On the eve of the millennium, more than 200 years after Governor Simcoe created the County of Norfolk in 1792, this area's treasured identity has been restored.

The Ontario Legislature last fall ended an odyssey of municipal restructuring that began in 1798 when Norfolk was merged in the London District. The county was next subsumed by the Talbot District in 1842, and then re-constituted by the1849 Baldwin Act, which replaced districts with a two-tier system of county governments. Norfolk County and its component townships functioned under the county system until the advent of Haldimand-Norfolk Regional Government in 1974.

A combination of minimal population growth and rising public dissatisfaction ultimately sealed the fate of regional government. In response, the province proclaimed separate single-tier municipalities--the Town of Norfolk and the Town of Haldimand--approximating the former county boundaries.

In a new century, in a new format, "Glorious Old Norfolk" lives on.