Yorkshire Day was first celebrated on 1st August 1975, which means that the 2024 celebration is the fiftieth Yorkshire Day! Over that time, it has grown to become a huge event, both within the county and for Yorkshire men and women throughout the world.
Yorkshire Day was instigated by our old friends the Yorkshire Ridings Society and was in large part the brain-child of their first chairman Colin Holt. The Yorkshire Ridings Society (YRS) was founded in 1974 in response to the local government reforms of that year. These local government reforms, of course, did not alter Yorkshire or indeed any of our historic counties. The did, however, create enormous confusion due to the ridiculous labelling of many of the new authorities as ‘county councils’ and the equally reprehensible misuse of historic county names for local government areas. The YRS has been working for fifty years to ensure that the integrity of Yorkshire, its three ridings and all the associated boundaries is maintained.
The YRS decided that a day should be set aside for celebrating all that is special about Yorkshire. The 1st August was chosen to commemorate the day when Yorkshire Soldiers who had fought in the Battle of Minden in Germany picked white roses as tributes to their dead comrades. It is also the day on which slavery was officially abolished, following campaigning by Yorkshireman William Wilberforce.
On each Yorkshire Day since 1975, members of the YRS have processed around the York city walls, reading the Yorkshire Declaration of Integrity at Micklegate Bar (facing the West Riding), Bootham Bar (facing the North Riding) and Monk Bar (facing the East Riding). The words of the declaration are:
“I, [Name], being a resident of the [West/North/East] Riding of Yorkshire [or City of York] declare:
That Yorkshire is three Ridings and the City of York, with these Boundaries of 1,149 years’ standing;
That the address of all places in these Ridings is Yorkshire;
That all persons born therein or resident therein and loyal to the Ridings are Yorkshiremen and women;
That any person or corporate body which deliberately ignores or denies the aforementioned shall forfeit all claim to Yorkshire status.
These declarations made this Yorkshire Day 2024. God Save the King!“
Colin Holt remained the chairman of YRS from 1974 until his death in 2006. He remained an indefatigable campaigner for Yorkshire and the ridings throughout his life. Without his ceaseless promotion of Yorkshire Day it would never have become the major event it is today.
Since 1985, Yorkshire Day has also become famous for the Yorkshire Day Civic Celebration. This is organised by the Yorkshire Society (founded 1980). It consists of a breakfast gathering followed by a street parade of all Yorkshire’s Mayors, in their robes and chains of office, together with their attendants, other civic leaders, VIPs and members of the Society, to a special thanks-giving service. Appropriately for the fiftieth Yorkshire Day, the 2024 the event is taking place in York, with the thanks-giving service taking place at York Minster.
Away from the major events, celebrations of Yorkshire Day now take place all over the county, and indeed, around the world. Yorkshire Day Celebrations range from gatherings of family and friends to civic ceremonies, or can be as simple as reminding each other what’s great about Yorkshire. The Yorkshire flag is flown with pride from public buildings, stately homes, shops, offices and homes. Recent years have also seen Yorkshire Day become a massive phenomenon on social media.
At the heart of Yorkshire Day is its message of the integrity of Yorkshire and its three ridings. The public and the media have little problem grasping the fact of the continued existence of Yorkshire itself. However, whilst the media has little trouble understanding that places in local government or ceremonial areas which have ‘Yorkshire’ somewhere in their names are in Yorkshire, they struggle to understand that this is not some kind of condition for a place being in Yorkshire. There are five areas of Yorkshire which the media particularly struggles with.
The civil parish of Saddleworth (which includes Springhead, Uppermill, Dobcross, Delph and Diggle), part of the West Riding, lies within the council area of Oldham. The proximity to the town of Oldham and the inclusion within a council area named after that town, challenges the media’s powers of comprehension and Saddleworth often gets labelled as part of “Greater Manchester”. Fortunately, our friends in the Saddleworth White Rose Society do sterling work to maintain the Yorkshire identity of the area with roads signs proclaiming its Yorkshire identity and an annual Yorkshire Day parade and duck race.
A sizeable chunk of the West Riding (including Barnoldswick, Earby, Slaidburn and the Forest of Bowland) lies within the council area ludicrously known as “Lancashire County Council”. This is one of most stupidly named local authorities in the UK since, not only does it include a great chunk of Yorkshire, but it also only covers a minority of Lancashire. One can hardly blame the media for struggling to grasp that Barnoldswick, Earby and Bowland are all still in Yorkshire. We can only hope that future local government reform leads to a local government set-up with council names which do not continue to undermine the Yorkshire identity of these places.
The West Riding civil parishes of Sedbergh and Dent were, from 1974-2023, within the council area known as ‘Cumbria’. Since 1st April 2023 they have been within a unitary authority area called ‘Westmorland and Furness’. Whilst this council area does cover the historic county of Westmorland and the Furness area of Lancashire, it also includes these two Yorkshire parishes and also a sizeable part of Cumberland including Penrith. It would be good to see the new council embrace the Yorkshire identity of this area, supporting Yorkshire Day celebrations and erecting appropriate road-signs being obvious actions.
A large area of the North Riding of Yorkshire in Upper Teesdale, to the west of the River Tees, lies within the council area unfortunately known as “County Durham”. This area includes Startforth, Romaldkirk and Middleton. It also includes Mickle Fell, the Yorkshire county top. As with the Bowland area, it is the misuse of a historic county name by the local authority which causes the confusion. Even renaming this council ‘Durham Council’ would help, not least because it does not cover huge areas in the north-east and south-east of County Durham itself.
The area of the North Riding to the south of the mouth of the River Tees (including Middlesbrough, Redcar and Guisborough) also suffers from a degree of “county-confusion”. Much of this stems from its having been placed under the former “Cleveland County Council” from 1974-1992 and now being in an area the media and politicians seem to like to refer to as “Teesside”. There is no reason a place cannot be thought of as part of “Teesside” but also be a part of Yorkshire and the Yorkshire identity of the area does remain strong, with some support from the local authorities.
Aside from the public / media confusion as to what actually is Yorkshire, since 1974 there has also been a decline in an appreciation of the Yorkshire Ridings and their geography. This is something the YRS, ABC and the Historic Counties Trust are addressing with our ongoing scheme to fully mark the borders of the ridings, and the border of Yorkshire itself, on major routeways.
Funds have been raised and plans are in place to pursue a roll-out of these signs over the next 12 months. The first of the signs was erected on on 1st April 2024 in Croft, where the A167 crosses the River Tees from County Durham into Yorkshire. A further 8 signs have been manufactured and will be deployed shortly. The programme will continue from there.
In many ways, the Yorkshire Ridings Society and Colin Holt set the ball rolling for the traditional counties movement 50 years ago now. Since Colin’s death in 2006, Yorkshire Day has gone from strength to strength. Around thirty other counties also now celebrate county days. All the historic counties of England and many in Wales and Scotland have county flags registered with the Flag Institute. County flags have become familiar symbols on flag poles, on marches, at festivals, on car stickers etc. The Office for National Statistics recognises the historic counties and encourages their use as a stable, unchanging geography. Much work remains to be done, but as a movement we have come a long way since 1st August 1975. We march onward in our quest to maintain the cultural, geographic and historic importance of the historic counties for future generations of Britons.
6 thoughts on “The Fiftieth Yorkshire Day”
Sedbergh is obsessively “Cumbria”. They hate Yorkshire be they young or old. Just like Barrow and Ulverston baulk at Lancashire, rather loving their beloved “Cumbria”. Westmorland and Cumberland folk hate their traditional counties more than ever, such is their undying love for “Cumbria”.
However more on point is the Cleveland lovers of Middlesbrough, Stockton (ex Durham) , Redcar, Saltburn etc. Do not be misled, they are obsessively in love with Cleveland, and nowhere more so than Middlesbrough itself. Middlesbrough is so anti-Yorkshire it is off the scale. They detest Yorkshire and they claim firstly Teesside and then Cleveland. It’s what they always wanted. Now the Royal Mail has re-introduced Cleveland (along with Avon, Dyfed etc) so the Teesside folk are truly loving their Cleveland again and are ecstatic about Royal Mail bringing it back (mind you no one in that neck of the woods ever stopped using Cleveland post 1996, it’s just now ‘official’ on post again).
As for me, I always use Northumbria instead of Northumberland, as a dig back at the system. If you cannot have Cumberland and Northumberland then you can’t have Cumbria and Northumberland.
It therefore must be Cumbria and Northumbria.
They’re ‘obsessively Cumbria’ because it nets them more land. The fictional county of Cumbria, created in 1974 by dear ol’ Mr Heseltine and his cronies, obviously took much land from several other counties and hence many people that live there no doubt rather like their newly-increased domain. Much of the beautiful coast belonged to Lancashire and Sedbergh, including a large chunk of, and perhaps the most well-documented backdrop to that town, the Howgill Fells have always been historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Right up to and including Cautley Spout belongs to Yorkshire as well.
It’s a travesty enacted by one man who sailed over our country in a plane in the 1970s and mangled our traditional and much-loved boundaries, all over the place. He somehow got his way and still clucks triumphantly about the utter mess he has created.
This is a fantastic write up accompanied by great pictures. Thank you for this and a very Happy Yorkshire Day to all.
I recently discovered that the geological curio, the Holwick Scar is inside the historical Yorkshire border rather than Durham as it’s always attributed to, and the two counties at least fairly share the amazing High and Low Force waterfalls up in the furthest northern reaches of the North Riding.
I’d love the find a really precise map of Yorkshire’s historical boundary. There are a couple out there but they’re all slightly different. Does anyone know what the most accurate one is? TIA if you can help.
It is a great pity that the signs say ‘Historic North Riding of Yorkshire’ as if the word ‘Historic’ notes that the concept is only historical as opposed to contemporary. Surely the whole point is that the North Riding is real and for today, not something from history.
Word – one hundred percent truth.
Thank you for your continued efforts to right the injustices of the 1974 debacle.The Post Office and local press have been responsible for so much confusion.