In the old days, duck cycled around historic county (9)
I believe the answer is:
yorkshire
'county' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'in the old days duck cycled around historic' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'old' could be 'o' (abbreviation) and 'o' is found within the answer.
'around' could be 're' (regarding) and 're' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for yorkshire that I've seen before include "Joe Root's county" , "Grit" , "County divided into three ridings" , "Ilkley's county" , "Northern region" .)