MIDDLE ENGLAND
There has been a debate raising its head on and off now for several years, as to where the centre of England is located. It has developed into an argument about concepts for which there does not appear to be any correct answer. It was a comment from a member who was trying to find the centre at Lindley Hall Farm near Fenny Drayton, where, according to This Leicestershire, a 6 ft post (railway sleeper) with a plaque on it states the site to be the Centre of England. It was covered on local news as well but could not be accessed by our member so we cannot confirm that it is actually there. Given this claim to fame it should be made more of. LCC inform us however that the publicity was ill advised as it is on private land and not close to a right of way. There are in fact two dead end paths either side of it and it screams for making them a circular by linking past this point to enable the landowner to diversify and make something of it.
Having said all that, there is no general consensus that the centre is there but it probably has as much of a case to make as the other claimants and appears to be the most accepted choice.
Meriden, near Coventry does claim to be the centre of England but it is all in how you determine it. How do you measure the centre of an irregular object such as England or Britain? So far I have found 29 different definitions suggested but no doubt more will be forthcoming and I know from various conversations over recent years, that some of you have taken an interest so I am jotting this down to stimulate more debate.
The one I have always favoured was the point at which you would be furthest from the sea. This would put Meriden only a few miles out but how to measure even this is not a fine art. Given the shape of Britain the answer on this basis would be the same for both England & Britain which is perhaps the best argument for coming up with something better. However, when looking at England, do you include Wales or should it be from the Welsh border when this is nearer than the sea
However taking this system the OS have decided that the answer for Britain would be just south of Church Flats Farm just the Derbyshire side of the border with Leicestershire. This assumes ‘as the crow flies’ but a case might be said that as it is flat to the east but going west you have to climb hills then the answer in strides would be farther east. Presumably such measurements are done when the tide is in but do you include estuaries? They have however for the purposes of this exercise, treated Britain as a whole.
A commonly accepted alternative is to take the longest line of longitude the length of Britain and the halfway point is then the centre. This comes out at Haltwistle where several local enterprises promote their being at the centre of Britain. Could not the same case not be made for the longest line of latitude although this again would be the same for England as Britain? Again it could be where these two lines meet. Why should they be lines of L or L - Should it not be half way along the longest possible straight line route on mainland Britain. Possibly the furthest point North and furthest point South should be joined, and then east to West and where these cross should be the centre.
I have seen it calculated by drawing straight lines between the extremities of Britain such that they never cross land and taking the common intersection point of lines then drawn from all the touch points across the country to each other.
Another well supported technique is to effectively rely on gravity and as such define the centre based on mass. This involves making a cut out of Britain and the centre is then the point at which it would balance on a fulcrum. This does not of course allow for the volume of land above sea level at any given point so should it be loaded so that the mountains of Cumbria weigh more than the flatlands of Anglia? Discounting this anomaly the OS calculates the centre of Britain by this means to be near Dunsop Bridge by the Trough of Bowland. BT does in fact have a call box there, claiming to be at the centre. They have however made allowance for the off shore islands. How, and should they have?
Using this method for England by itself the centre does indeed seem to be Lindley Hall Farm in Leicestershire, between Atherstone and Hinckley which is just over 10 miles north of Meriden. On the same basis the centre of Scotland is by the north end of Loch Garry by the A9 from Inverness down to Perth. Whilst not many of us would recognise it by name, for Wales it is Cwmystwyth surprisingly near the Cardigan Bay coast.
For those of you of a technical bent I am obliged for these specifics from a different source.
From the OS site: - The point furthest from the sea in the British Isles is at Grid Reference SK 257144. This lies just east of Church Flatts Farm, approximately 1 mile south-east of Coton in the Elms, Derbyshire.
Centre of Great Britain - Mainland only 5.5 km SW of Clitheroe, between Whalley, Billington and Calderstones Hospital. Grid Reference: SD 72321.72 36671.1.
Great Britain Mainland plus the 7 major islands of Isle of Wight, Anglesey, Arran, Mull, Jura, Islay and Skye. The Eastern Edge of Longridge Fell, 1.5 km south east of Walker Fold and 1km north-west of Turner Fold. Grid Reference: SD 68123.7 41406.29.
Centre of England (mainland only) Lindley Hall Farm, 1.5 km east of Fenny Drayton and 5 km north of Nuneaton. Grid Reference: SP 36382.2, 96810.73.
England (including all surrounding islands) Between Lindley Hall farm and Lindley Grange 1.5 km east of Fenny Drayton and 5 km north of Nuneaton. Grid Reference: SP 36373.66 96143.05
England and Wales Hurst Green Farm, 2 km west of Curdworth south east of Sutton Coldfield.
Grid Reference: SP 15627.33 92949.96.
Wales (mainland only) 3.5km North West of Claerwen Reservoir, next to Afon Claerddu.
Grid Reference: SN 81162.99, 67795.6
Wales (including all surrounding islands) 7.5 km north-west of Claerwen Reservoir and 2.5 km south of Cwmystwyth. Grid Reference: SN 79728.22 , 71704.43.
Scotland (mainland only) 0.5 km west of White Bridge on the B846 (General Wade's military road) and 5.5 km south of Tummel Bridge. Grid Reference: NN 76731.26, 53751.42
Scotland (including all surrounding islands) 3 km east of the northern tip of Loch Garry.
Grid Reference: NN66784.93, 71599.4.
Centre of London 300m east of Waterloo Station. Grid Reference TQ31330.87 79647.52 .
Northern Ireland (including all surrounding islands) Grid reference: 97004.44 533740.17
Northern Ireland (mainland only) Grid Reference: 96962.33 533666.07
Entire UK (including all islands) 7 km north west of Dunsop Bridge on Whitendale Hanging Stones
Grid Reference: SD 64188.3, 56541.43
Inspired by this debate (or should that be led astray) I took advantage of walking weekend to try and go and find this point. There is no easy way or dry way of getting there. I attempted it on the Friday before walking across Morecambe Bay on the Saturday and wetness wise there was not much in it. The route we chose was a very tough grind and squelch of about 19 miles and that was a bad mistake. It can be approached on a route of about 11 miles achieving a height of 1600 but that is, we were told, a very wet route. So ours was not? Don’t ever believe anybody who tells you water is always at the bottom of hills.
The shorter route goes through the Trough of Bowland from Dunsop Bridge going north into the access land up Rams Clough and then along Ouster Rake to Brennan’s Farm and then towards Whitendale but striking off part way along this stretch to follow a wall up to Whitendale Hanging Stones. From this point you can retrace your steps or from Brennan’s follow the River Dunsop back to the village. We elected to avoid what we knew was a wet area and walked in from Slaidburn over Dunsop Fell dropping down into Whitendale. We had intended then skirting the Middle Knoll to pick up and follow the aforementioned wall from the opposite direction.
Despite it being the end of a long dry summer, Dunsop Fell was a sponge and it took us three hours to get over it and with the prospect of much more of the same we decided in favour of discretion and headed down the valley to follow the River Dunsop down to Dunsop Bridge. We then followed an apparently never used and near invisible path along the River Hodder back to Slaidburn. All in all we had ducked out of what must have been a very wet 3 miles but still did 16 which took us seven hour of actual walking. Too much bog, too much knee high wet grass and far too much road.
The Hark to Bounty at the end was very welcome. Anyway we got close to the centre of the UK
Roy Denney