Avon

The former County of Avon was a non-metropolitan county and ceremonial county in the west of England, named after the River Avon, which ran through it. more...

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In 1996, the county was abolished and the area split between the Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire unitary local authorities. The Avon area is still used for some purposes (see "Legacy" section), and today has a population of approximately one million people.

Creation

Avon was formed under the Local Government Act 1972, on 1 April 1974. It took in the areas of the former county boroughs of Bristol and Bath, and areas from the administrative counties of Gloucestershire (Kingswood, Mangotsfield, and the rural districts of Warmley, Sodbury (most) and Thornbury (most)), and Somerset (Weston-super-Mare, Clevedon, Keynsham, Norton-Radstock, Portishead, and the rural districts of Bathavon, Long Ashton, Axbridge (much), and Clutton (much). Like most of the new counties created by the Act, its boundaries were substantially trimmed from its inception, with Frome and Bradford on Avon removed from the proposed area.

It had six districts. Bristol and Bath were taken in directly from the former county boroughs. In the north, the Gloucestershire side, the urban districts of Kingswood and Mangotsfield formed a single borough of Kingswood, with the rest becoming Northavon. In the south, there were two districts, Woodspring, on the coast, and Wansdyke, in the interior.

To the north it bordered Gloucestershire, to the east Wiltshire and to the south Somerset. In the west it had a coast on the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel.

The area of Avon was 1,347 square kilometres (520 sq mi) and its population in 1991 was 919,800. Cities and towns in Avon included (in approximate order of population) Bristol, Bath, Weston-super-Mare, Yate, Clevedon, Portishead, Midsomer Norton & Radstock, Bradley Stoke, Nailsea, Yatton, Keynsham and Thornbury.

Demise

Like some other English cities such as Liverpool, Plymouth and Newcastle, Bristol developed as a port city at the mouth of a river which separated historic counties, and expanded and developed economic linkages on both sides of the traditional boundary. In these cases, nearby communities have often retained sentimental attachments to their traditional counties, rather than to those cities on the edge of the historic counties with which they were associated in terms of work, shopping and cultural facilities.

Read more at Wikipedia.org