The 1888 Act, in addition to creating corresponding administrative counties for each geographical county (as already noted , frequently not exactly the same area as one another) it also created a brand new administrative county of London, the area of which extended geographically into Middlesex , Surrey and Kent, It must be emphasised that those three counties themselves did not lose any of their geographical areas and that places within the new administrative county of London did not cease to be in Middlesex, Surrey or Kent for anything else than local government. This is why there was never a "London County Cricket Club" and why Middlesex C.C.C. still played (and continues to play) at Lords (Marylebone) and Surrey at the Oval (Kennington). Sporting organisations knew perfectly well, at that time, that their counties had not altered and that local government matters did not affect them in the slightest. Not so today, unfortunately, when the ill-informed and misled members of the Middlesex County Cricket Club make what they consider to be amusing remarks about being the only county Cricket Club without a county. Had they been as astute as their predecessors in 1888 they would know very well that their county was no less the county it has always been and will continue to be irrespective of the fickle whims of local government administration.

The problem for county identity has been that, at some time following the 1888 Local Government Act, the Ordnance Survey decided it was appropriate to show the London County Council area on maps, presumably because of it's importance, although the newly created Administrative County of London was not a real county but only a local government administrative area and despite the fact that its predecessor, the Metropolitan Board of Works had not been shown on general purpose maps. Thus an erroneous precedent was set for other administrative areas to be shown on maps with any future local government alterations to administrative county boundaries (as happened in 1965 with the abolition of Middlesex and Huntingdonshire administratve counties) and one that would naturally be followed by all other map publishers. Henceforth, therefore, all maps would show only administrative county areas and not the true geographical counties as formerly which was absolutely in contravention of the declared intentions of the 1888 Act.

It was, of course, not necessary to show administrative boundaries at all on general purpose maps and certainly not instead of the geographical ones. Maps are, first and foremost, to show geographical information so places can be readily located. They are not supposed to show local government areas unless they are specialised maps for that specific purpose. Just as Parliamentary constituencies, probate districts, health authority areas etc., etc., all have their own specialised maps and are not shown on ordinary maps so local government is, equally, a specialised function and should be confined to its own specialised maps for those who need to know such information.

Because only administrative areas were, henceforth, to be shown on maps instead of the real counties, those such as Middlesex and Huntingdonshire entirely disappeared from maps and, naturally, it was generally perceived that those counties had, indeed, been abolished, instead of their administrative counterparts. It is no wonder, therefore, that administrative counties came to replace the real counties in the perception of all but a small minority who understood the true facts of the matter.

Of all official bodies, only the Post Office retained the Middlesex County name in some, but certainly not all, of its recommended postal addresses and so, postally. Middlesex was split in two with the western portion of the county retaining its Middlesex postal addresses from Edgware down to Brentford and all points west and with Enfield and Potters Bar in the north continuing to be known postally as Middlesex but with a great swathe between from Edmonton to Acton which the Post Office chose to term "London" and which included many places within the former Administrative county area. Now that these places were no longer administered by the Middlesex County Council and did not have a recommended Middlesex postal address, their true Middlesex identity was obliterated by the incorrect, and totally unhelpful and misleading, title of "London" with only a compass point to give any indication whatsoever as to its possible geographical location.

How has all of this affected Potters Bar and the perception of Potters Bar residents of their true county identity? Of all the alterations to local government area boundaries that have taken place since the 1888 Act introduced administrative counties, nowhere has had its true county identity so utterly obliterated as Potters Bar, not even the far-reaching changes of 1974 and 1996 has affected any other place quite to the extent that Potters Bar has been affected. Prior to 1st April 1965 Potters Bar was administered by Middlesex County Council and had, at least for half it's area, a Middlesex recommended postal address (the southern half of the district came, for postal purposes, under Barnet, Herts.) and the whole of Potters Bar Urban District came within the Metropolitan Police Area.