The counties of the UK are a weird and wonderful mosaic of overlapping histories, local rivalries, strange dialects, and curious customs.
While the land was originally divided into administrative areas by the Romans, over time these artificial borders have come to represent the best and worst of regional pride – particularly over centuries of foreign invasion and civil war. It’s no wonder historical administrators cooked up fearsome county mottoes to grace their coats of arms.
Today, these mottoes are mostly hushed-up in favour of county slogans – the more modern, publicity department-generated captions you see on ‘Welcome To…’ signs. County slogans are designed to entice tourists, whereas mottoes are often fear-inducing statements designed to warn outsiders of a region’s ferocious might and superiority!
We wanted to remember and celebrate the noble mottoes of the UK’s diverse counties with a map that boasts them all. The mottoes we’ve included (some translated from Latin or local dialects) are those that feature on each county’s coat of arms, not their travel brochures. For’ard For’ard!
The Motto of Every County in the UK, Mapped, brought to you by On Stride
