(Area: 1,027 square miles)
West to east, Cheshire reaches from the windswept Wirral peninsula up into the Peak District. The north encompasses industrial towns and the suburbs from Manchester and Liverpool, fading into the agricultural south of the county. Cheshire has been called "the Surrey of the North" (unless Surrey is the Cheshire of the South). The City of Chester retains many mediæval features, including the only surviving complete town wall walk.
Inland Cheshire forms a vast plain separating the mountains of Wales from the Peak District of Derbyshire. In the Cheshire plain are fine oak woodlands and countless small lakes or meres. At the county's western extremity is the Wirral, a flat peninsula some 12 miles long by 7 miles wide separating the Dee and the Mersey. The Wirral is now largely urbanized. At its easternmost extremity the parish of Tintwistle runs up into the Peaks; a narrow strip between Derbyshire and Lancashire.
Cheshire excels in dairy farming, resulting in Cheshire cheese.
Much of central Cheshire is a salt-mining area, as it has been since Saxon times, chiefly around nantwich, Northwich and Middlewich. There are also coal and iron mines.
(Area: 1,029 square miles)
Derbyshire has four distinct areas but all together creating the whole.
Much of southern Derbyshire lies in the green Trent Valley. Derby itself, a cathedral city, is a major midland industrial town, currently trying to diversify. The Derwent runs through the eastern edge of Derby, southward towards the Trent.
From the northern edge of Derby the hills begin to rise at once and the rolling hills of the Derbyshire Dales begin. This area is an in between land, for beyond the farms of the hills and dales, the land becomes rougher and the hills become the high, dramatic moors of Peak District, an area of glorious scenery. The mountains in the High Peak, take up the whole northwest of the county. The Pennine Way begins at Edale in the Peak District, drawing hikers in their hundreds each week.
The rest of the Peak District should not be neglected though. From Ashbourne the Leek Valley can be visited. Buxton, once a popular spa town retains its Victorian charm. The Peak District is known for its springs, as countless underground streams bubble up from the hills, and the ceremony of "well-dressing" that takes place in villages throughout the district. Historically lead has been mined in great quantities in the Peak District hills.
Quite distinct is the northeast of Derbyshire, with its coalfields. A great number of industrial towns and mining towns dot the valleys of the Derwent, the Amber and the Rother, socially distinct from the rest of the county.
(Area: 2,646 square miles)
Lincolnshire is a large county; in England the biggest after Yorkshire. It is divided into the three parts; Holland (the southwest), Kesteven (the southeast) and Lindsey (the north).
The county lies along the North Sea coast and extends from the Humber estuary in the north to Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire in the south. The North Sea coast runs into the sea with long tidal mudflats and sandy beaches for its whole length, so that the tide may run out a mile from where the map shows. The southern patr of the county's coast is part of the Wash.
Lincolnshire is mainly flat with a great deal of drained fenland particularly in the south of the county. There is one remarkable range of hills; the Lincoln Edge, a narrow ridge which runs in a straight line almost due north for some forty miles, through Lincoln and on, though "the Heights" as it is known, will rarely reach even 200 feet above sea level. Only the Lincolnshire Wolds in western Lindsey and the hills spreading out of Leicestershire into Kesteven have any claim to altitude.
The land of Lincolnshire is rich arable land.
The City of Lincoln stands on the Lincoln Edge, tumbling down to the River Withan and up again. It is a city of mediæval charm, with a great castle at its peak.
At the northern edge of the county are the Humber towns, Scarborough and Grimsby. Both are port towns. Immingham too near Grimsby is a main port for the Norwegian trade.
At the very opposite end, On the southern boundary with Northamptonshire, Stamford is a jewel built in rich Barnack rag stone, which has made it every producer's favourite regency film set.
(Area: 825 square miles)
Nottinghamshire stretches from the heart of the Midlands to the edge of Yorkshire. It is an entirely inland county, but low-lying; rarely reaching 600 feet above sea level. The River Trent, the great river of the Midlands, crosses southern Nottinghamshire as a broad stream.
The City of Nottingham itself is one of the largest of the Midland towns. At its heart is a mediæval castle on a sandstone hill overlooking and commanding the Trent. The cliffs in and around Nottingham have caves, some man-made; the mediæval inn "The Trip to Jerusalem" is built into a cave, and higher up the Trent there were cave-dwellers into the twentieth century. (In the ninth century Asser said that Nottingham's name in Welsh was Tig Guocobauc: House of Caves.)
North of Nottingham is Sherwood Forest, shrunk since the Middle Ages but still with many acres of woodland, particularly around Ollerton. Sherwood is famous as the legendary haunt of Robin Hood.
Beyond Sherwood lie the great parks of "the Dukeries"; Clumber, Rufford, Thoresby, and Welbeck. However by this time Nottinghamshire has changed; by Ollerton the coal fields have begun and the county becomes industrialised. Western Nottinghamshire in particular is part of an industrial belt together with eastern Derbyshire. The mines, though much reduced, have created new villages and towns, which stretch in a belt up towards the Yorkshire boundary. The major towns in this part are Mansfield and Worksop "the capital of the Dukeries".
The east of the county manages to remain agricultural. Here is found Southwell, home of a Cathedrals of great architectural interest.
The Fosse Way crosses the south and east of Nottinghamshire, part of its long course from Bath to Lincoln, and remarkably is almost devoid of villages along its route.
(Area: 1,343 square miles)
Shropshire is a large county; the largest of the shires without a coastline. It remains rural except in one intense district of industrialisation and urbanization at Telford and Ironbridge.
The River Severn shapes much of Shropshire. It passes through the middle of the county forming a broad, rich valley and floodplain. The Severn curls around Shrewsbury, the county town like a moat. Shrewsbury a town built on a hill above the Severn with a mediæval castle and Tudor streets. It was King Charles I's capital for a while too.
Further downstream the Seven enters the Severn Gorge where it is bridged by the famous Iron Bridge, a symbol of the Industrial Revolution which took root here. The town of Ironbridge which grew up from the works around the bridge, is no longer at the cutting edge of industrial advances; it is a heritage centre. Immediately north though is the growing New Town of Telford; modern modernity encapsulated. However a mile or so west is witness to earlier ages; the Wrekin, a lone, massive hill dominating the landscape and imagination and which has given a name since immemorial time to the area; Roman Viroconium, Saxon Wrocensæt, Wroxeter and Wrockwardine, and a contemporary administrative district.
Downstream of Ironbridge is Bridgenorth, a town full of history on a precipitous hill above the Seven. The ruin of its castle stares down over the Severn Valley it once commanded.
North of the Severn the landscape is flat, and given over to agriculture. Around Ellesmere is a group of small lakes, the "meres", including Ellesmere itself. However westward the hills begin to rise. At the edge of this area is the historic town of Oswestry.
South of the Severn Shropshire has new scenic glories of wilder hills, especially westward towards Radnorshire. In this part of the shire are high, rounded hills, deep-set valleys, and woods full of charm all around. The chief town of the south of the county is Ludlow, set on a hill and the former capital of Wales (despite not being in Wales). Ludlow retains its age-worn charm and is full of fine timbered houses. In the town itself is Ludlow Castle. North are the distinctive long hills of the district such as the Long Mynd and Wenlock Edge (an inspiration for Housman's A Shropshire Lad).
(Area: 1,171 square miles)
Staffordshire stretches from the Black Country in the south into forest in the north. South-eastern Staffordshire is covered by urban growth arising from its central part in the Industrial Revolution. This is the Black Country, rich in coal mines and strung with industrial canals. The heavy industry of the nineteenth century gathered here and in nearby Birmingham, so that all have grown together into a giant conurbation of communities, in which are the City of Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, Walsall and Wednesbury.
In complete contrast, elsewhere there is fine natural scenery. Dovedale, on the boundary of Staffordshire, and Beresford Dale are renowned. The high ground in the north of the county north of Leek has beautiful valleys as the land rises up to the Peak District.
The Potteries district lies on the upper Trent, where Stoke on Trent and Newcastle under Lyme have grown together. In the centre of the county is Stafford itself.
Lichfield is one of the smaller cities of the land. Restrained in its houses and shops, the city has a large and ornate three-spired mediæval cathedral. The bishopric is one of the oldest in Britain (and indeed it became briefly the seat of an archbishop under King Offa). Eastward there remains something of the open heaths of Cannock Chase.
Burton-on-Trent in the east is historically the heart of the brewing industry, a continuing tradition.