Chessington is not in Surrey
Am I the only person who is annoyed that the BBC keeps in referring to Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey? The news about the tests for foot and mouth disease appear on the Surrey page but not on the London one.
For readers who don't know the area, Chessington is the most south-westerly portion of Greater London and lies within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames which is a London borough. Many places around here have Surrey postal addresses (most of Kingston, Richmond, Merton and Croydon), which is where the confusion arises. But London incorporated all these back in the 1960s so journalists have had plenty of time to learn where London ends and Surrey proper begins.
Sadly the error gets repeated elsewhere. Restaurant and tourist guides often place Surbiton, Kingston, Chessington and New Malden in Surrey instead of Greater London.
Back to foot and mouth, the 3 Km control zone around the World of Adventures does cover some bits of Surrey but most of it is in Kingston, including my home - not that I've seen any evidence of it around here...
Update
Now the BBC can't even get the map right! Look at the one at the bottom of the page showing where Chessington is in relation to Surrey and Kent. Chessington is not near Guildford. The area marked Surrey on that map is indeed the administrative county of Surrey, so Chessington is OUTSIDE it. In fact, it would be better placed where the letter 't' is in the name Chessington.
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I must admit when I was at university in Kingston, I used to say Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey.
The non-metropolitan County of Surrey is the area covered by Surrey County Council since 1974, when the administrative county of Surrey was abolished. However, the administrative county was itself only established in 1890, based in part on the boundaries on a geographical county that had existed for the best part of a thousand years. The geographical county wasn't abolished or altered in 1890, 1965 or 1974, and Chessington remains part of the geographical county whilst being administered by Kingston upon Thames.
If the geographical county is the one that relates to historical boundaries, then I believe it stretched right across what is now South London at one time. The people who live in Southwark or Lambeth no longer consider themselves to be in Surrey, and neither do I.
Or have I missed something?
They say you learn something new everyday and today I have!
I agree - I come from Richmond originally, well lets be a little more place specific, Ham. But Ham as the years have gone on has been dropped from addresses and if you try to explain where it is the response is 'oh Richmond, that is Richmond, Surrey you are talking about, not Yorkshire'. The County name has stuck, people forget that it is not covered by the county admin boundary, just by the historical county boundary.
Why do these perceptions exist? Well, the post office decided that Middlesex should remain a postal county, and so the perception of Middlesex (at least within the bounds of the local government county that was abolished in 1965) remained. The Yorkshire identity remains strong, because Yorkshire folk are like that!
Local government areas change every so often, but it doesn't affect the geographical areas. Nottingham is in Nottinghamshire despite the fact that the City was only administered by the County from 1974 to 1992. Berkshire hasn't exist as a local authority for nearly ten years, but plenty in Reading (and a fair few in Abingdon, administered by Oxfordshire since 1974) would tell you they live in Berkshire. And a large area south of the Thames but administered by a number of London boroughs is geographically in Surrey, even if the perception of it has been lost by many.
But the confusions around this issue have resulted in a completely wrong map on the BBC report (see update on blog entry). It puts Chessington right in the middle of the administrative county when it actually lies outside it. I've emailed the BBC but they don't seem to care.
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