Middlesex, England

   

Middlesex as a traditional county.
Middlesex as a traditional county.
Middlesex as an administrative county before the creation of Greater London.
Middlesex as an administrative county before the creation of Greater London.

Middlesex is an area in England, mostly covered by Greater London. It is one of the 39 historical counties of England. It includes the City of London, which was self-governing from the thirteenth century. Middlesex no longer exists in any legal or practical sense, but is still used as an area name.

History

The name means the territory of the middle Saxons and its first recorded use was in A.D704 as Middleseaxan.

Middlesex was recorded in the Domesday Book as being divided into the six hundreds of Edmonton, Elthorne, Gore, Hounslow (later Isleworth), Ossulstone and Spelthorne.

London's northwestern suburbs steadily covered large parts of Middlesex, especially following the coming of the railways. In 1888 much of the area became part of the County of London - the present-day boroughs of Camden, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Islington, Tower Hamlets and Westminster were removed.

During the next few decades the county became almost entirely urbanised by suburbs of London. Towards the end of the period, many of the boroughs in the area were demanding independence from Middlesex County Council as county boroughs, which if granted would have left Middlesex County Council controlling an area with three distinct and unconnected fragments - in the west, the south-east and the north of the county.

Instead, in 1965, nearly all the remainder of Middlesex was subsumed by the new Greater London except the Potters Bar district; which was ceded to Hertfordshire, and the district of Spelthorne, which were ceded to Surrey. The greater part went to form the new London boroughs of Barnet (part only), Brent, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Hillingdon, and Hounslow.

In 1995 the village of Poyle was transferred from Spelthorne in Surrey to the Berkshire borough of Slough.

Usage

Middlesex is still used as a placename, and exists in the name of such organisations as the Middlesex County Cricket Club or Middlesex University. Royal Mail guidelines now leave the use on letters of the historic county, administrative county, or no county at all up to the personal preference of the addresser, and Middlesex is consequently commonly found on addresses outside the London postal districts (and sometimes, even within). From an organisational point of view the Royal Mail does however recognise the existence of an area called Middlesex as one of the Postal counties of England but confusingly it is not identical to the historic county boundaries - not only have large sections formed part of the London postal district but elsewhere the borders occasionally follow a different course, such as the village of Denham which is in both the traditional and administrative county of Buckinghamshire but in the postal county of Middlesex (short form Middx).

Partial boundaries of Middlesex are the River Thames, River Lee and the River Colne,_Hertfordshire.

In the area around Richmond upon Thames and Twickenham, one bank of the River Thames is often referred to as the "Middlesex Bank" , with "Surrey Bank" for the opposite side of the river - this identification is especially useful where the river flows in a north-westerly direction thus making the terms "north bank" and "south bank" somewhat confusing.

Places

The highest point is the High Road in Bushey Heath at 504 feet.

Places once part of the county are:

Places of interest

Districts

Middlesex in its final form consisted of the following districts


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