Word Finder - shire

definition

Physical area administered by a sheriff.

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Former administrative area of Britain; a county.

example

Yorkshire is the largest shire in England.

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The general area in which a person lives or comes from, used in the context of travel within the United Kingdom.

example

When are you coming back to the shire?

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A rural or outer suburban local government area of Australia.

definition

A shire horse.

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To (re)constitute as one or more shires or counties.

example

County Longford was shired in 1586

As a typical example of these organizations the Shire Horse Society may be mentioned.

The office, Mark Napier states, is repeatedly mentioned in the family charters as appertaining to the "pultre landis" near the village of Dene in the shire of Linlithgow.

Only in a few districts is the climate suitable for Europeans, most of whom live in the Shire Highlands.

Barry Links, a triangular sandy track occupying the south-eastern corner of the shire, are used as a camping and manoeuvring ground for the artillery and infantry forces of the district, and occasionally of Scotland.

Derbyshire probably originated as a shire in the time of ZEthelstan, but for long it maintained a very close connexion with Nottinghamshire, and the Domesday Survey gives a list of local customs affecting the two counties alike.

In his absence the administration was entrusted to a justiciar, a regent or lieutenant of the kingdom; and the convenience being once ascertained of having a minister who could in the whole kingdom represent the king, as the sheriff did in the shire, the justiciar became a permanent functionary."

The sheriff "was the king's representative in all matters judicial, military and financial in the shire.

These must be heard in the county courts before two visiting justices and four knights of the shire.

Sir John Howard, only son of the match between Howard and Mowbray, took service with his cousin the third duke of Norfolk, who had him returned as knight of the shire for Norfolk, where, according to the Paston Letters, this Howard of the Essex branch was regarded by the gentry as a strange man.

Though in sympathy with the Covenanters, the town was the scene of few incidents comparable to those which took place in the northern parts of the shire.

The society holds annual shows, publishes annually the Shire Horse Stud Book and offers'_gold and silver medals for competition amongst Shire horses at agricultural shows in different parts of the country.

The society has carried on a work of high national importance, and has effected a marked improvement in the character and quality of the Shire horse.

It is hardly necessary to say that the Shire Horse Society has never received a penny of public money, nor has any other of the voluntary breeders' societies.

The Hackney Horse Society and the Hunters' Improvement Society are conducted on much the same lines as the Shire Horse Society, and, like it, they each hold a show in London in the spring of the year and publish an annual volume.

Although acknowledged as the county town of Pembrokeshire, Pembroke was superseded by Haverfordwest as the judicial and administrative centre of the shire on account of the more convenient position of the latter place.

William's writs show not only that he kept intact the old system of governing through the sheriffs and the courts of shire and hundred, but also that he found it highly serviceable.

According to the 12th-century compilation known as the "laws of Edward the Confessor," the riding was the third part of a county (provincia); to it causes were brought which could not be determined in the wapentake, and a matter which could not be determined in the riding was brought into the court of the shire.

The county was made shire ground in 1586, and called Armagh after the city by Sir John Perrott.

The shire hall includes remains of a building, called the Stannary prison, dating from the 13th century.

In Great Britain there is the South Welsh field, extending westward from the march of Monmouth shire to Kidwelly, and northward to Merthyr Tydfil.

The shire organization of Kent dates from the time of Aethelstan, the name as well as the boundary being that of the ancient kingdom, though at first probably with the addition of the suffix " shire," the form " Kentshire " occurring in a record of the folkmoot at this date.

After the Conquest the great ecclesiastical landholders claimed exemption from the jurisdiction of the shire, and in 1279 the abbot of Battle claimed to have his own coroner in the hundred of Wye.

From the early 17th century, if not earlier, porcelain and earthenware manufactories existed at Stoke-upon-Trent, but they remained unnoticed until in 1686 Dr Plot wrote his survey of Stafford- ' shire.

He was also returned to parliament at a by-election in 1576 as knight of the shire for Surrey in succession to Charles Howard, who had become Lord Howard of Effingham, and he was re-elected for Surrey in 1584, 1586 and 1588.

By a statute of 1535 Brecon was made the county town of the new shire of Brecknock, and was granted the right of electing one burgess to represent it in parliament, a right which it retained till it was merged in the county representation in 1885.

The islands unite with the counties to which they belong in returning members to parliament (one for each shire).

Other public buildings include the assembly rooms, the town-hall, the museum (in which the antiquities and natural history of the shire are abundantly illustrated), the district asylum, the academy, the county buildings and the court house, the market buildings, the Victoria school of science and art, and Lady Gordon-Cumming's children's home.

The Mappa mundi contains a useful description of England shire by shire, giving in particular a list of the castles and religious houses to be found in each.

It is first mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 605.The ealdorman, or sheriff, of the shire was probably charged with the duty of calling out and leading the fyrd, which appears always to have retained a local character, as during the time of the Danish invasions we read of the fyrd of Kent, of Somerset and of Devon.

The municipal government of the city, and also of South Brisbane, is in the hands of a mayor and ten aldermen; the suburbs are controlled by shire councils and divisional boards.

In the parts of Mercia acquired by Alfred, the shire system seems now to have been introduced for the first time.

In 1524 the burgesses were exempted from appearing at the shire and hundred courts, and in 1583 the body corporate was reconstructed under the title of mayor and commonalty, and power was granted to make by-laws and to punish offenders.

The greatest length from Cape Wrath in Sutherland to the Mull of Galloway is 274 m., and the greatest breadth from Buchan Ness to Applecross in the shire of Ross and Cromarty 154 m., but from Bonar Bridge at the head of Dornoch Firth to the head of Loch Broom it is only 26 m.

In the basin of the gorges Moray Firth some fine examples may be seen on the Nairn and Findhorn, while on the west side of the Cromarty Firth some of the small streams descending from the high grounds of the east of the shire of Ross and Cromarty have cut out defiles in the Conglomerates, remarkable for their depth and narrowness.

Traces of annelids and probably other organisms have been found in the bands of shale occurring in the south-west of the shire of Ross and Cromarty, in the isle of Raasay, and at Cailleach Head, and are the oldest relics of animal life yet found in Great Britain.

In the northern, north-western and southern divisions the population declined during the decade, the fifteen counties thus affected being, in the order of decrease, beginning with the shire in which it was smallest, Inverness, Banff, Argyll, Kirkcudbright, Shetland, Sutherland, Dumfries, Ross and Cromarty, Clackmannan, Berwick, Orkney, Roxburgh, Caithness, Wigtown and Selkirk.

With the exception of the counties of Orkney, Shetland, Caithness, Sutherland and Inverness, granite is quarried in every shire in Scotland, but the industry predominates in Aberdeenshire, and is of considerable importance in Kirkcudbrightshire; limestone is quarried in half of the counties, but especially in Midlothian and Fife; large quantities of paving-stones are exported from Caithness and Forfarshire, and there are extensive slate quarries at Ballachulish and other places in Argyllshire, which furnishes three-fourths of the total supply.

Alumina is treated at works near Foyers in the shire of Inverness, where abundant water power enables electricity to be generated cheaply.

The Shire hounds include the Belvoir, the Cottesmore, the Quorn and the Pytchleys; for besides the Pytchley proper, there is a pack distinguished as the Woodland.

Up to 1915 the southern terminus of the railway was on the Shire river at Port Herald, which place steamers were unable to reach in the dry season owing to insufficient water.

Early in 1915, while the situation in the protectorate was still perilous, a revolt of natives occurred in the Shire Highlands.

Reginald, earl of Cornwall (1140-1175), granted to the canons rights of jurisdiction in all their lands and exemption from suit of court in the shire and hundred courts.

He granted a charter in 1194 declaring that he retained the borough in his hand, and granting a yearly fair and weekly market, freedom from certain tolls, from shire and hundred court and sheriffs' aids.

Glamorgan and the county palatine of Pembroke had hitherto been the only portions of the country subject to English shire law, but now Edward parcelled out the ancient territory of the princes of Gwynedd and of Deheubarth into six new counties, with sheriffs, coroners and bailiffs.

The act of 1542 also enacted that courts of justice under the name of " The King's Great Sessions in Wales " should sit twice a year in every one of the counties of Wales, except Monmouth, which was thus formally declared an English shire.

For this purpose four circuits, two for North and two for South Wales, each circuit containing a convenient group of three counties, were created; whilst justices of the peace and custodes rotulorum for each shire were likewise appointed.

The name was derived from that of Christopher Cat, the keeper of the piehouse in which the club met in Shire Lane, near Temple Bar.

A Portuguese force under Major Serpa Pinto had invaded the II., - Shire highlands in order to forestall their annexation by the British, and the British government demanded satisfaction.

The hundred rate is seldom made, though in some counties it may be made for purposes of main roads and bridges chargeable to the hundred as distinguished from the county at large; (ii.) the borrowing of money; (iii.) the passing of the accounts of, and the discharge of the county treasurer; (iv.) shire halls, county halls, assize courts, the judges' lodgings, lock-up houses, court houses, justices' rooms, police stations and county buildings, works and property; (v.) the licensing under any general act of houses and other places for music or for dancing, and the granting of licences under the Racecourses Licensing Act 1879; (vi.) the provision, enlargement, maintenance and management and visitation of, and other dealing with, asylums for pauper lunatics; (vii.) the establishment and maintenance of, and the contribution to, reformatory and industrial schools; (viii.) bridges and roads repairable with bridges, and any powers vested by the Highways and Locomotives Amendment Act 1878 in the county authority.

During the Heptarchy what is now the shire formed part of Mercia; by the treaty of Wedmore, however, it became Danish territory, but was recovered by King Edward (919-921).