Why do people say Crewe is in the North and Stoke is in the Midlands? They are right next to each other.

by OceansOfLight

20 comments

  1. Maybe that’s where the dividing line is, crewe is slightly further north.

  2. Cheshire just feels more northern than Staffordshire.

  3. People from Stoke often don’t see themselves as from the Midlands

  6. North-South divide is usually defined by counties, & Cheshire is further north than Staffordshire with the boundary running bottom left to top right of OP’s map. Having said that, both Crewe & Stoke “feel” very northern, being heavily industrialised/terraced and with little modern regeneration in the more central areas

  7. Because borders are very thin lines and Crewe and Stoke are more than a very thin line apart?

  8. Nantwich and Crewe is where the Northwest starts, completely different accents from the jugs in Stoke.

  11. Orayt duck. Adoptive Stokie here to hopefully clear the air a bit.

    Crewe is in Cheshire, which is wholesale administratively in the North West.

    Stoke-on-Trent is a city now, but before that, it was a collection of six towns within Staffordshire, a large county that spans from the Peak District in the north to Tamworth in the south. Ergo Staffordshire as a whole is administratively part of the West Midlands.

    Culturally, Stoke, Crewe and Nantwich are like brothers – they’re very similar – and Stoke definitely looks up to its northerly neighbours Manchester and Liverpool: it has a very “northern feel” with its post-industrial vibe and Scouse-esque accent too. But the border has to go somewhere, and Staffordshire’s county line places Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle in the West Midlands, albeit hugging the border with the North West.

    At the end of the day it’s just an administrative line and it’s pretty meaningless here. Stoke is Staffs by upbringing – and proudly so – but it’s very Cheshire in its nature. The only real indicator you see that it’s “the Midlands” is you’re more likely to pick up Midlands Today on your telly than North West Tonight.

    Hope that helps.

  12. Why do people say Vienna is in Austria and Bratislava is in Slovakia? They are right next to each other.

  14. People from north Staffordshire (Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle and the moorlands) generally consider themselves Northerners.

    The people down London drew a border with staffordshire being the dividing line… Let them have their lines it doesn’t change what the place feels like and how we feel like on a personal or community level.

  15. Stoke is where the north starts, if you have spent any time in Stoke you will see the population is massively northern in their behaviours. There are a few that have the midlands need to be southern but it’s a minority.

  16. It’s the famous pie/oatcake boundary line that divides the two

  17. Perfectly accurate if you’re in the middle(port).

  18. Historic county lines. It just so happens Cheshire is slightly more of a horizontal blob in the north whereas Staffs historically was a big vertical blob that went down and ate up what’re now chunks of Brum… and the north would declare war if Brum was classed as northern

    Nowadays after some redrawing of the counties (which is a rabbit hole in itself) Staffs now goes as south as Wolves… and the north would still declare war if Wolves was classed as northern.

    Stoke, despite being geographically and more culturally northern… has to just deal with being the bastard no one wants… which is why no one in Stoke will give you a straight answer if pressed on the north/south divide (I guarantee though that no one will proudly declare themselves southerners)

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