2026-04-30-accounts

Accounts for the Historic Counties Trust

A charitable incorporated organisation Charity Number 1114371

1 May 2025 to 30 April 2026

These accounts consist of:

• Statement of Financial Activities incorporating the Income and Expenditure Account

• Balance Sheet

Charity Number 1114371

Accounts for the Historic Counties Trust

1 May 2025 - 30 April 2026

Statement of Financial Activities - Page 1 of 1

Incorporating the Income and Expenditure Account

The Charity maintains only one sort of fund: unrestricted funds held in the bank

A A1 A1a A1b A1c A2 A3 B B1 B1a B1b B1c B2 B3 B4 C D D1 D2 D3 F	Unrestricted funds: Incoming Resources Income resources from generated funds Voluntary income Activities for generating funds Investment income Incoming resources from charitable activities Other incoming resources Total incoming resouces Resources expended Costs of generating funds: Costs generating voluntary income Fundraising trading: cost of goods sold and other costs Investment management costs Charitable activities Governance costs Other resources expended Total resources expended Net incoming / outgoing resources before transfers Transfers Gross transfers between funds Net income resources before other recognized gains and losses Other recognized gains / losses Gains on revaluation of fixed assets for charity's own use Gains / losses on investment assets Actuarial gains / losses on defined benefit pension schemes Net movement in funds Reconciliation of Funds Total funds brought forward Total funds carried forward	Total funds Total funds 1 May 25 - 30 Apr 26 1 May 24 - 30 Apr 25 £ £ 4,500.00 13.00 0.00 0.00 381.37 181.88 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
		4,881.37 194.88 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 14,125.91 0.00 0.00 13.00 0.00 0.00
		14,125.91 13.00
		-9,244.54 181.88 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
		0.00 0.00 19,761.21 19,579.33 10,516.67 19,761.21

Ru ert Barnes p

Rupert Barnes - Trustee

Accounts for the Historic Counties Trust

Charity Number 1114371

1 May 2025 - 30 April 2026

Balance Sheet - Page 1 of 2

	Balance Sheet - Page 1 of 2
		Total funds	Total funds
		1 May 25 - 30 Apr 26	1 May 24 - 30 Apr 25
		£	£
A	Fixed assets:
A1	Intangible assets	0.00	0.00
A2	Tangible assets	0.00	0.00
A3	Heritage assets	0.00	0.00
A4	Investments:
A4a	Investments	0.00	0.00
A4b	Programme-related investments	0.00	0.00
	Total fixed assets	0.00	0.00
B	Current assets:
B1	Stocks & work-in-progress	0.00	0.00
B2	Debtors	0.00	0.00
B3	Investments	0.00	0.00
B4	Cash at bank and in hand	10,516.67	19,761.21
	Total current assets	10,516.67	19,761.21
C	Liabilities:
C1	Creditors: Amounts falling due	4,500.00	0.00
	within one year
	Net current assets or liabilities	15,016.67	19,761.21
	Total assets less liabilities	15,016.67	19,761.21
C2	Creditors: Amounts falling due after	0.00	0.00
	more than one year
	one year
C3	Provisions for liabilities and charges	0.00	0.00
	Net assets or liabilities excluding	15,016.67	19,761.21
	pension asset or liability
D	Defined benefit pension scheme asset or liability
	Net assets or liabilities including	0.00	0.00
	pension asset or liability
E	The funds of the charity:
E1	Endowment funds	0.00	0.00
E2	Restricted income funds	0.00	0.00
E3	Unrestricted income funds
E3a	Share capital	0.00	0.00
E3b	Unrestricted income funds	10,516.67	19,761.21
E3c	Revaluation reserve	0.00	0.00
	Unrestricted income funds	10,516.67	19,761.21
	excluding pension asset / liability
E3d	Pension reserve	0.00	0.00
	Total unrestricted funds	10,516.67	19,761.21
	Total charity funds	10,516.67	19,761.21

There are no fixed assets and so no movement of fixed assets

Accounts for the Historic Counties Trust Charity Number 1114371

Balance Sheet: Page 2 of 2

These accounts have been prepared and delivered for a small charity of under £25,000 annual income.

The directors have acknowledged their responsibility for:

• (i) Ensuring the company keeps accounting records in accordance with law; and

• (ii) preparing accounts which give a true and fair view of the state of affairs of the company as at the end of the financial year, and of its profit or loss for the financial year, and which otherwise comply with normal requirements relating to accounts, so far as applicable to the charity.

Signed:

Ru ert Barnes p

Rupert Barnes

A Trustee of the Historic Counties Trust

8 August 2026

TRUSTEES’ ANNUAL REPORT 2026

Charities Act 2006

(YEAR 1 MAY 2025 - 30 APRIL 2026)

THE HISTORIC COUNTIES TRUST

THE HISTORIC COUNTIES TRUST A charitable incorporated organisation Charity registration number 1114371

4 Rugby Way Croxley Green Hertfordshire WD3 3PH

www.historiccountiestrust.co.uk

INDEX

Notes for this Report Generally ................................................................................................. 1	Notes for this Report Generally ................................................................................................. 1
1.	Notes and interpretation ..................................................................................................... 1
Legal and Administrative Information ........................................................................................ 1
2.	Name .................................................................................................................................. 1
3.	Constitution ......................................................................................................................... 1
4.	The Trustees ....................................................................................................................... 1
5.	Advisers .............................................................................................................................. 2
Narrative Information ................................................................................................................. 2
6.	Objects ................................................................................................................................ 2
7.	Organizational structure ..................................................................................................... 2
8.	Relationship with related parties ........................................................................................ 2
9.	Review of the Charity’s activities ........................................................................................ 2
10. Statement of the Charity’s policies ................................................................................. 3
	10.1 The Charity’s policy on reserves ............................................................................. 3
	10.2 The Charity’s Policy on selecting investments ........................................................ 3
	10.3 The Charity’s policy on selecting recipients of grants ............................................. 3
11. Funds in deficit ................................................................................................................ 4
12. Major risks ....................................................................................................................... 4
Appendix 1 ................................................................................................................................. 5
	The Objects and Activities ..................................................................................................... 5

Index

The Historic Counties Trust

NOTES FOR THIS REPORT GENERALLY

1. Notes and interpretation

This Report has been written to as the Trustees’ Annual Report for the purposes of the Charities Acts. During the year, the Trust was converted into a charitable incorporated organisation, form being a company limited by guarantee, and so the report may contain information which would be relevant to a directors’ report for a company, as in previous years.

LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE INFORMATION

2. Name

• 2.1 The Charity’s name is:

The Historic Counties Trust

• 2.2 The Charity is not known by any other name.

• 2.3 The Charity’s principal address is its registered office, namely:

4 Rugby Way, Croxley Green, Hertfordshire WD3 3PH

3. Constitution

• 3.1 The Charity is constituted as a company limited by guarantee. The Charity’s Governing Documents are its Memorandum and Articles of Association.

• 3.2

• The company number is 5439118 .

• 3.3 The charity registration number is 1114371 .

4. The Trustees

• 4.1 The current Trustees are:

• (a) RUPERT ALEXANDER HOWARD BARNES;

• (b) PETER JAMES BOYCE;

• (c) JOHN MICHAEL BRADFORD;

• (d) TIMOTHY JAMES BUTTERWORTH;

• (e) MARTIN JOHN PHILIPS;

• (f) OWAIN GWYN VAUGHAN.

• 4.2 Other than the above named, Robert Hawley served as a Trustee during the year with which this Report is concerned. He resigned during the conversion process and Martin John Philips Owain Gwyn Vaughan agreed to become Trustees.

• 4.3

• As to the appointment of Trustees:

• (a) The Trustees are appointed in accordance with the newly adopted Constitution by the one Member, which is the Association of British Counties.

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The Historic Counties Trust

• (b) The Association of British Counties acts through its Committee.

• 4.4 Any person becoming a Trustee will be expected to have served on the Committee of the Association of British Counties so as to become familiar with the Historic Counties and the issues concerning their heritage and conservation and the threats posed to that, and in particular with issues involving public education. We consider this experience to be sufficient training.

• 4.5 There is no custodian trustee nor holding trustee. No property is held on behalf of the Charity by any other person.

5. Advisers

• 5.1 The following act for or assist the Charity in the following capacities:

• (a) Accountants: none

• (b) Auditor: none

• (c) Bankers: Virgin Money and HSBC Bank plc

• (d) Independent examining accountant: none

• (e) Principal advisers: none

• (f) Solicitors: none. Rupert Barnes is a solicitor (admitted in England and Wales).

NARRATIVE INFORMATION

6. Objects

• 6.1 The Charity’s Objects are set out in Appendix 1 to this Report.

• 6.2 The main activities related to each Object are also set out in Appendix 1, beneath the Object in question.

• 6.3 The Objects have not been altered during the year.

7. Organizational structure

The Charity is run by the Trustees. Decisions are made by majority decision.

8. Relationship with related parties

There is only one related party: the Association of British Counties, as the sole Member of the Charity.

9. Review of the Charity’s activities

• 9.1 The Charity has commissioned and supplied maps of the Historic Counties of the United Kingdom for educational purposes.

• 9.2 The Charity has commissioned and erected boundary signs by the River Tees to mark the border of the historic counties of Durham and Yorkshire, and prepared templates for other county borders.

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The Historic Counties Trust

• 9.3 The Charity has researched miscellaneous aspects of county heritage: geography, history and semiotics and provided advice to researchers and enquirers in all these areas. It has prepared material for publication and provided material to public, noncommercial web research resources.

• 9.4 Refined County Borders Project data (to a scale estimated at 1:10 000) were published on our own website and provided to outside resources at their request. Further refinements were added, including the Yorkshire ridings and detached parts.

• 9.5 The Charity provided data to various national heritage bodies concerning the county and riding classification of data and miscellaneous additional data fields with a view to mutual development of data standards and our own databases, which work continues.

• 9.6 The Charity continued its detailed cartographical research and field research.

• 9.7 The charity began more detailed work on a collaborative project for photographing the architecture, geography and natural history of the counties.

• 9.8 The Charity has advised local bodies seeking to represent their counties with flags as to historically authenticated symbols representing the counties, and conducted joint research with the Flag Institute. As the county trust for a number of counties without their own, discrete county trust, the Charity has raised local discussions on county flags.

• 9.9 The Charity has advised on the county heritage and history aspects of the “Birth of England” project and the related “Eamont 927” project, marking in 2027 the 1,100th anniversary of the unification of England.

• 9.10 The Charity has increased the information made publicly available on its website.

• 9.11 Trustees and volunteers have given public lectures over the year.

10. Statement of the Charity’s policies

The Charity’s accounts are simple and our only policy therefore is to present them simply as they are.

10.1 The Charity’s policy on reserves

The Charity maintains a single account. It is intended to retain a balance at all times, but a set reserve as such is not considered necessary given that there are no fixed outgoings and any outgoings are under the Trustees’ direct control.

10.2 The Charity’s Policy on selecting investments

We do not make investments.

10.3 The Charity’s policy on selecting recipients of grants

This year we have concentrated on research and have made no grants this financial year. We have no immediate plan to make grants and so we have not adopted a policy to govern these yet.

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The Historic Counties Trust

11. Funds in deficit

There are no funds in deficit.

12. Major risks

There are no major risks to which the Charity is exposed.

Rupert Barnes

................................................................................................

Rupert Barnes

A Trustee of The Historic Counties Trust

8 August 2026

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The Historic Counties Trust

Appendix 1

The Objects and Activities

The Trust’s objects (“the Objects”) are:

• (1) To advance the education of the public in the history, geography, natural history, architecture, traditions and historic boundaries of the Counties and Ridings of the United Kingdom

The Trust’s main website carries such information. More is being published as it is compiled. Short summaries of every county have been published. The Trust is now concentrating on gathering and publishing more detail on individual counties.

Trustees and volunteers continue to give lectures, in particular those in Yorkshire have lectured on Yorkshire themes.

• (2) To ensure high standards of surveying and recording on definitive maps and other public records of the boundaries of Counties, Ridings and other areas of local and historical interest and of the United Kingdom's geography generally.

The Trust has preparing and is continually improving digitised boundary data (“the County Borders Project”) compatible with Ordnance Survey and industry-standard applications.

The Trust has published the “Historic Counties Standard” for public and academic consultation in advance of eventual publication as a reference standard and continues the consultation.

• (3) To preserve such maps and records referred to in (2) above and make them available for the public benefit.

The County Boundaries data is stored electronically. It is being provided to organizations interested, both passively on the website and actively through individual contact with publishers. It is an ongoing, currently incomplete project. The individual county data is being compiled ready for publication in suitable forms. Small-scale county location maps have been prepared and published and provided for public reference projects.

................................................................................................

Rupert Barnes

A Trustee and Director of The Historic Counties Trust

5 December 2016

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