Counties are the ancient administrative divisions of England. They date back to the Anglo-Saxon period, and some of their boundaries derive from old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.The Normans retained the counties and the Domesday Book is divided into county sections. The Victoria County History includes translations of Domesday Book. Counties are still the major division of local government in England. Many changes in county boundaries have taken place in the 20th century. For the sake of consistency, the VCH still uses the county boundaries current when it was planned in the 1890s. These are analagous to those familiar in county cricket, so that for example the VCH Middlesex covers north London and the VCH Surrey south London.
The Anglo-Saxons divided counties into various sub-units. Of these the most common was the hundred. All the residents of a hundred would regularly gather at a fixed meeting place to, for example, hold courts and muster for military service. The name of the hundred was taken from this meeting place so that the hundred which covers most of north London was known as Ossultone hundred, from 'Oswald's Stone' which served as the meeting place. The hundred and hundred names are now mostly forgotten, but they provided a convenient way of dividing up counties, and most of the printed volumes of the VCH are arranged according to hundreds.
