Rutlanders arise - your hour of destiny is here

Robin Stummer reports from the reborn county where they know that small is beautiful

As revolutions go, it has been a quiet one. There has been no bloodshed, tanks didn't rumble across the marketplace, no proclamations have been issued from bullet-riddled balconies. Yet, 23 years after an ancient, noble and ridiculously small English county was annexed and erased from British maps, its proud inhabitants are within days of breaking free from tyrannical rule by the commissars of Leicestershire. Shout it from the highest grain silo - Rutland is back!

Not that it ever really went away. Just 16 miles from north to south and roughly the same east to west, Rutland enjoyed nearly 1,000 years of celebrity as the smallest county. While close relations such as Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire grew up big, Rutland remained the runt of the litter, making up in history what it lacked in square miles.

"Roteland" - from the red colour of the region's soil - is believed to have originated in the 11th century as the dowry of King Ethelred the Unready to his wife, Emma. Not the most generous of wedding presents, but one that serfs and nobility alike became fiercely proud of. Size (or lack of it) was indeed important, but it would be a while - nine centuries in fact - before that loyalty would be put to the test.

In the 1960s, government moves to rationalise the antiquated county system were met with fury in Rutland. A staunch defence, led by local brewing magnate Sir Kenneth Ruddle, kept Whitehall at bay until 1974 and the fateful Anschluss with Leicester. Eager to wipe out all trace of its tiny neighbour, the county council immediately decided to uproot all "Welcome to Rutland" signs. In one of the most heroic episodes of the ensuing East Midlands guerrilla war, radical activists braved the chill night air to put them back. The signs would go down, then arise, throughout the 1970s. Other acts of disobedience included continuing to address letters "Rutland" - even though the Royal Mail threatened to refuse to deliver them.

To visit Rutland today is to take a trip back 40 years. Set amid gentle hills, lush fields and tree-lined streams, Oakham, the county town, is free from litter and unseemly advertising. Its immaculate streets are patrolled by small armies of determined Miss Marples - shopping bags at the ready, best hats never better - and the groomed, rosy-cheeked pupils of its public school, which dates back to the 15th century. It has a cheery bobby or two and one humane traffic warden. Even the Voujon Balti Hut and the Hong Wan Chinese takeaway look as if they've been there since the Great War.

Every Monday, the Magistrates Court sits in session amid the Norman splendour of Oakham Castle, and villains are led to cells which are among the oldest in use in the country. Not that there's much crime. "Oh, there's the occasional break-in, but nothing serious," said one townswoman. "There's a one-man local crimewave at the moment, but we have our eyes on him!"

English quirkiness abounds. Last Friday, for example, the Rt Hon Earl Ferrers continued an ancient tradition by offering the Lord of the Manor of Oakham, currently Mr Joss Hanbury, a symbolic horseshoe as forfeit for visiting the manor Lordshold for the first time. On walls inside the Castle hang horseshoe gifts from peers and monarchs dating back to the 15th century.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the Soviet Union, it was only a matter of time before the people's will would be heard on the streets of Oakham, Great Casterton and Uppingham. Following a plebiscite, in which more than 70 per cent of Rutlanders voted for independence, the Government bowed to the inevitable and, as of 1 April, Rutland will reappear under the guise of a Unitary Council.

Not everyone is happy. Independence has a price, and council tax levels are set to rise steeply to meet the cost of buying in from other counties services such as police and fire. The forces of counter-revolution can count among their number North Rutland Councillor Mrs Audrey Buxton. "How could just 33,500 people possibly support all the council services?" she says. "The new Rutland council will have to cut budgets." About to see her ward disappear in a local government shake-up at independence, Mrs Buxton, a Conservative, claims that the region was better off under the old regime. "Ironically, Rutland is now having to buy in services from Leicestershire, and there just isn't the money. There's a lot of rural social deprivation here. They'll have to cut services."

Others are more upbeat. "At last Rutland is about to return to Rutland," says Eddie Martin, the Independent leader of the outgoing Rutland District Council. "The council has some great ideas - it's a brave little county. It may take a year or two though to get things right, but we'll recover. Anyway, quality of life is not necessarily linked to quantity of money. The sour grapes people in Rutland should just get off their backsides."

If there is one corner of England that is forever England, that's Rutland.