Lancashire & Yorkshire
The dividing line between Lancashire and Yorkshire is the natural border — the Pennine Mountains. The centres of Lancashire are: Manchester, Liverpool and Blackpool.
Manchester is one of the biggest centres. Besides being the centre of the cotton textile industry, Manchester is one of the chief centres of electrical and heavy engineering, machine tools and dye staff are produced here. It is also a financial centre and a port. It became a port due to the canal which connects it with Liverpool and the Mersy Side (р. Мерси). There are some refinery installations here.
Liverpool is one of largest ports in Great Britain, and a great commercial centre. It is also the centre of food processing. Among its old industries ship building is developed. In addition to this chemical industry is also developed. Many new industries including electrical engineering and the manufacture and the manufacture of other heavy industrial equipment have been established in this area. Liverpool is also famous for flour milling, soap manufacture and sugar refining.
Blackpool is a health resort, and the water contributes much to the processing of cotton.
Yorkshire. The centres are: Leads, Hull, Bradford, Sheffield, and York.
Leads and Bradford. Leads is the commercial centre of the area, and it has a large ready-made clothing industry and it produces a large number of engineering products. Bradford is the main centre for worsteds industry and it is the centre of the woolen textile industry.
Sheffield is the traditional centre of steel industry. Things are made of steel are cutlery and different tools. Coal-mining is also developed here.
Hull is a fishing port and there are a lot of canning factories here. It has a vegetable oil refinery and saw-mills (лесопилки) are found here. Timber is imported, it is processed here. Hull also produces equipment for ports.
The city of York has no industry. It is a beautiful religious centre and there are some confectionary factories here, and it specializes in production of chocolate and things connected with religion — things with a certain religion bias (уклон).
Northern England
The Pennine Mountains run up the middle of Northern England, like a spine. On either side the large deposits of coal and iron ore enabled these areas to lead the industrial revolution in the 18th century. On the western side the Manchester area connected to the port of Liverpool by canal became in the 19th century the world’s leading centre of cotton goods. On the eastern side towns such as Bradford and Leeds became the world’s leading producers of woolen goods. Many other towns sprang up (=appeared) on both sides of the Pennines at this time, as a result of the growth of certain auxiliary industries and of coal mining.
Further South, Sheffield became a centre for the production of steel goods. Further North, around New-Castle ship-building was the major industry. In the minds of the British people the prototype of the noisy dirty factory that symbolizes the industrial revolution is found in the industrial North. But the achievements of these new industrial towns also induced a feeling of civil pride in their inhabitants, and energetic realism expressed by the same “Where there’s muck there’s brass” (Wherever there is dirt there is money to be found).
The decline in heavy industry in Europe in the 2nd half of the XX century has hit the industrial North of England hard. For a long time the region as a whole has had a level of unemployment much above the national average. The towns on either sides of the Pennines are flanked by steep slopes on which it is difficult to build, and are surrounded by land most of which is unsuitable for any agriculture other than sheep farming. Therefore, the pattern of settlement in the North of England is often different from that in the South. The greater part of Northern England is an area of mountains, lakes and moors, especially the western part.
The largest city is New-Castle upon Tyne. It is the centre of coal mining industry. Steel making is developed here too. Then, ship-building, food processing industry and not long ago chemical industry began to develop in New-Castle.
There are some other big towns here: Sunderland and Middleborough. In Sunderland ship-building is developed, and Middleborough is the centre of heavy industry.