The website https://www.townandvillageguide.com/ asserts that it is a "meticulously curated collection of destinations" but I have my doubts. The page on "Coldharbour, Lincolnshire" describes a small village near Louth (so not the Cold Harbour, Lincolnshire, a hamlet near Grantham, about which we have an article). It has "its beautiful church, St. Mary's Church. The church dates back to the 12th century and is a fine example of Norman architecture", and a pub called the Red Lion. But I can't find any trace of either the church or the pub, in any "Cold Harbour" or "Coldharbour" either near Grantham or near Louth. Or, indeed, of any village or hamlet of the name near Louth apart from one reference to an archaeological site which was previously known as Cold Harbour. I may be missing something, but it makes me wonder whether this website, which invites people to offer a contribution about their village, may be completely unreliable. Has anyone any experience of this website? (I couldn't find it at WP:RSN).

I've just found its page on Coldharbour in Kent, which has a surprisingly similar St Mary's church "which dates back to the 12th century. The church is a beautiful example of Norman architecture and is known for its stunning stained glass windows", and various other bits of identical text. (But no Red Lion). We don't seem to have an article on that Coldharbour at all. Odd? Any thoughts?

Or, perhaps, consider this as a warning and avoid that particular quite smart-looking website. PamD 14:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

With no contact information, no about-us, no publisher information it looks like a self published source WP:SPS and as such I would immediate discount it as unreliable. I checked on a couple of settlements that I know and the information given was terrible - the prose at the beginning was inaccurate and many of the listings were for businesses in other settlements.

It is currently used as a reference on 20 articles (link), so it should be easy to remove those within a few minutes - which I'm happy to do. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:10, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I haven't come across it before, but I have given it a once-over just now. My view is that it is wholly inappropriate to be used as a source to support any Wikipedia content. It seems to be an attempt to aggregate up-to-date microlocal data (such as train times at the nearest station, postal collection times from each postbox etc, opening times of local "Vetinary [sic] surgeries (!) etc.) with some suspiciously AI-looking verbiage, some of which may well be based on text from Wikipedia. There are no details of authorship, editorial oversight (if any) or fact-checking, and it appears that user submissions are accepted. The West Sussex page lists such "towns" as Ardingly Reservoir (a reservoir...), Adur (the district) and Crockenhill, which is apparently on the outskirts of Horsham even though it in fact consists of a pub and a couple of houses on the edge of Chichester. A little further on in that section, this location is a new one on me, even though I've apparently lived close to it all my life: suffice to say it doesn't exist. Conclusion: it's AI-generated nonsense based on a scrape of very broadly defined location data, and should be removed on sight. Good spot PamD. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 15:13, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I just looked at the entry for a town I know a lot about, and it was filled with nonsense. It wouldn't surprise me if it was AI generated content. It's utter garbage as a source. G-13114 (talk) 15:27, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I have flagged it here with the aim of getting it added to Headbomb's very useful blacklisting tool. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 15:28, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I know I'm late to this party, but I looked at the entry for Cheddar, aside from consistently calling it a town (it's a village) it was mostly OK until it described Cheddar Palace as a 19th century mansion house that is now a hotel, it's actually a 9th century Saxon palace that exists only as a buried archaeological site in the grounds of the school. While an error of a thousand years might be OK between friends, it's certainly not OK for sourcing Wikipedia articles. Thryduulf (talk) 17:12, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

OK. It's history - for now. Worth keeping an eye on. 10mmsocket (talk) 15:29, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Comes across as AI generated and sounds like something an estate agent would write. It seems to muddle up locations with similar names. Contains inaccuracies claiming there's a parish church of St Mary's in a village when there isn't and inaccurate distances and directions from nearby places. So definitely not a reliable source. Rupples (talk) 04:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Looking at those in my local area. Several of them are entirely fictional, and definitely give off AI vibes. Toll Bar is a junction in a dense urban area (hardly surrounded by countryside) for hiking or anything (it's close to a few public parks), West Park meanwhile isn't even a thing beyond the rugby club of the same name, Parr is in the South East of the town and nothing else I can see is true either. Thatto Heath is opposite side of town. There were no mills or factories in the vicinity beyond a foundry, Sherdley Park is in Sutton and so on (not to mention all the recommended GP's and schools etc are in Liverpool). A similar issue exists on St Helens proper which mistakes it for the town of the same name on the Isle of Wight. Koncorde (talk) 20:10, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• Discussion also taking place at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Town & Village Guide (UK). SerialNumber54129 20:18, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

IP editor seems a bit WP:POINTY in his/her edits, e.g. here and associated talk page edit, plus other contributions. Is there consensus on the naming? 10mmsocket (talk) 15:35, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@10mmsocket, hmn technically under MOS:GEO we should use the title as used in its article British Isles but many significant articles like Castles in Great Britain and Ireland do ignore it. So appears due to the controversial nature, there is apparently a case-by-case approach? Unless they should be made consistent as British Isles or at least until local consensus decides otherwise at each?

May be there’s an old discussion somewhere. DankJae 16:22, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Understood, thanks. In that case I'll leave this IP to his one man/woman crusade. There's bigger problems to solve! 10mmsocket (talk) 16:46, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Many discussions (such as Talk:British Isles/Archive 41 that go nowhere because two traditions hold diametric opposing views. See also MOS:ERA, MOS:ENGVAR and there must be one about SI units v US Customary. And lots of WP:SOAPBOX edit wars such as that one. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:03, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Really good of you to look that up. It reinforces my thought to stay well away. If anyone else wants to start black pudding wars then fill your boots! 10mmsocket (talk) 17:05, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps we should have some guidence added to WP:UKDISTRICTS about pre 1974 districts (and similar for Scotland and Northern Ireland). See older discussion with User:Stortford at User talk:Stortford#Hertfordshire former parishes

In terms of separate articles or not.

• Any district whether rural or urban (including MBs and CBs) that was reformed with the same (or similar) boundaries should follow the "Reconstituted districts" on the current districts part and be covered and use the current title such as Blaby Rural District>Blaby District and Fareham Urban District>Borough of Fareham. For many urban districts like County Borough of Leicester there is no separate article so is covered in the settlement. For those like County Borough of Brighton>Borough of Brighton that were reformed in 1974 but later abolished they should also use the title when abolished though many like County Borough of Bath don't have separate articles similar to Leicester.

• Rural districts that contain more than 1 parish like Eastry Rural District should always have separate articles from the settlement/parish of the same name Eastry. Those that formerly included multiple parishes but only contained 1 when abolished like Tintwistle Rural District normally have separate articles though I'm not sure if there are any other examples.

• Urban district (including MBs and CBs) like Ware Urban District and County Borough of Huddersfield that have the same name as a settlement are normally covered in the settlement but may have separate articles if there is enough content to have separate articles like Municipal Borough of Buckingham and County Borough of Carlisle. Other factors that support having separate articles though it may still be best not to include;
  • The boundaries of the settlement compared to the district, we can also factor in today's boundaries so we might think it doesn't make sense to split when a district included a settlement that was distinct at the time the district was abolished but has since become part of the settlement.
  • The district contained multiple parishes, I would give less weight if all the parishes in X district were called things like X St Peter or X All Saints (especially if they were later merged to form a single parish called X like Maldon) than if they are names of other settlements like Exning in Newmarket Urban District or there are parishes in addition to the parish of X.
  • The district had boundary changes, I'd give more weight to significant ones like the whole of a large part of a parish (and especially a whole or large part of a district being abolished and merged to it) than small changes.
  • The current parish/unparished area has different boundaries to the former district. For example Witham was later divided into Rivenhall and Silver End, Lancaster unparished area no longer includes Aldcliffe-with-Stodday, Saffron Walden parish no longer includes Sewards End and Northampton parish excludes areas the county borough included. Obviously I'd put more weight on Witham because those other places are clearly distinct settlements than Northampton which was probably split mainly because of its large size.

• Urban districts (including MBs) that only existed as districts should have articles like Queensbury and Shelf Urban District and Spenborough unless they are the same or similar to something else like Queenborough-in-Sheppey should probably be merged with Isle of Sheppey.

• Rural districts that only ever contained 1 parish should normally be covered in the settlement/parish but may have separate articles similar to urban districts/MBs/CBs with the same name as settlements and can use the same tests (obviously the 2nd test won't apply).

• On a different note how should such districts be titled when they only existed as a district and disambiguation isn't needed. For example we have Queensbury and Shelf Urban District with Queensbury and Shelf redirecting to it but we have the reverse for Spenborough with Municipal Borough of Spenborough redirecting to it. Should we title without "Urban District" or "Municipal Borough of" if disambiguation isn't needed? I don't think there are any CBs with separate articles that don't need disambiguation but there are probably also rural districts. See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/How to write about districts#Naming convention which User:Mhockey and User:MRSC talked about. Crouch, Swale (talk) 23:21, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

No. None of this. We should follow basic wiki practice and write articles on an individual basis that have potential for substantive content rather than try to come up with complex rules that cannot possibly apply to hundreds of places. MRSC (talk) 07:11, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree. While much of the above describes the general pattern that will fall out of following project-wide policies, guidelines and conventions anyway, spelling it out in this much detail feels like instruction creep. Nobody's going to want to read that much detail when creating or editing an article, and in general it isn't necessary. WaggersTALK 10:04, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I also agree this is excessive for instructions. For pre-1974 urban districts and boroughs I wouldn't want to encourage a proliferation of stub pages - the topic is usually quite capable of being briefly summarised on the page for the settlement. That way you can also set it in the context of what came before and after, on a page where it is helpful for understanding the overall history of the settlement. For those handful of urban districts which covered something other than a single settlement, and for rural districts (and perhaps those cases where an editor has amassed so much material that it would be disproportionate for the settlement page) separate pages can be created under normal rules of notability etc.

One point to flag for rural districts is that quite a number of those created in 1894 were effectively accounting fictions, always being administered as part of a rural district in a neighbouring county, but they had to keep separate accounts for the parts in each county. I'd argue that such rural districts, although listed in sources such as Vision of Britain and Youngs' Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, would be better covered on the page for the rural district which actually administered them. I therefore wouldn't want to have policies effectively inviting the creation of lots of pages for rural districts which, on a proper understanding of their actual functioning, weren't really that notable. Stortford (talk) 07:10, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Dear folks, please source this stub. Thanks in advance. Bearian (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Unref since 2009! At first I wondered if it was a long-standing hoax, but it's on OS maps and the church is grade II liste. It's now only "needs more refs", as I've added the NHLE listing. That's one small contribution for now. Scope for other editors to chip in. PamD 09:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps we could do with a cleanup project: a listing of UK Geography articles unsourced pre-2010 would be an interesting start. PamD 09:40, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Do we really need a category for each parish, especially when the parish hasn't even got its own article or redirect, as was the case when Category:Hadley and Leegomery was created? There is going to be nothing in the category which is not already mentioned and linked in the article on the parish, when created, or on one of the component villages. PamD 21:21, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes I think if there are enough articles then it is appropriate to have them. Parishes are legally recognized and its surprising we don't already have more categories for them though I agree they are probably less useful when they form part of urban areas like Hadley and Leegomery but still appropaite. I mentioned this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK geography/Archive 21#Category for every parish?. Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:56, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Fully agree. To take your Shropshire example, there are 208 individual parishes listed in Category:Civil parishes in Shropshire and 19 parish subcategories. That's 19 too many. Looking at some of the categories they have so little in them they are pointless and should be deleted. 10mmsocket (talk) 00:24, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Is there a straightforward way to create {{Coord}} details from an OS Grid Ref?

@Aizoaceae2: is doing a great job of creating articles on SSSIs in Cumbria, but Natural England's information, both the database entry and the full citation only uses grid refs for locations. NY 266 136 in this case.

My usual route to find lat and long is to locate a place on UK Streetmap and then use its "convert coordinates" link, and the OS grid ref can be used to search UK Streetmap (after you remove the spaces), so that should work, but has anyone got any better recommendation? PamD 16:33, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

@PamD Looked into this a couple of days ago and found this website,[1] Only used it a couple of times - but the results were accurate - albeit the names on the aerial map are jumbled and unintelligible at some zoom levels. The base map can be changed to OS maps. Copy the grid reference to the appropriate box on the left and click Go and coordinates are shown. Rupples (talk) 17:17, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

@PamD: I also use Streetmap.co.uk, but sometimes nearby.org.uk and gridreferencefinder.com are useful. Dave.Dunford (talk) 17:29, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Another vote for Grid Reference Finder Murgatroyd49 (talk) 18:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, all: GridReferenceFinder looks very useful and I'll bookmark it. It has the advantage that it isn't fussy about spaces in grid refs, so you can copy and paste from a source, like the English Nature SSSI records, which has spaces or one which doesn't.

But it would be very helpful if there was a version of the {{coords}} template which could take an OS grid ref, with or without spaces, as input and produce output as lat and long. Is there a template editor out there who'd like to take up the challenge? PamD 23:35, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Probably a daft question, but does {{oscoor}} (officially, Template:Ordnance Survey coordinates) not do what you need? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:53, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

The template output is the Grid Ref, rather than as Decimal or DMS. However, if displaying in one of these formats is preferable then the template can be used to help with conversion. I have mostly done it using the gbmapping template, but oscoor would also work. On the page I was editing I put the grid ref into the template, then previewed the page allowing me to open the link to the GeoHack page on which it gave the numbers needed for the coord template, I then replaced gbmapping with the coord template before saving. EdwardUK (talk) 15:48, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Stainton, Westmorland and Furness#Requested move 18 December 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. —usernamekiran (talk) 03:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I have opened a discussion at Template talk:Infobox English county#Flag fields again. Given our established guidance is not to include county flags in infoboxes, and given that we still get time wasting editwars on various county articles every few months over flags, I have proposed simply removing those fields from the template unless anybody can spot a reason why that would cause a problem. Joe D (t) 10:43, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

I appreciate it's a big job, but you might want to leave a notification about the discussion on the individual county talk pages, or at least the talk pages of those counties where the flag is an active topic of discussion (e.g. Cornwall, Devon, and Kent).

An issue with county flag discussions is that they're easily fragmented due to the large number of pages involved, so proactive notification helps direct interested editors to the right place. A.D.Hope (talk) 11:46, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I've left a message on the talk pages of the three counties I messaged above. I know some other counties have had flags added to and then removed from their infoboxes recently, but to my knowledge these haven't generated discussions; I've left them for now as I'm not sure how much will be gained and leaving 48 talk page messages is a bit of a task. Hopefully this will draw in some more participants, though! A.D.Hope (talk) 20:10, 7 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd like to sound out some opinions about how we handle the county towns in the ceremonial county articles. It's common to mention them in the lead paragraph, and sometimes in the body. An issue with this is that is that, as the county towns article notes, they're 'ill-defined and unofficial'. Good contemporary sources are often hard to find, and in some cases it isn't clear which town, if any, is generally considered the county town.

How would people feel about restricting this information, where it can be sourced, to the body of the article? The lead could instead mention the largest town, as many already do, or give a brief etymology of the county name, which in many cases is taken from an historically prominent town. To use Lancashire as an example, rather than 'The largest settlement and administrative centre is Preston, and the county town is the city of Lancaster', we could say 'The county is named after the city of Lancaster, and the largest settlement is the city of Preston.' Lancaster is identified in the body as the 'historic county town' with a source, which is fine as the claim can be backed up.

(As a side note, I'm also wary of terms like 'administrative centre'. To stick with Lancashire, although Lancashire County Council and some courts are based in Preston, Blackpool and Blackburn also have their own unitary councils and so are also administrative centres.) A.D.Hope (talk) 11:47, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

I think a distinction should be made between 'traditional' county towns and modern administrative centres. E.g. the traditional county town of Leicestershire is Leicester, but the modern administrative centre is Glenfield. G-13114 (talk) 12:30, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Great Britain § Island vs Term including other islands, which is within the scope of this WikiProject. Should edits and claims that Great Britain includes the off-shore islands (the political definition) be used over the island definition. Concerning the recent change of infobox map to include the islands and in text. DankJae 22:22, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Great Britain is an island nation, and thus it should be called, as is Japan, Seychelles, Cuba, and other island countries. To name it as such is to comply with continuity. 2600:1003:A011:8CE4:65DE:7291:3FF6:8757 (talk) 19:25, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

Mingulay has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 00:07, 18 January 2025 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2025 January 19#Category:Civil parishes in Telford and Wrekin which is relevant to this project. PamD 11:36, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

Leeds Country Way has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 16:51, 19 January 2025 (UTC)

I noticed that Rutland was using 'infobox settlement' rather than 'infobox English county', so I've corrected it. If anyone has a minute would they mind checking I've not made any errors, as I'm not the best with infobox parameters. Cheers! A.D.Hope (talk) 19:32, 21 January 2025 (UTC)

RedKes and I have a difference of opinion at Langsett - they are determined that the village should be described as "near Barnsley", whereas I preferred the original wording "near Penistone" as more accurate and more informative. The village is in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley (as noted in the second sentence), but is 11 miles from the town (and only 4 miles from Penistone). Said user has a problem with civility (see their talk page) and IMO a pattern of questionable edits on sites in Yorkshire. Would appreciate third-party input at Talk:Langsett as I have no wish to prolong an edit war. Dave.Dunford (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2025 (UTC)

@FeistyRooster: appears to have misunderstood the nature of non-metropolitan counties and to have spent much of this morning making edits such as listing unitary authority areas as districts under the auspices of NMCs. I have pointed this out on his talk page and asked him to revert, but please be aware. Kevin McE (talk) 11:37, 3 February 2025 (UTC)

River Avon, Bristol has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 02:21, 4 February 2025 (UTC)