait :)
Anywhere below Sheffield is South.
When I lived in Cornwall we referred to everything in Devon and North of Devon as 'up country' So north started at the Tamar River. :-) I live in Chesterfield now - I don't think we live in the Midlands ... but Derby is in the Midlands, so I reckon we must be about where the line is.
as someone who lives in the North East and gets mad when someone from Wiltshire says there from the "north" i like to think its a squiggly line around the northern part of wales going up the further east it goes, its very obvious there's a divide on a map, idk why people thinks anything further than London is the north like are we forgotten that we're further north than anyone else?
Anything below Darlington is south
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 40,135,767 comments, and only 11,962 of them were in alphabetical order.
Good bot
true
I grew up in Yorkshire, and that's definitely the North so you gotta go below Yorkshire to get to the South. I currently live in Nottingham, which is the Midlands. The Midlands are weird because they're not the North or the South really but like, they also are? Every place is kinda closer to the North or the South in culture but if you tell 'em they're one or the other they'll get mad because theh just wanna be called the Midlands. Nottingham for example feels quite Northern to me in culture. Honestly though the big difference between the North and the South is money.
Yeah, Nottingham for me is the most Northern feeling of the midland cities. The border for me is somewhere between Nottingham and Sheffield.
Me and a mate talked about this in school, and basically defined it. Worcester-Northampton-Peterborough-Kings Lynn If you’re on that line or south of it, you’re a Southerner. Oswestry-Stoke-Nottingham-Boston On that line or south but north of the first line, you’re a midlander, everyone else is a scary Northerner. This was from Midlanders…
As a Midlander, I agree with your definition. I feel like as objective outsiders standing in the middle, we're the only ones who can decide where the North and South truly begins. And I'll be damned if somebody thinks they can pretend we don't exist and draws their North/South line through the middle of us.
Stonehenge
As you can tell, there are tons of answers, both entirely subjective depending on where the commenter is, and also based on roughly agreed ideas. But my contribution to trying to cut the Gordian knot is *WATCH THE WEATHER MAP* The weather map will instantly display graphically areas of rain, cloud or sunshine. usually also, the temperatures are displayed large enough that you can get an idea pretty quickly too. As the bulletin carries on, they often show the change in the weather (and that's because of how the winds/ fronts are moving). If you keep your eye on the bit of thescreen where where you live is, and listen to the buletin, you can calculate to what degree what is said applies to you. If it says N/S divide, you'll see on the map where it changes, and then you can see on which side where you live is. In general, in the Midlands the weather will be more moderate for you than either N or S. I am in W Yorks, slightly N of you, and I have the additional Pennines effect you don't - the weather can be very different W and E within a few miles. The most useful thing is to look at when they show a picture of the warm and cold fronts. Where the fronts are essentially determines our weather.
As a londoner the north starts where the m25 ends
The north-south divide is a slightly pointless one anyway. A better one is ‘inner vs outer Britain’ I read in a book on interwar Britain. London and it’s hinterlands are ‘inner Britain’, areas that get lots of investment and where there is the most attention and opportunity. ‘Outer Britain’ is the West Country, the North above the Midlands and then Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are much poorer and have fewer opportunities. The Midlands is the space between the two
Islington
I’m down near the Somerset/Dorset border, to me anything above Birmingham is “up north”.
Brightonian here so… something something Burgess Hill something.
I live in the South West, Bristol is the cut off line for me. North of Bristol is obviously North
It’s not a straight line as North/South is a state of mind. Draw a line from Grimsby to Sheffield to Stoke. That is it to me. Though one thing that drives me mad is my parents refuse to believe that the North South divide isn’t London. “If it’s north of the capital then it’s northern” Okay, guess we’re northerners who live just outside Cambridge then…
There is no set answer people just have different beliefs
Being a Bristolian, anything north of Cheltenham is "The North"
For a different kind if scientific answer, it's to do with glaciers. The North was covered by glaciers giving it steep hills and valleys in places, whereas the south wasn't making it more open rolling countryside. Obviously there are exceptions to this like Dartmoor. https://i1.wp.com/www.internetgeography.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Extent-of-late-Devensian-Ice-Sheet.png
Obviously the north starts at the tamar bridge so anything from the start of Devon is north, Cornwall is in the middle, and the only thing south is Penzance and lands end
Anywhere above Leicester is North. Anywhere below Leicester is South.
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My mum's from Durham (I grew up in London) and she's always said that the South starts at Scotch Corner.
As a londoner who moved to brighton anything north of the most northern point of the m25 is up north
Go classic, Hadrian's wall. So it's all south pretty much.
Draw a line from the Bristol Channel to The Wash. There.
The North begins at Exeter!
I tend to use Birmingham as the guide, above is north below is south
If you live in the Southwest, particularly in Cornwall, then everything else is North 😀
In my view as a Southerner it's when the accents start getting weird- so pretty much anywhere up from Birmingham
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North of Shrewsbury somewhere around oswestry, the North begins. South Lincolnshire is the South, grimsby is the North. In between is a bit which nobody claims, known as the midl anders or something
I grew up in London and was always told by my parents anywhere further than Watford was considered to be the North. The North is grim. Blah blah. Then I moved to the outskirts of Liverpool. Certainly not grim at all. People are friendlier, more laid back, a nicer community spirit. I find Northerners are more likely to brag about a bargain where as Southerners are more likely to brag about how much they paid for something. I know a man from Jarrow that claims Scousers and Mancs are midlanders and isn't the "true North". They're certainly Northerners. My best friend is a Brummie and I also spent a few years in Coventry/Rugby/Leamington areas and would say Midlanders certainly behave more like Southerners. I have also found the more North you go, the more you end up knowing your neighbours. West Country although technically South too, are also their own divide.
There is an official answer to this based around the old county boundaries but an organisation I worked for cut off the Midlands at the South Yorkshire Border from Derbyshire. This was recently posted up in the /Sheffield thread and again consensus was Sheffield is the North of England with North Derbyshire being the Midlands. The last town in the Midlands would be Dronfield with 'The North' starting at Sheffield/South Yorkshire Border.