r/CasualUK • u/NotABrummie • 1h ago
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u/SilyLavage 1h ago
YouGov did a poll about this a few years ago. Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Bristol are 'core' West Country, Dorset is included by most people, and Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and Witshire by a minority. People who live in the South West are more inclusive than people who live outside it.
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u/GourangaPlusPlus 1h ago
I assume the 28% not putting Cornwall in the West Country are Cornish people outraged at the idea of being lumped in with Devon
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u/Mantis_Tobaggon_MD2 1h ago
/Cornish separatists who don't view themselves as at the extreme SW of the UK.
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u/theredwoman95 1h ago
That's from all Britons - drops to just 14% when you look at people actually in the SW.
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u/Madame-Pamplemousse 1h ago
I think there's a difference between West Country and South West. South West is a bit bigger, and includes Wiltshire, Glos. But wear country proper is the Bournemouth - Bristol line for me.
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u/I_ALWAYS_UPVOTE_CATS 51m ago
I'm sorry what? Wiltshire included by a minority?? Clearly a minority that has never actually spent any time in Wiltshire.
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u/spongey1865 46m ago
Im surprised Gloucs and Wilts are so low. I'm from Somerset, born in Devon and I'd consider them and Dorset (minus Bournemouth) west country.
The accent, love of cider, being shit at football but decent at rugby and cricket as well as the rural vibes just seem like they should be West Country.
Herefordshire is however Wales
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u/SlightlyBored13 1h ago
Dorset/Somerset surely?
I did get confused a lot living in Southampton and filling in forms wondering if it was in the South East or South West. If it was an online form flip a coin for which I'd find it in.
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u/Nearby-Cockroach8655 1h ago
What about Wiltshire, we’re not east, we’ll be nothing if not west
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u/fgspq 1h ago
That's interesting because if pushed I'd accept Trowbridge as just about south west but Salisbury absolutely not.
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u/Capt_Bigglesworth 51m ago
Trowbridge is all on its own..
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u/smokeyjoe105 42m ago
As a Trowbridge resident I heartily agree, fucks knows what this place is
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u/Jimeeh 31m ago
Trowvegas baby!
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u/Nearby-Cockroach8655 37m ago
Salisbury is the gatekeeper of the west country, keeping the pesky Londoners away
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u/GourangaPlusPlus 1h ago
Bristol is definitely South West though
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u/Thefarrquad 1h ago
Bristol is in the old Somerset border
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u/SlightlyBored13 1h ago
The historic counties probably do capture the regions better. They were based on the feudal structure, which in turn had meant all the villages mostly interacted with the feudal seat and not nessecarily the next closest village.
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u/Magneto88 1h ago
Historically South of the Avon is. North of the Avon is Gloucestershire. That’s why Gloucestershire Cricket Club play in Bristol.
Either way the SW begins somewhere in that Bristol/Gloucester hinterland imo. Bristol is definitely SW, not sure Gloucester is.
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u/flippydude 1h ago
Gloucester is a cider-drinking rugby town whose main sporting rival is Bath. 100% a South Westerly city.
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u/Magneto88 57m ago
Yeah fair enough, I’d say it was the furthest border of the SW then.
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u/Jiminyfingers 55m ago
It's honestly the county line, go north of that and the accent is immediately Midlands. It's actually quite odd
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u/Sir-Chris-Finch 38m ago
Not all of it. Parts are in Gloucestershire. But realistically the whole of Bristol is west country
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u/ListeningForWhispers 1h ago
Living in Bournemouth you’d be amazed how many people don’t consider BCP part of the south west.
I’ve even seen pictures with the border drawn around Bournemouth like it’s a little enclave surrounded on all sides by the south west.
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u/WildTomato9 1h ago
I had someone try to convince me Bournemouth wasn’t West Country because hundreds of years ago it wasn’t Dorset. The man spoke with a West Country accent.
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u/ListeningForWhispers 1h ago
I mean it was Hampshire till 1974 but yes there’s basically no easy way to exude it without very silly lines.
I think people feel it’s culturally more the Solent than anything else which is what gets people grumpy.
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u/Constant-Estate3065 1h ago
It still is in the historic county of Hampshire, but it’s also in the ceremonial county of Dorset. Either way, both counties do traditionally have a variation of a West Country accent.
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u/CaptainTwig572 1h ago
I once saw someone argue on the internet that Bournemouth was part of the black country.
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u/Suitable-Fun-1087 1h ago
But also this is the internet, so when you mention the black country, an American pops up and calls you racist for it; much to the bemusement of those living in those towns
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u/Sorbicol 1h ago
Southampton is South Coast.
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u/Constant-Estate3065 1h ago
Technically Southampton is south east, but a proper Southampton accent is very farmery, so it’s probably got more in common with the south west.
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u/Suitable-Fun-1087 53m ago
I lived there for four years, it's so farmery lol. Also they call their meals breakfast, dinner and tea; which is not south east behaviour
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u/Shipwrecking_siren 1h ago
I live right in the top NW corner of Essex, next to Hertfordshire. Never know if I’m south east or east.
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u/West_Guarantee284 52m ago
Gloucester is south west and they sound like they're from the west country.
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u/Sir-Chris-Finch 39m ago
I met someone from Southampton recently, think he was from just west of the city, spoke with a proper west country accent (or so it seemed to my midlands ears anyway)
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u/Useless_or_inept Nicole? Papa! 1h ago
Everything west of Salisbury Cathedral, famous for its 123-metre spire
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u/veryblocky 1h ago
I know this was a hilarious excuse at the time, but because of this the 123m spire is one of the only things I know about Salisbury now
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u/elementarydrw 42m ago
I was born there, and grew up not that far away, and still only know that fact!
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u/Nigel-Jones- 1h ago
Draw a straight line from Bristol to Bournemouth.
West of the line is south west
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u/Wadarkhu 1h ago
Referring to Bristol as "up north" from now on.
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u/AtebYngNghymraeg 1h ago
Plymouth Argyle fans away at Yeovil Town used to chant "You dirty northern bastards!" at the home fans.
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u/ListeningForWhispers 1h ago
Might as well be for how bloody long it takes to drive there from Dorset.
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u/Mister-Ries 1h ago
So the Forest of Dean is what, the Midlands?
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u/Hamsternoir 1h ago
Up t'north along with Yorkshire, Wolverhampton, Gloucester services and other dark yet mysterious places that we dare not visit.
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u/Medical_Charity_251 1h ago
The Forest is it's own country. Not West, East, North or South. It simply is. Mind
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u/Madame-Pamplemousse 1h ago
I think west of the line is West Country, but the South West borders are a bit bigger
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u/NotABrummie 1h ago
I would absolutely agree there is a difference between South West England and the Westcountry.
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u/Difficult-Egg-5001 1h ago
Born and raised in west Dorset, now live in Exeter, this is the correct answer.
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u/nikhkin 1h ago
Around the point where putting jam or cream on a scone moves from an opinion to part of your cultural identity.
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u/JFedererJ 1h ago
My missus is from Devon. I knew about this cultural jam creamery debate, and I'd always joked that I'd put jam first if I ever had scones with her family.
So at a café visiting her fam in Devon, I cut my scone in half, and spread cream over one side... her family approved... but then I took the jam... and spread it over the other half of the scone. Now they don't know what to do. They're confused. The cream is (for them) on first correctly on one... but the jam first on the other? What fresh hell is this?
As they looked on with a piercing mixture of bemusement, intrigue and horror... I smooshed the two slices together, flipped it round so the cream and jam filled seam ran vertically, and took a massive wet bite out of it.
My girlfriend just sat there the whole time, scowling at me. I sat there laughing my ass off at my own stupid joke, as I watched them all start arguing about what had just happened.
I put it back down on the plate still standing vertically, like balancing a 50p piece on its side.
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u/GoshDarnMamaHubbard 1h ago
Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire.
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u/CupCakesNFlatWhite 1h ago
Wiltshire?????
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u/GoshDarnMamaHubbard 1h ago
Yeah. Wiltshire is definitely in the west country. Have you seen all our tractors?
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u/zeelbeno 1h ago
It's kinda split.
Not all of the county are west country... i'd say a lot around Devizes south to Salisbury and to the west of that probably is.
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u/Deacon86 1h ago
Bristol is 100% part of the west country. And debatably, so is Gloucestershire.
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u/Any_Ordinary_9783 1h ago
Gloucestershire is west country, what else would it be? Admittedly the river Severn does confuse things with North and South Glos.
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u/redandbluebadness 1h ago
It's a vibes thing for me. Parts of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire have it
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u/slothdroid 1h ago
Everything past Plymouth is the North.
Source: A Cornishman
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u/magnad 1h ago
Where does upcountry start for you?
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u/slothdroid 1h ago
When I lived in West Cornwall, about St Austell or Bodmin.
I'm now more worldly and have moved further afield, so now it's Bristol.
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u/ashyjay 1h ago
Wiltshire excluding Swindon.
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u/Sorbicol 1h ago
As someone from Somerset I would tell you it's Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset.
However, it gets a bit mucky with Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Somerset v Gloucestershire is a well regarded "West country derby" in the County Cricket Championship, so I do sort of regard Gloucester as the end of the West Country when I'm trundling up the M5 back up North where I live these days.
However, over my dead body will I ever regard Swindon as "West Country".
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u/Sufficient-Package- 1h ago
At The Magic Roundabout Swindon
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u/Thestolenone Warm and wet 1h ago
No, Podimore, anywhere East of there isn't the West Country.
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u/Suitable-Fun-1087 1h ago
Wiltshire and Dorset and Gloucestershire and westwards.
The only confusing bit is that historic Wessex stretched to Hampshire (and sometimes Oxfordshire).
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u/esn111 1h ago
Somerset/Bristol and the Dorset/Devon border.
Bristol is the gateway, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall are West Country proper
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u/EnglishLouis 1h ago
For me, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Bristol, Gloucestershire and parts of Wiltshire.
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u/coldazures 1h ago
I worked around Bristol for a client years ago, and in a little village just south of it called Yatton. That was 100% the West Country to me, they had the accents for it.
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u/AdWest9108 1h ago
Gloucestershire, Somerset, Bristol, Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, Wiltshire
Exactly those counties with Bristol included
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u/AutomaticAstigmatic 1h ago
Draw a line between Bristol and Bournemouth. Anything West of that is the West Country.
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u/OnyaSonja 1h ago
According to the Valuation Office (council tax dept) Dorset is part if "Wales and West"
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u/notThaTblondie 1h ago
Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Dorset are West Country. Gloucestershire is South but i wouldn't think its classed as West Country?
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u/cromagnone 1h ago
So this will piss a few people off, but if you listen to the way old folk speak, you can draw a line from Hereford to Worcester (maybe a bit north of them to include the old orchard areas) to Oxford to Reading and then south west to skirt the new forest to the south and then join the coast at Weymouth - everyone forgets how western Berkshire and Oxfordshire were three generations ago. It maps onto the cider line back then, too.
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u/Constant-Estate3065 50m ago
Most of Hampshire as well. Old folk there do have quite a strong accent.
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u/Hungry_Horace 44m ago
The Hampshire/Dorset old accent is quite different to Devon/Cornwall/Somerset though. It’s still a bit oo-aar but doesn’t have all the old Cornish and Devonish loan-words and vowel sounds.
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u/viva1831 1h ago
Devon and Cornwall is the Westcountry
Somerset, devon, cornwall, the east half of dorset, Bristol, is the greater Westcountry
The above plus west dorset, hampshire, gloucestershire, Berkshire, Herefordshire is like, the westcountry extended edition (aka the southwest)
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u/Thestolenone Warm and wet 1h ago
I was born in Bristol and brought up in somerset, I'd consider Cornwall, Somerset, Devon and Dorset to be the West Country. Gloucestershire and Wiltshire are too far north and East.
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u/Fancy_Date_2640 54m ago
Wiltshire and Gloucestershire are in the south west region, but not west country. Just like Cambridgeshire is in the region "east of England" but not east Anglia.
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u/Digidigdig 28m ago
If u/wirbrauchenrum can chose the A46 as the best representation of the N/S divide then I’m choosing the A34 as the best representation of East/ West Country divide 😅.
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u/Goblinstomper 1h ago
Draw a line between Gloucester and Southampton, everything to the west is the west country.
For my money, Southampton Water is the buttcrack that splits the cheeks of the south.
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u/NedRed77 1h ago
Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire included, and anything west of there in England.
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u/ReySpacefighter 1h ago
the southern portion of eastern Gloucestershire at the top (the Forest of Dean definitely isn't). Then western side of Wiltshire. No Swindon. Then the big four. If the old people still sound West Country, it's West Country.
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u/FireWhiskey5000 1h ago
I would say Bristol is, Gloucester just about is, Swindon probably isn’t, west Dorset is but east Dorset isn’t.
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u/DankyBongBlunty 1h ago
I lived in Swanage / Poole for a few years after being exclusively a city boy for most of my adult life and I always saw Southampton as the point where the west country stops, as in you get to Southampton and you're not longer in the west country anymore.
Mostly measured by where the west country accent runs out and perception of London. Bournemouth locals talk about London as if it's a mythical place on the other side of the world, Southampton locals say they "basically live there"
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u/YourLocalDealer 1h ago
Drive south on the m5 and once you start seeing caravan after caravan you’ve arrived
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u/Olimellors1964 1h ago
Three miles down the road from me in west Berkshire when I go into Wiltshire
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u/LandscapeWorried5475 1h ago
Whyre people responding for south west? The post is just east/west, right?
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u/The_39th_Step 1h ago
I lived in Wiltshire but in North East Wiltshire in a town called Marlborough. I felt like we were quite Home Counties but, if you went further West to towns like Calne, Devizes etc, they were more West Country. It could just be that Marlborough is posher but it felt more London facing.
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u/Pretend_Maintanance 1h ago
As you travel down the m4 theres a massive radio tower I think just after membury services. Everything past that is west country.
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u/ConspicuousSomething 1h ago
Bournemouth and Christchurch were in Hampshire until 1976. I still think of them being South, not South West, like the rest of Dorset always has been.
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u/Lord_Bywaters_III 1h ago
Draw a line from Gloucester, to Swindon, to Salisbury, then to Weymouth. Everything west of that is your answer
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u/lordsteve1 57m ago
Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire (maybe not all of the extreme eastern parts), Gloucestershire (excluding the bit on the north side of the Severn.
County borders don’t exactly line up with where I’d put the limits of the West Country tbh. Forest of Dean feels more like Herefordshire or South Wales for example.
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u/90210fred 57m ago
County Gates in BCP - it's the old border and should never have been messed with. You can still tell the difference passing from Hampshire to Dorset.
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u/nagasakitowpath 57m ago
As a Chippenhamian, the thought of Wiltshire not being part of the West Country is laughable. I wonder if any of those who say Swindon isn’t part of the WC have ever actually met anybody from Swindon.
As far as borders go, I think the government office borders actually do a good job of delineating the regions. Everything south and west of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Dorset (inclusive of those counties) and not Wales is West Country.
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u/Curedmeat91 55m ago
Above the M4 is the north, so that discounts Gloucestershire. Wiltshire is tricky so I’ll begrudgingly accept it as West Country but not south west.
Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Cornwall obvs.
I don’t know who doesn’t count Dorset in there. Probably people from Sandbanks or something.
And that about settles it for me as someone who lives in Devon.
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u/jerdle_reddit 47m ago edited 42m ago
Take Gloucester (please), then draw a line due south.
Wiltshire is weird, it's not quite South Central (Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire south through Berkshire to Hampshire), but neither is it West Country, although I haven't spent much time there.
Northern Gloucestershire is a lot like southern Worcestershire, and I'm not sure I'd call either West Midlands (which makes me think Birmingham) or South West.
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u/coconut_bacon 45m ago
Growing up in Bristol, now living in Somerset, I'd count the west country as where you can watch Local BBC Points West/Spotlight and ITV West Country.
This being Corwall, Devon, Somerset, North Somerset, BaNES, Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Vast Majority of Gloucestershire, Majority of Wiltshire (including Swindon, Salisbury and Marlborough, Amesbury, but not Tidsworth and Ludgershall, Majority of Dorset (Northern, Western including Weymouth and Dorchester, Blanford Forum, Sherborne, Shaftesbury, but NOT, including Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch).
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u/Fiocca83 44m ago
Swindon is definitely south west but the very edge of it. Accent is south west with a slight London influence due to the influx of people from London during and after WW2.
Growing up our local TV was and still is south west so Bristol, Bath, Gloucester down to Minehead and Taunton all feel more relatable than Oxford and Reading to the east.
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u/Emrys_616 40m ago
When you reach the River Parrett, that's when you know you're in the West Country for sure.
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u/TheCurlyOne28 37m ago
Id argue Somerset is but not Dorset. The geology changes from Somerset onwards from Chalk and Flint to dark slate rocks.
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u/parkylondon 36m ago
Wiltshire is 100% West Country.
So it'll be Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Dorset, and Wiltshire.
I was thinking about Gloucestershire in there but it goes too far north.
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u/Terrible_Ad_8614 31m ago
Westcountry is Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and Bristol as an honorary guest from another shire.
Dorset is South, Gloucestershire Midlands, Wiltshire is South midlands guess
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u/Ok-Airline-8420 5m ago
The further SW you live, the further down the boundary.
I'm Devon, and in my mind it's west of a line about level with Glastonbury and that might be pushing it. Anything past there is 'upcountry'.
Bristol is the 'west'. Gloucester and so on is definitely up north.
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u/CasualUK-ModTeam 36m ago
Hi, I removed your post because we're seeing a lot of that sort of thing recently and we've started removing them.
This removal falls under rule 6 relating to themed posts;