Talk:Cumberland

Boroughs
This seems to suggest there were a few historic boroughs. It would be good to add some details. MRSC 11:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

At the time of the Domesday book, Cumberland was part of Scotland, hence there were no entries for the county in the book. It was certainly NOT part of Yorkshire! Exile 14:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually some villages in the south west of Cumberland (the Millom area) were included in Domesday in the Yorkshire section and furthermore I beleive Copeland or Allerdale Above Derwent Ward was memntioned in soem medieval documents as being in Yorkshire (this being before the creation of Cumberland as a county) Penrithguy 19:41, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Merger propsal
Makes sense to merge Cumberland (ward) into Cumberland, as that article actually has more information about the ward than is in this one, which is very thin content-wise. Lozleader (talk) 21:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Oppose: At the moment, with so little information on the ward, the merger may seem sensible, but the ward of Cumberland is a fairly small part of the whole county and is the equivalent of a hundred (county subdivision). Hundreds are notable in themselves and can merit a substantial article – see, for instance, Whorwellsdown. If the two meanings of Cumberland are merged, then the other hundreds of the county will eventually have their own articles, and someone will rightly argue that the ward of Cumberland needs to be demerged from the county. For me, it's better to leave the two as they are. Moonraker2 (talk) 22:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Renwick in Allerdale?
According to the table of parishes and wards in 1821 Renwick is listed as being in Allerdale above Derwent, well unless there are 2 villages called Renwick in Cumberland the only one I know of is or was in Leath Ward and was probably at the time a township of Kirkoswald. I wont change this yet if somebody tells me that there is a Renwick in the west of the county. Penrithguy (talk) 19:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

After checking the Vision of Britain site I note that there is no other Renwick in Cumberland as I suspected (seeing as I live not that far from Renwick plus the surname Renwick was my great grandmothers) but it was a seperate parish in 1821 but in Leath Ward so I am going to change it Penrithguy (talk) 00:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for putting that right. Not sure how that happened.... Lozleader (talk) 20:39, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I propose merging Cumberland (unitary authority) into Cumberland. For counties in which the administrative body broadly overlaps the historic county area, it is not standard practice to have two separate articles, e.g. Herefordshire is about both the ceremonial county and the unitary authority, whilst Huntingdonshire is about both the historic county and the government district. The presence of slightly different boundaries doesn't change this fact- e.g. the borders of Huntingdonshire in the Peterborough area are different now to historically. It would be quite easy to cover all information about Cumberland in this article rather than having two separate articles. Chessrat ( talk, contributions ) 00:44, 22 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Support per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 27.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:31, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Downgrade to weak support per DankJae's comment about being unrelated and the time gap.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 19:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Strongly oppose The original Cumberland was a ceremonial county, whereas the new Cumberland is only a local government region, e.g. the original Cumberland included Penrith, Alston et al these towns are now part of Westmoreland + Furness. -- Devoke water  20:43, 3 December 2023 (UTC)
 * The same is the case with Huntingdonshire, Herefordshire only has minor changes but that is still a ceremonial county like Rutland so maybe doesn't matter.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 18:06, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Support, simply because, as an encyclopedia user, I found this separation to be an irritating source of confusion. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 20:03, 4 December 2023 (UTC)
 * What was the confusion? Is the disambiguation notice not enough? Would moving this article to "Cumberland (historic county)" be an improvement? --Inops (talk) 13:42, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Disambiguation notices are a weak fix, and easy to miss (as I did). The encyclopedia user is not necessarily an expert on how Wikipedia works, and it is the user that Wikipedia is written for, not the editors. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:50, 26 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Strongly oppose, they share a name, but the two are substantially different. Firstly, the boundaries are substantially different for the unitary authority area, compared to the historic county, with around 25% of the historic county not in the unitary authority area. This is not analogous to Rutland or Herefordshire. Secondly, the county of Cumberland was a county in its own right with a Lord Lieutenant and High Sheriff, whereas the Cumberland area is merely a district of another county -- this is analogous to Huntingdonshire, but WP:OTHERCONTENT applies and I would support splitting that article. Thirdly, unlike Huntingdonshire, there was a fifty year gap between the historic county's use as a local government area and the new district. Covering different timeframes, while having to acknowledge the substantially different boundaries in the process would lead to a badly written article. --Inops (talk) 13:42, 9 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment Well said, it's merging an historic county with a local council, they don't even cover the same area. -- Devoke water  10:30, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment One factor is the maintenance of the sense of identity for Cumberland that continued, at a low level, for all the period after the merger of the counties. You see this in the continuation with the word "Cumberland" in the names of the two NHS hospitals that serve the region – there was never any suggestion that they should be renamed after the local government merger. Further evidence of that sense of identity is in Cumberland sausage whose protected geographical status was fought for when Cumberland was no longer a county. (Similarly, Cumberland Building Society, Cumberland Roofing, etc., etc.) I appreciate that a sense of identity is hard to measure, but the evidence is there for anyone who wants to look for it. For clarity, that sense of continuing identity, through all the changes, argues for merging the articles. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:10, 26 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Support, for the reasons given by Chessrat and Crouch, Swale. A.D.Hope (talk) 11:47, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment How does the merger make sense? have you looked into this? -- Devoke  water  10:31, 19 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose. There's little overlap in the narrative. Cumberland unitary authority exists from 2023 and its history should start then. OK, this is a personal preference, but as a reader I find it much easier to follow the two interlinked articles rather than historical, geographical and administrative aspects confusingly crammed into one  — so I'm the opposite to User:ThoughtIdRetired. The proposal merges a current local council area into a historic county, which makes little sense to me and is different from combining Herefordshire district into Herefordshire ceremonial county which are both current entities. Maybe Huntingdonshire is better split. The hatnote in Cumberland makes it clear what that article is about. The hatnote on Cumberland (unitary authority) could be improved by adding "for the historic county see Cumberland". Willing to reconsider if a compelling argument is put forward, not seeing one at present.  Rupples (talk) 12:31, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * There is a significant overlap in that both are/were administrative counties (the current one isn't ceremonial) and cover similar areas similar to the fact that Lancashire lost places like Liverpool and Manchester and Surrey lost places like Croydon the fact Cumberland lost places like Penrith and Alston doesn't stop the large overlap.  Crouch, Swale  ( talk ) 17:20, 27 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose. These are two different types of things with a large time gap between them; much easier to understand in two separate articles indexed by hatnotes. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose, per above, and the difference in boundaries between the two are too great, compared to the others stated. Looking at maps, both Huntingtonshire and Herefordshire have roughly the same boundaries with small changes all around it. But here roughly a quarter? of the historic county, all contiguous in its south-east, isn't in the new unitary authority, which seems too large a difference. Therefore leading to large disparities between the two definitions therefore best separate with the relevant hatnotes. And the fact that unlike Lancashire etc, Cumberland was fully abolished, so not linked with the new UA that happens to share its name.  Dank Jae  00:40, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Support, after some deliberation. The current naming of the Cumberland (unitary authority) article is unsatisfactory (this isn't an article about any authority, but a geographic area) and I think there is a strong argument for it being the primary meaning of Cumberland. I therefore considered the case for this article moving to Cumberland (historic) and Cumberland (unitary authority) taking this spot, thus keeping two articles. But the comments above about continuing sense of Cumberland identity make me think a single article covering the region over time makes more sense. MRSC (talk) 09:13, 30 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose Assume you mean merge with, not into. In any case, broadly similar just ain't the same. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 10:21, 30 January 2024 (UTC)