A shire county or non-metropolitan county in England, is an administrative county which is not a metropolitan county. Most of the shire counties end in the suffix "-shire", but not all of them; for example, Kent is a shire county.
The term is sometimes used in a restricted sense to refer only to the administrative counties that have a two-tier structure, of a county council and district councils. It therefore excludes the various unitary authorities, including the Isle of Wight, Herefordshire, Rutland, the whole of Berkshire and parts of many other counties.
The origin of the Shire breed is lost in the mists of antiquity, as is the case with many breeds, but we do have a pretty fair notion from whence he cometh.
The destiny of the Shire and of England is inexorably entwined.
The marshy fen counties of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire lay claim to having exerted the earliest beneficial influence upon the breed and it was from these counties that sales were first made for the improvement of draft horses all over England.
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