Post codes

[The Natural Philosopher]

counties were destroyed in most labour constituency areas and have little meaning these days

I feel sad about Middlesex. It no longer exists. Neither do whole swathes of Surrey.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well I live in suffolk, but my post town is Cambridge.

5 miles down the road, its Colchester. 5 miles in another direction, its Ipswich.

Houses on one side of a street are in Newmarket are in (West) Suffolk. On the other side, they are in (North East) Cambridge.

Both get their TCV from sandy heath.

3 miles over the other side of the hill. its sudbury and tacolneston.

My FULL address is house, hamlet, village, town, county, postcode

BUt the house name and postcode is enough.

[polygonum]

If you turn through 180 degrees, do the house numbers change?

[Andy Burns]

Full according to who?

[polygonum]

Even when they have numbers, you sometimes later realise that those are numbers within a subsection of the road - a "block", or "building", or "terrace", or "High Street".

[Chris French]

Well, I suppose that presumably is the most convenient from the POV of Royal Mail when organising their delivery network.

The Post Town for our village is 10 miles away, but the nearest town, which is is own post town as well is 6 miles away.

But our post town is a bit bigger, and has a much bigger depot, so I imagine it makes more sense for most of the mail for the surrounding area to go through there

[The Natural Philosopher]

well, exactly. I could even put a road on there, except no one actually knows what its called...

[charles]

but Surrey gained some of what was Middlesex

[Mike Barnes]

No, unless you've ingested something pretty powerful.

[S Viemeister]

My house has no number, and the road has no name - deliveries are sometimes a problem...

[Mike Barnes]

Call that a full address? What happened to country, continent, planet, solar system, spiral arm, galaxy, cluster, supercluster?

Sometimes it's no wonder post goes astray.

[harryagain]

We have about 1500 houses like that in our village.

[The Other John]

There are some anomalies due to old boundaries like the headquarters of Surrey County Council is in the London Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames and the home ground of Surrey Cricket Club is the Kenington Oval in SE London!

[charles]

The Oval was always in London.

[bert]

It'll be your postal delivery town/city.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes.. thats true

[bert]

In message , Davey writes

Logic related to efficiently delivering the post without concern for meaningless county boundaries.

[The Natural Philosopher]

i never found that the pan galactic gargle blaster bottles got through anyway

[The Natural Philosopher]

I am not so sure actually:

Until 1889 the ancient county of Surrey extended as far north as the Thames and as far east as Rotherhithe.

In 1889 the County of London was created, and the areas of the modern London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark and Wandsworth were removed from Surrey. The records of these areas are held either by the London Metropolitan Archives or by the local boroughs, but the Surrey History Centre holds pre-1889 Quarter Sessions records for this area.

Also in 1889, Croydon was made into a county borough exempt from county administration. Croydon became a London borough in 1965, and most Croydon records are held by the Croydon Local Studies Library and Archives.

In 1965 more of Surrey was lost to London, with the creation of the London boroughs of Kingston, Merton, Richmond, Sutton and an expanded Croydon. For these areas, records are held by the local boroughs (either in their archives or local studies libraries) or the Surrey History Centre. The London Metropolitan Archives may also have some material.

In 1965 Staines and Sunbury were transferred from Middlesex to Surrey. In 1974 these areas became the new district of Spelthorne. Most records relating to the former Middlesex area are held by the London Metropolitan Archives.

It looks like London apart from the City, was many counties up till 1889.

And its not clear that Kenington wasn't still part of Surrey after that, though it seems less likely.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Or for distance. A letter which could go 5 miles now has to via Cambridge and either Ipswich or Colchester