 When Alfred the Great divided the country into shires, this county received the name of Berrocscir, as Asser says, "from the wood of Berroc, where the box-tree grows most plentifully".At the time of the survey it comprised twenty-two hundreds; in 1911 there were only twenty, of which eleven retained their ancient names.Many parishes have been transferred from one hundred to another, but the boundary of the county is practically unchanged.