I’ve always been fascinated by borders, specifically settlements, towns etc that stretch over a border. Looking at the Welsh/English border, the house below seems to straddle it, if it does how does that work re council tax, voting etc? And do you have any interesting border anecdotes

by Exchangenudes_4_Joke

32 comments

  1. I worked it out and that particular house is in Powys.

  2. Usually it’s determined by where the front door is. But I’m sure that’s more a rule of thumb than an actual steadfast rule.

  3. Chester FCs stadium is effectively in Wales (the car park is in England, but pitch is Welsh).

    During covid, there were different restrictions between Wales and England that meant crowds were allowed in English stadiums but not in Wales, which caused some issues for North Wales police there

  4. Urgh I’ve got to get up and walk all the way to Wales just to make breakfast.

  5. There is / was a farmhouse on the border on Ireland / Northern Ireland. Allegedly he was involved in IRA stuff. His house straddles the border, literally, like his kitchen is in Ireland but his living room is in Northern Ireland (different countries for the Americans reading this). He allegedly, was smuggling diesel from one side to the other, to avoid taxes/duty. When the PSNI would turn up, he’d simply go in his kitchen and they’d be powerless. When the Gardia would turn up he’d just go in his living room rendering them powerless…

    Edit Thomas “Slab” Murphy is his name.

  7. The house I grew up in was in one village whilst the garden was in the next one along and believe you me I never got tired of telling people that!

    I think legally speaking, our property was considered to be in the village that the majority of it was in. But it didn’t stop me from alternating between which village I wrote when I gave my address! A thrill!

  8. My village borders Wales. Paying for my prescriptions when the pharmacy is about 500 metres from Wales is a bit of a kick in the teeth.

  9. In Todmorden Town Hall you can dance between Yorkshire and Lancashire.

  10. I’ve got a couple of friends who live in Presteigne (lovely place, very community minded) and following the rules for covid was a nightmare there because of the difference in the english and welsh rules.

  11. I have a friend who lives in a hamlet in Wales, but every single road exiting the place goes through England, there is no way to stay in Wales unless you hiked cross-country

  12. I used to work in an office at Heathrow Airport that was half in the London Borough of Hillingdon and half in LB Hounslow. Unfortunately there are no interesting anecdotes of any description whatsoever.

  13. Worcestershire’s borders were historically so complicated that there’s [a whole Wikipedia article about them](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_Worcestershire_county_boundaries_since_1844). Its simplest border was with Herefordshire to the west, and even then each county had an exclave in the other. The most complicated was [possibly the north east](https://wikishire.co.uk/map/#/centre=52.435,-2.011/zoom=11/base=colour_detached), as Worcestershire contained exclaves of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire and itself had an exclave in Staffordshire, which contained most of Dudley except the castle.

    The Shropshire exclave around Halesowen was so complicated that it apparently contained ten counter-counter exclaves: an exclave of Shropshire, within an exclave of Worcestershire, within an exclave of Shropshire, within Worcestershire. All of this has now been rationalised, and the area is now either in Worcestershire or the West Midlands county.

  14. There is a town in The Netherlands called Baarle Nassau which is half Netherlands half Belgian and the people who live there and have the border going right through their front door, get to choose what country they want to pay taxes etc. in.

  15. Check out Baarle-Nassau, it’s insane. It’s a town in the Netherlands, but parts of it are a Belgian enclave, but it’s not one continuous enclave, there’s loads of tiny bubbles of Belgium spread around. My favourite part is a Dutch field inside a larger Belgian field, inside the Netherlands.

    It’s borders galore all over the place, plenty of buildings straddling both countries, streets with one side Dutch, the other side Belgian.

  17. During covid, the Scottish border was shut near xmas. The local whatsapps were a grapevine of where-the-police-weren’t so that folk could get to Marks & Spencer to pick up their turkeys!

  18. Double the council tax and nobody collects your bins. Probably.

  19. I was lived on a street where one side was one council and the other another, boy was they pissed when the council at their side cut the bin collection (I’m sure we followed 12 months later)

  20. I ive in a small town in Cornwall just to the west of the border with Devon (the river Tamar makes up the border). There’s a small hamlet to the north-east of my town that was formerly classed as being in Devon. Boundary changes, however, determined it was consequently to be classed as part of Cornwall, but none of the residents were told about it – they literally all woke up one morning in a whole different county.

  22. Check out the border between Belgium and Netherlands [here](https://maps.app.goo.gl/UYZuC6vwoKhUTqvz5), it’s wild!

    There’s a story of someone who put a second front door on their house on the other side of the border, to access different planning permission laws.

  23. I straddle the border of two counties. They used to have different licensing controls so once one pub kicked you out you could walk 20 metres up the road and still drink in the next pub.

    That changed when Blair reformed the licensing laws.

  24. The border between Northern Ireland and Ireland has some really funny examples of this kind of thing. Here’s a really old clip interviewing a fella about a house that was half in NI and half in ROI and they weren’t sure what they’d have to do regarding services and recieving renovation grants.

  25. Could be worse. Last year I visited a town that straddles the border between Colombia and Brazil; two time zones, two town names, two currencies, and different languages… There’s a big border point on the main road, but on the back streets the border mostly follows the roads, but also appears to just go through buildings and stuff. It’s not marked at all on most streets.

    Officially most visitors should get a visa to travel between the two, but the whole settlement is so isolated in the middle of the Amazon that you can’t leave by road, so they only bother actually checking and stamping passports at the ports or the airports.

    Just to add the cherry on top, the conjoined settlement also borders on Peru, but at least that border’s in the middle of the river, not just halfway through a couple of houses.

  27. Silverstone is half in Northamptonshire and half in Buckinghamshire. Because the old pit straight and BRDC building are on the Northants side, it always used to be described in the media as being in Northants. But the new pit lane is in Bucks.

    Most of the Welcome to Buckinghamshire signs describe it as the “Birthplace of the Paralympics”. But the sign outside the track also adds “Home of Silverstone Circuit”. It’s as if they think they’re trying to get their own back for all those years of their half of the circuit being ignored.

  28. I grew up in a village that straddled the Wiltshire/ Hampshire border.when I needed in going medical care and equipment they argued over who’s responsibility I was

    Also the border went directly through a layby, rumour has it the burger van moved from end to end contesting both councils taxes, it’s been there over 20 years and everybody thinks he found a loophole and trades for free

  29. There is no “official map” that sets either the boundaries between the UK countries or counties, or even a law as far as I’m aware that describes them.

    The 1972 Act, which set the current counties of England, only refers to the previous local government boundaries. For instance, Berkshire was defined along the lines of “the county borough of Reading, the administrative county of Berkshire, except those parts now in Oxfordshire, and ya-de-ya bits of Buckinghamshire”. Those boundaries themselves would have been set by Act after Act, but mostly by historical precedent and custom. In effect, it’s ultimately a form of customary law. The boundaries shown on Google Maps or other mapping sites are based on data collected by or bought by Google which means they might not be 100% accurate.

    In England, the Local Governments Boundary Commission can review and change boundaries between councils when requested, which is probably what would happen if it were uncertain who owned what land. https://www.lgbce.org.uk/changing-external-boundaries-councils, though this wouldn’t apply for a house that straddled the border between England and Wales. So, presuming that the house was built before 1972, it’s likely in my view that the land it was built on was known to be part of one Welsh county or one English county, or it de facto became part of that county when that county council started administering it, and neither of the previous councils questioned or disputed it. Let’s say the two councils are Powys and Shropshire and the residents get their services from Powys; if Shropshire for some reason suddenly decided to dispute it and couldn’t come to an agreement with Powys (who would be understandably confused by Shropshire’s actions), the fact that they haven’t provided services or collected rates for decades would probably mean the Court would come down on Powys’ side.

    Anyway, that doesn’t mean there aren’t single buildings that aren’t technically in both countries, such as the Chester FC stadium, but in that case it might have involved buying two separate but adjacent land titles and developing both of them at the same time.

  30. A friend of mine lives in a village on the border with Wales. The border actually runs through the pub. Not sure if it applies now but when licencing laws were different in England and Wales, come 10.00pm the drinkers all used to move into the other bar

  31. I was in the Saarland region of Germany a few years ago and there’s a town right on the German-French border.

    It was so weird because on one side of the town all the signs were in German and then on the other side everything was in French.

    I assume everyone there spoke both languages, but I couldn’t tell you anything more. We were just there for the afternoon.

  32. My house comes under 2 postcodes. When I first moved in I had problems with my TV license,was paying by direct debit but kept getting letters saying I wasn’t paying. Was binning them at first but then j noticed the post code was wrong. Called them up and sorted that, thought it was all done, then started getting letters for he other post code! Another phone call and it was sorted properly.

    Then, I tried changing my energy supplier. But the gas was registered under the wrong post code (electric was fine), so I had to contact my old supplier to get the register updated to the correct post code before the switch could go through. It took weeks!

    I also got 2 censuses through, one for each post code. I completed online but spent the time straight after in a bit of anxiety wondering if I’d get a knock on the door because I hadn’t done the other and I was worried it would flag in their system. The constant reminders that you legally had to fill it in really stressed me out, even though I knew it would be a simp,e explanation if they did ask.

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