Surely the kind of answer Wolfgang is talking about is likely to be concerned with pinpointing the place geographically, and depends on what you guess about the other listener's knowledge of such things?

So if I was talking to somebody in Harlow I'd say "qite near the station". If from a nearby town or village, I'd say "Harlow", if from a little further afield I'd add - "it's about halfway between London and Cambridge, or "quite near London." If I went far enough away I'd probably say "from Europe".

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Noone's commented on the other point I raised - is Ireland the only place where people refer to the counties as "the county XXX" rather than "county XXX"?