Riding

Riding (Scand. thríding or tríding, 'third part'), a term applied to the three parts into which the county of York is divided, termed respectively East, West, and North Riding. A similar division existed in several other counties in the Anglo-Saxon period, as the laths of Kent, the rapes of Sussex, the parts of Lincoln. In Domesday Book Yorkshire was divided, as at present, into three ridings, and subdivided into wapentakes.