A county town is a county's administrative centre in the United Kingdom or Ireland. County towns are usually the location of administrative or judicial functions, or established over time as the de facto main town of a county. The concept of a county town eventually became detached from its original meaning of where the county administration is based (see County halls below). In fact, many county towns are no longer part of "their" administrative county. For example, Nottingham is administered by a unitary authority entirely separate from the rest of Nottinghamshire. Many county towns are in fact cities, but all are referred to as county towns irrespective of whether city status is held or not.

County towns prior to the late 19th century reforms[link]

United Kingdom[link]

Historic counties of England[link]

This list shows county towns prior to the reforms of 1889. For 1889 and later see the section below

1. Lent assizes were held at Reading, where the county gaol and house of correction were situated; summer assizes were held at Abingdon, which was the site of the county bridewell. Knights for the shire were nominated at Reading and elected at Abingdon.^[3]
2. Sir John Baldwin, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, caused the county assizes to be moved to Aylesbury. Knights for the shire continued to be elected at Buckingham. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica considered Buckingham to be the county town.^[3]
3. The County Assize Court sat at Bodmin, and the 1911 Britannica considered Bodmin to be the county town. Prior to 1835, it was Launceston.^{[dubious – discuss]}
4. Knights of the Shire were elected at Cockermouth
5. East Kent and West Kent had separate administrations until 1814, with East Kent sessions meeting at Canterbury, and West Kent at Maidstone, the over-all county town.
6. In 1787 the Lancashire Quarter Sessions decreed that in future the annual general sessions for transacting all business for the county at large should be held at Preston as it was "a central place in the county." The magistrates of Lonsdale Hundred refused to accept the decision, and would meet only at Lancaster. The matter was settled only when a local act of parliament (38 Geo.III c.58) established that the principal administrative business of the county could be transacted only at Preston.^[4]
7. Knights of the Shire were elected at Brentford; sessions presided over by Middlesex Justices of the Peace were held at Clerkenwell; trials for persons accused of the most serious crimes took place in the Old Bailey before the Aldermen of the City prior to the committing of the accused to Newgate Prison (which functioned as the county gaol for Middlesex) if found guilty; while the county council had its headquarters at the Middlesex Guildhall in Westminster from its establishment in 1889 until its abolition in 1965.^[5]
8. Alnwick's position as the county town seems to have been based largely on its castle being the seat of the Duke of Northumberland, although Knights of the Shire were elected at the town too.^[6] Assizes for the county however were held mainly or exclusively in Newcastle upon Tyne. Morpeth Castle was used as the prison for Northumberland, and the county gaol was built there in 1824.^[7][8]
9. Knights of the Shire were elected at Ilchester. Somerton temporarily became the county town in the late thirteenth century, when the shire courts and county gaol were moved from Ilchester.^[9]
10. Under an act of 1791, the justices of the peace of the county of Surrey were empowered to build a new sessions house and county gaol at Newington adjacent to the borough of Southwark and in the suburbs of London.^[10] By 1799 the buildings were completed and the county administration was based there until 1893.^[11] Newington, or more inaccurately Southwark were sometimes described as the county town thereafter, for instance in a school textbook of 1828.^[12]
11. Horsham was occasionally described as the county town of Sussex due to the presence of the county gaol and the periodic holding of the county assizes and quarter sessions in the town. The last assizes were held there in 1830, while the gaol was closed in 1845.^[13]
12. Wiltshire County Council note that Wiltshire "never had a well recognised county town". Wilton had served as the seat of Quarter Sessions and for election of Knights of the Shire until 1832. Knights had been nominated at Devizes.^[14] A 1870s gazetteer describes "Salisbury and Devizes" as the "county towns".^[15] The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica names only Salisbury.
13. Nottingham was constituted a county corporate separate from Nottinghamshire in 1449. The area containing the Shire Hall remained an exclave of Nottinghamshire however.^[16]

Traditional counties of Scotland[link]

1. In 1900 Aberdeen became a county of a city and thus outside Aberdeenshire.
2. Inveraray (the seat of the Duke of Argyll) was regarded as the county town until 1890, when the Argyll County Council was created with headquarters in Lochgilphead.
3. The headquarters of the Lanark County Council were established in 1890 in Glasgow. In 1893 Glasgow became a county of itself, and was therefore outside the council's area. The county council moved to Hamilton in 1964.^[17]
4. Edinburgh was a county of itself, and therefore lay outside the county of Midlothian.
5. The headquarters of Renfrew County Council were in Paisley from 1890.
6. Newtown St Boswells was the administrative headquarters of the county council established in 1890.
7. The headquarters of Sutherland County Council were at Golspie from 1890.
8. Stranraer became the administrative headquarters of the Wigtown county council in 1890, and was sometimes described as the "county town" thereafter.

Traditional counties of Wales[link]

This list shows county towns prior to the reforms of 1889. For 1889 and later see the "County Halls" section below

1. Between 1536 and 1974, Monmouthshire was included by successive English and later, British, governments within England for some administrative and legal purposes. Always regarded culturally and ecclesiastically as part of Wales, particularly by the Welsh, since 1974 when new local government legislation was introduced it has unequivocally been within that country. The county is named after Monmouth, but the Sheriff's county court was held alternately in Monmouth and Newport.

Traditional counties of Northern Ireland[link]

Note - Despite the fact that Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, it is not the county town of any county. Greater Belfast straddles two counties (Antrim and Down).

Ireland[link]

Traditional counties of Ireland[link]

The term county capital is also used.

Other counties of Ireland[link]

County towns post the late 19th century reforms[link]

With the creation of elected county councils in 1889 the location of administrative headquarters in some cases moved away from the traditional county town. Furthermore, in 1965 and 1974 there were major administrative boundary changes in England and Wales and administrative counties were replaced with new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties. The boundaries underwent more major alterations between 1995 and 1998 to create unitary authorities and some of the ancient counties and county towns were restored for administrative purposes. (Note: not all headquarters are or were called County Halls or Shire Halls e.g.: Cumbria County Council's HQ is called The Courts). Before 1974 many of the county halls were located in towns and cities that had the status of a county borough i.e.: a borough outside of the county council's jurisdiction.

England[link]

Wales[link]

See also[link]

• Administrative centre
• County seat

References[link]

1. ^ "Berkshire Quarter Sessions". Jackson's Oxford Journal. 4 July 1868. 
2. ^ http://www3.hants.gov.uk/index/your-area/localpages/names.htm
3. ^ ^{a b} Samuel Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of England, Vol. I, 1831
4. ^ Webb, Sidney; Beatrice Webb (1906). English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act: The Parish and the County. London: Longmans Green and Co.. pp. 432–433. 
5. ^ Justice in Eighteenth-Century Hackney (Process and Procedures), by Ruth Paley British History Online
6. ^ "''Alnwick (St. Mary and St. Michael)'', ''A Topographical Dictionary of England'' (1848), pp. 39-44, accessed 26 January 2008". British-history.ac.uk. 2003-06-22. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50752#s20. Retrieved 2012-01-29. 
7. ^ "''Morpeth (St. Mary)'', ''A Topographical Dictionary of England'' (1848), pp. 345-350, accessed January 26, 2008". British-history.ac.uk. 2003-06-22. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51160#s6. Retrieved 2012-01-29. 
8. ^ "''Northiam - Nortoft'', ''A Topographical Dictionary of England'' (1848), pp. 433-439. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51184. Date accessed: 26 January 2008". British-history.ac.uk. 2003-06-22. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=51184#s11. Retrieved 2012-01-29. 
9. ^ Somerton archaeological survey (Somerset County Council)
10. ^ "Southwark Prisons". Survey of London: volume 25: St George's Fields (The parishes of St. George the Martyr Southwark and St. Mary Newington). British History Online. 1955. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=65440#s8. Retrieved 6 September 2010. 
11. ^ Edward Walford (1878). "The Old Kent Road". Old and New London: Volume 6. British History Online. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45279. Retrieved 6 September 2010. 
12. ^ Stewart, Alexander (1828). A compendium of modern geography: with remarks on the physical peculiarities, productions of the various countries; Questions for Examination at the end of each Section; and Descriptive Tables. Oliver & Boyde. http://www.archive.org/details/acompendiummode00stewgoog. 
13. ^ ^{a b} General history of Horsham - The town as county centre, Victoria County History of Sussex, Volume VI British History Online
14. ^ "Why is Trowbridge the county town of Wiltshire?". Wiltshire County Council. 2003-01-09. http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getfaq.php?id=51. 
15. ^ Wilson, John Marius (1872). "Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales: WILTS". A. Fullarton and Co. http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/entry_page.jsp?text_id=1008130&word=NULL. 
16. ^ Nicholson, A P (11 November 2007). "Shire (County) Hall, Nottingham". Nottinghamshire History. http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/articles/shirehall.htm. Retrieved 2 June 2011. 
17. ^ Notice in Edinburgh Gazette, February 28, 1964 that county council's address changed from Lanarkshire House, 191 Ingram Street, Glasgow C1 to County Buildings, Hamilton from April 6, 1964
18. ^ "Waterford County Council-County Waterford in Context: Waterford County Council". Waterfordcoco.ie. http://www.waterfordcoco.ie/en/localauthorities/waterfordcountycouncil/publications/corporateplan2010-2014/countywaterfordincontext/. Retrieved 2012-01-29. 
19. ^ Removal of County Headquarters, The Times, January 28, 1958
20. ^ Frederic A. Youngs, Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol.1: Southern England, London, 1979, p.83
21. ^ Northumberland County Hall was situated within an exclave of Northumberland (Moot Hall Precincts) within the county borough of Newcastle 1889 - 1974; the area became part of the county of Tyne and Wear in 1974 and was thus extraterritorial
22. ^ County Hall moved to Morpeth on April 21, 1981 (see notice in London Gazette issue 48579, dated April 10, 1981)
23. ^ When the question of where the council should meet arose in 1889/90 six towns were considered: Epsom, Guildford, Kingston, Redhill, Surbiton and Wimbledon.The Times, March 27, 1890

Loreena McKennitt
Background information
Birth name	Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt
Born	(1957-02-17) 17 February 1957 (age 55) Morden, Manitoba, Canada
Origin	Stratford, Ontario, Canada
Genres	Celtic, world, New Age
Occupations	Musician, songwriter, producer
Instruments	Voice, piano, harp, accordion
Years active	1985–present
Labels	Quinlan Road, Warner Bros., Verve Forecast/Universal
Website	quinlanroad.com

Loreena Isabel Irene McKennitt, CM, OM (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian singer, composer, harpist, accordionist and pianist who writes, records and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern themes. McKennitt is known for her refined, clear soprano vocals.^[1] She has sold more than 14 million records worldwide.^[2]

Early life[link]

McKennitt was born in Morden, Manitoba of Irish and Scottish descent to parents Jack (died 1992; a livestock dealer) and Irene McKennitt (1931-2011; a nurse). She moved to Stratford, Ontario in 1981, where she still resides.

When Loreena was young she wanted to become a veterinarian but she found that music chose her rather than she it.^[3] Developing a passion for Celtic music, she learned to play the Celtic harp and began busking at various places, including St. Lawrence Market in Toronto in order to earn money to record her first album.^[4]

Career[link]

McKennitt's first album, Elemental, was released in 1985, followed by To Drive the Cold Winter Away (1987), Parallel Dreams (1989), The Visit (1991), The Mask and Mirror (1994), A Winter Garden (1995), The Book of Secrets (1997), An Ancient Muse (2006), A Midwinter Night’s Dream (2008), and The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2010). All of her work is released under her own label, Quinlan Road.

In 1990, McKennitt provided the music for the National Film Board of Canada documentary The Burning Times, a feminist revisionist account of the Early Modern European witchcraft trials. The main theme would later be rerecorded by her and her band and called "Tango to Evora", a track that appears on her album The Visit.

In 1993, she toured Europe supporting Mike Oldfield. In 1995, her version of the traditional Irish song "Bonny Portmore" was featured in the Highlander series. McKennitt's single "The Mummers' Dance" received airplay in North American markets during the spring of 1997, and was used as the theme song for the short-lived TV series Legacy. It also saw use in the trailer for a wide-release 1998 Drew Barrymore film Ever After.^[5]

Her music appeared in the movies The Santa Clause, Soldier, Jade, Holy Man, The Mists of Avalon and Tinkerbell; and in the television series Roar, Due South, and Full Circle (Women and Spirituality).

Personal life[link]

In 1998, McKennitt's fiancé Ronald Rees, his brother Richard and their close friend Gregory Cook drowned during a boating accident on Georgian Bay. She was deeply affected by the event and subsequently founded the Cook-Rees Memorial Fund for Water Search and Safety in the same year.

At the time of the incident, she was working on a live album of two performances called Live in Paris and Toronto. The proceeds from this album were donated to the newly created memorial fund, totaling some three million dollars.^[6] After the release of the live album, McKennitt decided to substantially reduce the number of her public performances and did not release any new recordings until the studio album An Ancient Muse in 2006.

Honours[link]

• Juno Award, Best Roots/Traditional Album 1992, for The Visit.
• Juno Award, Best Roots/Traditional Album 1994, for The Mask and Mirror.
• Billboard Music Award for International Achievement, 1997.
• Headline performer for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip at The Golden Jubilee Celebrations, Province of Manitoba, 2002.
• Honorary Doctor of Letters, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2002.
• Member of the Order of Manitoba, July 2003.
• Member of the Order of Canada, July 2004.
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Manitoba, June 2005
• Canadian Ambassador, Hans Christian Andersen Bicentennary, June 2005
• Honorary Doctor of Laws, Queen's University, October 2005
• Investiture as Honorary Colonel, 435 Transport and Rescue Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, December 2006
• Nominated for a Grammy award, Best Contemporary World Music Album, in 2007
• Western Canadian Music Awards Lifetime Achievement Award, September 2009
• Performed at Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, Opening Ceremonies, February 12, 2010
• Honorary Bachelor of Applied Business, George Brown College, June 2010

Genre and work[link]

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McKennitt's music has generally been classified as World / Celtic music even though it contains aspects and characteristics of music from around the globe and is sometimes classified as Folk music in record stores.^{[citation needed]}

Before McKennitt composes any music, she engages in considerable research on a specific subject which then forms the general concept of the album.^{[citation needed]} Before creating Elemental and Parallel Dreams, she traveled to Ireland for inspiration from the country's history, folklore, geography and culture. The album The Mask and Mirror was preceded by research in Spain where she engaged in studying Galicia, a Celtic section of Spain, along with its abundant Arabic roots.^{[citation needed]} The result was an album that included elements of Celtic and Arabic music. According to the jacket notes, her album An Ancient Muse was inspired by travels among and reading about the various cultures along the Silk Road.

McKennitt is compared to Enya,^{[citation needed]} but McKennitt's music is more grounded in traditional and classical invocations,^{[citation needed]} using literary works as sources of lyrics and springboards for interpretation such as "The Lady of Shalott" by Lord Tennyson, "Prospero's Speech" (the final soliloquy in William Shakespeare's The Tempest), "Snow" by Archibald Lampman, "Dark Night of the Soul" by St. John of the Cross, Dante's Inferno, William Blake's "Lullaby", Yeats' "The Stolen Child", "The English Ladye and the Knight" by Sir Walter Scott and "The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes.

Court case[link]

In 2005, McKennitt was involved in an acrimonious court case in Britain when her former friend and employee, Niema Ash, published a book that contained intimate details of their friendship. McKennitt argued that much of the book contained confidential personal information that Ash had no right to publish. The British courts found that there had indeed been a breach of confidence and a misuse of McKennitt's private information, and the case is likely to set important precedents in British law on the privacy of celebrities.^[7] The House of Lords affirmed the lower court's decisions in 2007.

2006 and later[link]

In September 2006, McKennitt performed live at the Alhambra. The performance premiered on PBS and in August 2007 was released on a three-disc DVD/CD set titled Nights from the Alhambra.

In 2008, McKennitt wrote and composed a song she titled "To The Fairies They Draw Near" as the theme song for Disney's direct-to-video animated film Tinker Bell. She also provided the narration for the film.^[8]

In early 2008, she returned to Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios to record A Midwinter Night’s Dream, an extended version of her 1995 mini-album A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season. The album was released on October 28, 2008.^[9]

Since the release of An Ancient Muse, Loreena has toured consistently, with a European and North American tour in the spring of 2007, an extensive cross Canada and United States tour in the fall of 2007, a summer tour of Europe in 2008 and a Mediterranean tour in the summer of 2009 with stops in Greece,^[10] Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Hungary and Italy.

On September 17, 2009, McKennitt announced that she planned to release a two-disc album titled "A Mediterranean Odyssey" in the fall of 2009. The first CD, "From Istanbul to Athens," consisted of ten new live recordings made during McKennitt’s 2009 Mediterranean Tour, including songs she had never before recorded in concert. The second CD, "The Olive and the Cedar," had a Mediterranean theme which McKennitt herself curated. It contained previously released studio recordings created between the years of 1994 and 2006.

November 16, 2010 saw the US release (November 12 for Europe) of McKennitt's latest studio album, "The Wind That Shakes the Barley." Recorded at the Sharon Temple, Ontario, it consists of nine traditional Celtic songs. "Every once and again there is a pull to return to one's own roots or beginnings, with the perspective of time and experience, to feel the familiar things you once loved and love still," says Loreena.

Documentaries[link]

Late in the 1990s, McKennitt created No Journey's End, a half-hour documentary, for American television. In it, she discussed the influences behind her music. No Journey's End contained excerpts from several songs from the albums Parallel Dreams, The Visit, and The Mask and Mirror. It also shows live performances of the songs "The Lady of Shalott," "Santiago," and "The Dark Night of the Soul." It was later released on DVD and VHS, the former also containing music videos for "The Mummers' Dance" and "The Bonny Swans." A bonus copy of the DVD was included with the 2004 remastered versions of McKennitt's CDs.

In 2008, Loreena released A Moveable Musical Feast, based on her 2007 An Ancient Muse tour. The DVD included interviews with Loreena, her band, crew, fans and professional colleagues from the Canadian music industry.

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

Live albums[link]

Compilations[link]

EPs[link]

Boxed sets[link]

• The Journey Begins (2008)

Singles[link]