A few of my previous blog posts have been about quirks in the UK postal address system. As a result of these posts being moderately popular, people have contacted me to tell me about other such quirks. This pleases me greatly – I like quirks.
Mmmmm quirks.
Also, since finding the HM Land Registry property sales data, I’ve discovered some other vaguely interesting stuff, so I thought that I’d collate all this information into one big blog post of address-based quirky goodness.
I promise this will be the last address-related thing for a while. If I discover more quirks, I’ll just edit them into this post.
PS. If you’ve not read my previous posts, The HM Land Registry property sales data is a list of most residential property sales in England and Wales since 1995. It’s not a comprehensive list of every house in the UK, so the findings below are not comprehensive.
House Numbers
Highest House Number
In the HM Land Registry property sales data, the highest house number is 9156, which belongs to a house near Beccles in Suffolk. However there are no other houses on the same road, nor in fact anywhere nearby, which are numbered above 2000. I assume that, in the same way that you can give your house a name, you must also be able to give it a number as a name. There can’t be any other reason why a house on a street with fewer than 10 other houses would be number 9156. Or why a house in Owls Green, a village of about 20 houses near Ipswich, would be numbered 2820 (cute).
If we only include streets where the house numbers increment more or less continuously upwards, according to the HM Land Registry there are five streets in England and Wales with legitimate house numbers above 2000 (with the number of the highest house in brackets):
- Bristol Road South, B45 9JL (2022)
- Hessle Road, HU13 9NN (2063)
- Warwick Road, B93 0EF (2111)
- Coventry Road, B26 3PX (2599)
- Stratford Road, B94 5NH (2679)
Four of these streets have Birmingham postcodes.
Anyway, it means that the highest numbered house is: 2679 Stratford Road, B94 5NH.
Lowest House Number
Yes, you heard me.
You might assume that the lowest house number would be 1, but there are quite a few houses numbered zero. Here are some (but probably not all) of them:
- 0, Victoria Road, Ellesmere Port
- 0, Hill Brow, Hove
- 0, North Castle Street, Stafford
- 0, Baker Street, Middlesbrough
- 0, Albany Street, Middlesbrough
- 0, Angle Street, Middlesbrough
- 0, Egmont Road, Middlesbrough
- 0, Roseberry Road, Middlesbrough
- 0, Sotheron Street, Goole
- 0, Coxes Road, Selsey
- Zero, Colney Heath Lane, St. Albans
- Zero, St. Andrew’s Drive, Seaford
- Zero, Greetwell Road, Lincoln
- Zero, Ash Grove, Hayward’s Heath
- Zero, Gauden Road, Lambeth
There are even some houses which go into negative numbers:
- Minus One, Kingsway, Orpington
- Minus One, College Road, Clacton-On-Sea
- Minus One, Mill Lane, Oxted, RH8 0TJ
- Minus One, Cross Road, Romford
- Minus One, Friday Street, Horsham
- Minusone, Priory Road, Newbury
There’s a good chance, however, that the lowest house number is this:
Non-integer House Numbers
The usual thing to do if you’re putting a new house in between two existing houses with consecutive numbers, is to add a letter: 10a, 17b, etc. But there are a surprising number of houses with fractions in their house numbers.
Here are some of the “halfway” houses:
- 99 & A Half, Western Road, Brighton, BN1 2AA
- 10 And A Half, Preston Park Avenue, Brighton, BN1 6HJ
- 38 & A Half, Copperkins Lane, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP6 5QP
- Ten & Half, Watcombe Circus, Nottingham, NG5 2DU
- One & A Half, Hamilton Drive, Nottingham, NG7 1DF
- 1 & A Half, Praeds Lane, Marazion, Penwith, Cornwall, TR17 0AT
- 19 & A Half, Old Elvet, Durham, County Durham, DH1 3HL
- 11 & A Half, Front Street, Quebec, Durham, DH7 9DF
- 44 & A Half D, Claypath, Durham, DH1 1QS
- 24 & A Half, Gilesgate, Durham, DH1 1QW
- 91 & A Half, Hawthorn House, Rothbury Road, Durham, DH1 5QE
- 3 & Half, St Martins Lane, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1UD
- 44 & A Half, The Mint, Rye, Rother, East Sussex, TN31 7EN
- Five & A Half, Albion Hill, Loughton, Epping Forest, Essex, IG10 4RA
- Three & Half, Weeley Road, Great Bentley, Colchester, Tendring, Essex, CO7 8ND
- 13 & A Half, Spaniards End, Barnet, Greater London, NW3 7JG
- 60 & A Half, Scotts Lane, Bromley, Greater London, BR2 0LX
- 2 & A Half, Edward Road, Biggin Hill, Westerham, Bromley, Greater London, TN16 3HL
- Two & A Half, Ospringe Road, Camden, Greater London, NW5 2JE
- One And A Half, Woodchurch Road, Camden, Greater London, NW6 3PL
- 12 & A Half, St Vincent Street, City Of Westminster, Greater London, W1U 4DE
- One & A Half, Fairdene Road, Coulsdon, Croydon, Greater London, CR5 1RD
- 68 & A Half, Sandringham Road, Hackney, Greater London, E8 2LL
- 1 1/2, Disbrowe Road, Hammersmith And Fulham, Greater London, W6 8QG
- 34 & A Half, Clarence Road, Wood Green, Haringey, Greater London, N22 8PL
- 15 & A Half, Jacksons Lane, Haringey, Greater London, N6 5SR
- Fifty Two & A Half, Arundel Drive, Harrow, Greater London, HA2 8PR
- 21 & A Half, Carnforth Gardens, Hornchurch, Havering, Greater London, RM12 5DJ
- 18 & A Half, Sekforde Street, Islington, Greater London, EC1R 0HL
- 18 & A Half, Cloudesley Square, Islington, Greater London, N1 0HN
- 24 And A Half, Richmond Crescent, Islington, Greater London, N1 0LZ
- 6 & A Half, Yeate Street, Islington, Greater London, N1 3EW
- 64 & A Half, Englefield Road, Islington, Greater London, N1 3LG
- 65 And A Half, Northchurch Road, Islington, Greater London, N1 3NU
- 73 And A Half, Northchurch Road, Islington, Greater London, N1 3NU
- 27 And A Half, Gerrard Road, Islington, Greater London, N1 8AY
- 30 & A Half, Cheverton Road, Islington, Greater London, N19 3AY
- The Red House 32 & A Half, Bickerton Road, Islington, Greater London, N19 5JS
- 1 & A Half, Manor Mount, Lewisham, Greater London, SE23 3PY
- 25 & A Half, Wickham Road, Lewisham, Greater London, SE4 1PL
- 53 & A Half, Tressillian Road, Lewisham, Greater London, SE4 1YA
- 40 & A Half, Valmar Road, Southwark, Greater London, SE5 9NG
- 136 & A Half, Narrow Street, Tower Hamlets, Greater London, E14 8BP
- 45 & A Half, Hazlewell Road, Wandsworth, Greater London, SW15 6LS
- 1 & A Half, Linden Avenue, Old Basing, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG24 7HG
- 8 And A Half, Bank Street, Bishops Waltham, Southampton, Hampshire, SO32 1AN
- 30 & A Half, Fordington Avenue, Winchester, Hampshire, SO22 5AW
- 27 & A Half, St Swithun Street, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 9HU
- Beechbrook 16 & A Half, Colebrook Street, Winchester, Hampshire, SO23 9LH
- 27 & A Half, Court Chambers, Friar Lane, Leicester, LE1 5RB
- 48 & A Half, Wolverton Road, Leicester, LE3 2AH
- 1 & A Half, Oakley Road, Leicester, LE5 3NJ
- Forty Seven & A Half, Cambridge Road, Cosby, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE9 1SJ
- 31 & A Half, Hungate, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, LN1 1ET
- 33 & A Half, Hungate, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, LN1 1ET
- 60 & A Half, Bailgate, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, LN1 3AR
- 19 And A Half, St Josephs Way, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, NG3 6HN
- Two & A Half, Faringdon Road, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX13 5BH
- 81 & A Half, Marmion Road, Southsea, Portsmouth, PO5 2AX
- 2 & A Half, Portland Street, Southampton, SO14 7EB
- Six & A Half, Fen Street, Hopton, Diss, Suffolk, IP22 2RF
- Six & A Half, Westbury Street, Sunderland, Tyne And Wear, SR4 6EF
- 75 & A Half, Roker Avenue, Tyne And Wear, SR6 0HP
- 12 & A Half, Old Place, Bognor Regis, West Sussex, PO21 3AU
- 6.5, St Peter’s Grove, York, YO30 6AQ
Other Fractions
The two buildings marked with red arrows are shops, and according to their websites (here and here), they are both 3 Windsor Street, but it seems that officially one is 3½ and the other is 3¼.
Likewise, the house marked with the purple arrow has the name Windsor Cottage on its name plate, but again it seems that officially it is 1¼.
There’s also 1¼ Woodchurch Road, Camden, London.
And on the High Street, Earl Shilton, Leicestershire, there are five consecutive houses which are numbered: 75, 75a, 75b, 75½, 75¾
Weird Numbering Schemes
Tony pointed out that Nesta have a map on their contact page showing that they’re number 58 in a run of numbers, on London’s Victoria Embankment, which goes: 40, 58, 50, 56, 60.
Bryn notes that the High Street in Kingswinford is numbered by the distance from one end of the road in metres. They have still kept odd and even numbers on opposite sides of the road.
The widely stated ‘fact’ that all you need to provide is a house number and postcode for your post to reach the right address is not always true. There are many instances of different buildings having the same number and postcode. For example…
- 1-4 Jubilee Cottages, Warwick Road, B94 6AZ and 1-4 Cedar Cottages, Warwick Road, B94 6AZ
- 1-3 Weymouth Street, BA1 6AG and 1-3 Riverside Mews, Weymouth Street, BA1 6AG, and 1-3 Weymouth Court, Weymouth Street, BA1 6AG
- 1 The Chase, HA5 5QP and 1 Rose Cottages, The Chase, HA5 5QP and 1 Park Cottages, The Chase, HA5 5QP and 1 Leamington Cottages, The Chase, HA5 5QP
The postcode CV12 8UE seems to cover Gatehouse Lane, Emes Walk, Bucklers Yard, Homers Yard, Lye Corner, Sleets Yard, and Old Penns Yard – which all share house numbers in various combinations. This must be super confusing – I can’t work out where most of these are on a map!
They all appear in the Royal Mail’s address finder.
The postcode HD7 5UZ in Huddersfield also covers about seven different roads.
Street Names
Dual Named Streets
David pointed out that in Edinburgh there are streets such as Haddington Place/Elm Row, which have different names in opposite directions.
Those streets have a tiny barrier down the middle, making them dual carriageways, but Shay went one better with two streets in Gateshead where each side of a single-carriageway road has a different name. Cambridge Terrace / Oxford Terrace and Ashgrove Terrace / Richmond Terrace. The second of these has separate sets of numbers on each side of the street, so 1 Richmond Terrace faces 1 Ashgrove Terrace, on the same road. Some of the mapping sites struggle with this, just showing one of the names.
Scotty points out a similar thing with Queen Street / Grosvenor Terrace in Carlin How, North Yorkshire – except in this case both sides of the street have matching sets of only even numbers. Google Maps has transferred the name Grosvenor Terrace to the back-alley running behind the houses.
A similar thing also exists with St Marks Road / Vine Place in Ealing, West London. St Marks Road seems to have been given dominance on the road sign, but Google Maps calls them Vine Place. Again, each side of the road has its own set of numbers.
There’s also Croft Parade / Croft Avenue in Cheltenham, each with its own set of numbers. About halfway down the street both sides become Croft Gardens.
Anthony notes that the houses on the west side of Lainey’s Close, Marlborough SN8 1BS, actually have the address Chiminage Close, which is a road running to the north. On one map I found, and in fact in real life as well, it looks as if Chiminage Close extends round and becomes the pavement of Lainey’s Close!
Ralf points out a strange phenomenon in Stevenage where entire estates, including the main road and all the spur roads, share the same name. So there’s Wisden Road, Jessop Road, Archer Road, Ripon Road, and others.
Unimaginative Names
There are over 600 streets called The Street, and over 400 called New Street. There are almost 1000 roads called New Road, but oddly not a single road just called The Road.
In Cumbria there is a road simply called Street.
In Somerset there’s a road called Street Road! It goes to a town called Street.
There are almost 2500 streets called High Street, and many more which are <name of town> High Street, but there are only 59 streets named Low Street!
Lots of industrial estates don’t bother naming streets at all and just give them numbers instead. Sometimes this happens with housing estates as well, like this one in Grimsby, and this one in Hull.
Apparently, the shortest address in Royal Mail’s address database is:
Elba, Duns, TD11 3RY
The longest address in their database is on the Isle Of Man, so not actually in the UK. It’s a government department where two thirds of the address is just the name of the department and the building it’s in.
Celebrity Names
There are at least three celebrities who have been named after UK streets:
Single Word Roadnames
And finally, inspired by Paul’s comment, I took a list of single-word streetnames, and cross-referenced it with the SOWPODS Scrabble dictionary to find a list of street names which are real words. Here are just a few of the most random ones…
Fairyland, Chemistry, Tweed, Football, Solid, Dolphins, Goldilocks, Playground, Hobgoblin, Countryside, Dart, Badgers, Panorama, Antlers, Chapter, Dungeon, Loan, Bohemia, Flush, Groats, Hide, Jesters, Valentines, Drawback, Sixpence, Viking, Side, Paris, Equilibrium, Liberty, Tranquility, Butts, Butts, Butts, Bottoms, Bottoms, Sprays, Swallows, Butts.
Barlow Place, London W1, has two numbered addresses – number 1 and No. 5.
The latter is the London office of Chanel
In fact, Barlow Place has 3 addresses i.e. 1, 5 (Chanel Ltd) and 17. Additionally, the block has 5 flats within it i.e. Flat 1, 1 Barlow Place, London, W1J 6DG, Flat 2, 1 Barlow Place, London, W1J 6DG, etc. etc. Each can be identified by its Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) :
– 1 Barlow Place, London, W1J 6DG – UPRN: 100023621718
– Chanel Ltd, 5 Barlow Place, London, W1J 6DG – UPRN: 10033619827
– 17 Barlow Place, London, W1J 6DG – UPRN: 100023473709
– Plus 5 flats each with an individual UPRN
Just go here http://www.findmyaddress.co.uk and type in Barlow Place, London, W1 into the search box and you will see what I mean.
Pretty handy these UPRNs !!
See here for 1 Barlow Place, London, W1 – https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/search?uprn=100023621718&id=D/guxypLYdcxYVBtSWZCsJ8LUEr3hX/mnacVmbTNdA0=
My favourite is Street Lane, Gildersome, Leeds LS27 7JH
https://goo.gl/maps/BAUtQ2b6PZx
Street Lane is a corruption of “Straight Lane”.
There’s actually 2 different Street Lanes in Leeds. The other one is in North Leeds (Ls8 and LS17)
Yes like it. Here it is on http://www.findmystreet.co.uk
https://www.findmystreet.co.uk/map?usrn=23022602
FindMyStreet, underpinned by the Unique Street Reference Number (USRN) shows every street in England and Wales that’s held in the National Street Gazetteer. It will tell you where a street is, what its official name is, and the maintenance responsibility of that street. The data is created and maintained by local authorities, collected, and managed centrally by http://www.GeoPlace.co.uk
Whitby is full of streets that have different names on each side, due to the area being developed by George ‘Railway’ Hudson as discrete blocks. There is also a Crescent Avenue and for a few years around 1911 the end of it was called Avenue Road.
I wonder if J. G. Harston is someone I know under a different name on a Usenet group. It’s hard to believe that it’s just a coincidence that after nine months of silence here his appeared a day or two after I posted a link to your site at alt.usage.english.
Elm Row, Haddington Place in Edinburgh are known as side names. The roadway is actually called Leith Walk from Leith Street down to what Edinburgers call the foot of the walk.
I used to live in a house in Snitterfield with no name or number
And i have a very common surname
Eventually used Timber Bungalow which was not a name but a description
In the village of Shottery just outside Stratford upon Avon the road in the centre is called just Shottery
Strange. Interestingly, according to old maps, it used to be Shottery Road in 1938, but just Shottery after 1967 at the latest!
Little Coxwell, near Faringdon, pre 1974 Berkshire, has no major street named. A normal address is: The name of the house, Little Coxwell, SN7 postcode!
That name sounds like a smutty joke…
There is a small road in the village of Snitterfield called Woodward Court
It was name after the local vicar Rev Woodward-Court so it should really be Woodward Court Court
Many years ago there was an address ‘4 1/2 Wapping Pier Head’. I wonder if it still exists.
It’s a listed building so it should exist for a, long time to come, even if it’s not used as a postal address! https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1065812
That’s interesting. Some 30 years ago I knew the people who lived there.
A street without a name?
No Name St, Sandwich CT13 9AJ
Nice!
…Although surely the fact that it’s officially called No Name Street is kind of self-contradictory?!
I notice that there’s also a No Name Road in Burntwood, Staffs!
Teignmouth has “The street with no name”. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to have a postcode.
There’s also “The Street With No Name” in Manchester: https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4440932,-2.1930082,3a,15y,28.72h,94.09t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sn70QJ9PUJdcqj3HEXuRf7g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3Dn70QJ9PUJdcqj3HEXuRf7g%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D72.57617%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
I actually live near here, and I used a photo of this sign as the header image on one of my previous blog posts!
https://paulplowman.com/stuff/town-and-street-name-nerdery/
One of my favourites is a road in Kensington, London that has three names – the name of the street (Allen Street) and the name of the terrace of houses on each side (Alma Terrace and Inkerman Terrace).
Street view shows all three:
https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4964689,-0.1938945,3a,75y,341.72h,77.65t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sjgF09fC2pYVnNe3o2DC93w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
The shortest street with the longest name in York has a 1 1/2, I believe. Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate.
I think there used to be a cul de sac near to my childhood home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire which had the name Beckett Hospital Terrace on one side and St Bart’s Close on the other. I have looked it up but can’t find any official confirmation for this. I think the street officially goes by the former name. The St Bart’s Close sign is definitely there, though.
Please keep up this blog. I really enjoy it. Thank you!
The Road leading to Levenshulme Station M19 is unofficially known as the Street With No Name.
There is a sign, but it doesn’t appear on maps.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.4440807,-2.193002,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sS3TpeFWqAaNOqGogNcSXPQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Ha ha! A previous blog post of mine actually uses a photo of the sign as its header image!
http://www.paulplowman.com/stuff/town-and-street-name-nerdery/
Compstall in Greater Manchester has a system where almost every house has a unique number.
Most of the streets were built by the local mill owner for his workers, so this could be co-ordinated.
Birmingham has an area and council ward called Bordesley Green, containing a road also called Bordesley Green, and a separate road called Bordesley Green Road. Because that’s totally not confusing.
My husbands great grandad lived at 27 & half Salmon Street in Burnley Lancashire in 1898 he was an Irish immigrant. The street has now been pulled down. Does anyone know for sure what the half represents. I thought I read somewhere but can’t remember where that it could possibly have been a basement dwelling
Any examples where two flats (maisonette GF + FF) which currently has two two different numbers combined into one home? What would it look like, say No. 1 GF and No. 2 is FF, can you have house number (if combined into one larger property) something like 1 & 3 or 1-3 etc.
Can you also have mix of House now number and name on the same street/road within same postcode?
I grew up on a road in a Nottingham suburb called Rivergreen. It has 85 houses up one side (odd continuous numbering to #191) and the even side starts from 2 to 20, stops there and where the road splits off from a parallel run with the A453, starts again at #102 and runs continuously from there to 212. The bit in between is a fenced windbreak between the surface street and the A453.
Running along the back of the lower half of the odd side is a road called The Drift, and continuing from the bottom of Rivergreen and looping around to meet the even side at the top end to close the loop on a quarter of the estate is a road called Greencroft.
@nick: I’d say so but that’s more for commercial buildings (eg 29-31 Castle Gate in Nottingham which was at various times, two separate townhouses, a women’s hospital, a radio studio, and is now I believe a drop-in youth counselling service and an office for Nottingham Youth Justice Service) and double shopfronts (eg 124-128 Hartley Rd also in Nottingham which is an airgun store).
For some really wacky house numbering, check out the area around Teetotal Street, St ives, Cornwall. I’ve attached a link to the Cornwall interactive mapping website.
I deliver to this area all the time, its a real head scratcher! There’s a group of around ten houses in the centre of the area & Four are #15!
https://map.cornwall.gov.uk/website/ccmap/?zoomlevel=11&xcoord=152036&ycoord=40900&wsName=ccmap&layerName=
Hempshaw Lane in Stockport has an odd gap of over 100 house numbers for some reason.
The lower part manages to keep up for the first 160 odd in spite of having a lot of commercial premises and a park meaning that the road often has houses on just one side.
after the jump the numbering is mostly consistent with the odd gap where there’s a larger building.
Waterside Road in Barton upon Humber only has houses running down one side of it, the opposite side being a Dyke that runs from the River Humber.
The houses are numbered with alternative odd numbers, as though there were actually even numbered houses opposite, Interestingly though one newer house built after the main construction of the road is an ‘odd number A’, whereas another uses the sequencial even number that falls between its two odd numbered neighbours.
Very interesting and unusual – I see it here https://www.findmystreet.co.uk/map?usrn=46101586
In a small village near us called carlin how, there is a road with Queen Street down one side and grosvenor terrace down the other. Both streets only have even numbers too and different postcodes
Oh wow, this is the best one yet! Why only even numbers?!
Looking at old maps, it looks like the street was called Queen Street up until some time between 1958 and 1968. Why was it changed? I would love to know.
I went to school in rural Somerset. There was a boy with very severe autism, really kind and gentle lad. He used to go around telling people that he lived in “HONEYLANDS”. Naturally, we thought this was a part of his imagination as it didn’t sound like a genuine placename. Felt a bit bad when I then realised Honeylands is very truly a lane in a neighbouring village and that he actually lived there.
As for other great street names I rather like Powerful Street on Walney Island…
I live at 5, TN27 0DD; it’s between 4 and 6. So far, so ordinary; it’s a straight run of numbers from 1, which I’m sure were numbered that way quite logically from the start. (The higher numbers do lead to head-scratching as the park has grown beyond the original numbering system, but not my run.)
But when I started buying things on line, and I got to the point where you enter your postcode and then select from a list of addresses, I found that, although 4 and 6 were there, 5 wasn’t! (It wasn’t an even numbering assumption; other odd numbers were there.)
Obviously, 5 had been omitted from the post office database. I didn’t have a lot of trouble getting it added, but it does puzzle me how it got omitted in the first place!
West Acridge in Barton upon Humber is a normal residential street with odd numbered houses on the left, even on the right as you head away from the Town Centre , Until you reach the end of the road, it is a ‘No through road’ and ends in a’ hammer head ‘ shape, as the two rows of houses curve around the end of the street they meet each other in a building that consists of two semi detached houses, meaning nos 141/160 are the two numbers of the neighbouring houses, anywhere else this is the case?
If you want road name confusion try Burnt Tree in the Black Country
The road island where the A 4123 crosses the A 461 has 4 roads coming off named:
Birmingham Road,
Birmingham New Road,
New Birmingham Road,
and to relieve the monotony the fourth is called Burnt Tree!
Portland Road in Dorking, Surrey has houses lettered A-Q rather than numbered.
Interestingly the letters are also built in to the walls of the houses.
https://images.app.goo.gl/wNA93mwrgcMNKB7y9
Not sure if there are any other examples of similar naming/numbering conventions in the UK
Odd numbers on Rectory Road, Ipswich jump from 49 to 71… in a terrace.
https://goo.gl/maps/kenYDko98i9NRefX7
There’s a lane in Bristol called ‘There and Back again Lane’ -no it’s a dead end!
There is also a Cemetery Road which unfortunately is a one way road…
In Bristol it’s a local colloquium to say “cheers drive” to the driver of the bus when you get off – a new road has now been called…Cheers Drive.
> There’s a lane in Bristol called ‘There and Back again Lane’ -no it’s a dead end!
Similarly, there is a dead end in Canterbury called “Turnagain Lane”
I lived on Penkhull Terrace in Stoke on Trent, built in the late1800s. The terrace was on one side of the road, the other side of the road was a steep slope. Each house was individually built, then the next house. A huge range of different styles. My Mum said it was a posh area when first built. Beyond the steep slope (which is still there) there was a flat area, which was tennis courts before WW2. All the houses were numbered consecutively, 1,2,3 …. All on the same side.
Then in the early sixties council masionettes were built on the “tennis courts”. So the whole road was renumbered. The original houses were all the houses given odd numbers. Every house, apart from number 1 got a new number. Such autocracy from the local council. No consultation, I think. It couldn’t happen now.
In addition to Street Road in Somerset, Tower Hamlets has Cannon Street Road (which is nowhere near a Cannon Street). I wonder how many other similar ones there are.
I like looking at road names, almost can’t believe I haven’t come across this blog before.
Some that I’ve encountered that I particularly liked are:
Russell Field, Shrewsbury
(Simply down to the fact that this is the name of someone I know!).
New Road Side, Horsforth
(Only one side of it is new? Is it a new road on the side? There is ambiguity in the name)
Ross, Rowley Regis
(Alliterative, and also a single name for the road itself)
One road that has two signs either side of the road:
Woodrow/ Woodrow Lane, Kidderminster
– although I’m not sure if that’s down to each side of the road having a different name, or a clerical error when making the road signs, as Google Maps has it as Woodrow Lane!
Then there’s another sign discrepancy compared to Google Maps:
Little Wood Drive (or Littlewood Drive on the road sign) in Sheffield.
Great blog – I love weird stuff like this.
It reminded me of a local saga some years ago (twenty, if this news report is to be believed)
https://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/5470075.woodham-end-in-sight-to-road-name-saga/
Spoiler alert – they went for Workhouse Lane.
It was quite a big thing locally at the time, I seem to recall.
Hi Paul
This is going to be a strange question but do you know if there are ant streets in Britain that have numbers in the address while being written as a number, for example, 2, 19th Street.
Thanks Paula
Re West Acridge, above, made me think that there must be LOTS of streets like that. I couldn’t find any, though I didn’t look hard. I did look up Chingford’s best named cul-de-sac, Bellestaines Pleasaunce, which is conventionally numbered but couldn’t find it in Google Maps as is is listed as Belle Staines Pleasaunce. But it is on Streetview as Bellestaines.
Also, have a look on Google Maps at the odd numbering of Sunny Bank, SE25. It is very close to Albert Rd., whose odd numbering was also mentioned
This one always makes me laugh
South Yorkshire Police Operations
Letsby Avenue, Tinsley Sheffield S9 1XX
What should we call this other street?
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ed3Y8XMav5dDuKeA6
In my village in North Wales, there are a few numbered streets, where a few rows of houses branch off perpendicular the main named street.
So, down Well street, there are the rows of houses Well Street No. 1 to Well Street No. 4 and these rows all have numbered Houses individually starting from 1.
I pity both the residents AND the new delivery drivers, trying to find “No. 2, Well Street No. 3”
To make matters even harder, the streets should properly be in Welsh “Stryd y Fynnon” (Well Street)
And so residents will use a either or both languages to craft their address.
Also, lets make these some of the steepest residentials streets I have ever encountered, testing the clutch and brakes of any vehicle.
Oh, let’s make them all Cul-de-sacs as well!
(Rural welsh villages pre-dating vehicles and internet shopping)
Just use http://www.findmyaddress.co.uk which is underpinned by the Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN), is a unique number for every addressable location in Great Britain.
For example – 1 Well Street No 1, Gerlan, Bethesda, Bangor, LL57 3TN has the UPRN – 100100015959
Copy and paste this URL into your web browser and you will see what I mean –
https://www.findmyaddress.co.uk/search?uprn=100100015959&id=Pi/lRnbOBybtVE3EOOaaz6CjEdeDdmUNRjyyCqsupIU=
The above with a link.
https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/53.17689/-4.04918
Edinburgh has several areas of artisan housing, known as the Colonies, in which the buildings take the name of the street and roads therefore have different names on different sides of the road.
For example, in the Abbeyhill Colonies, the houses on Lady Menzies Place face Alva Place on one side and Regent Place on the other.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/wreQYNQ6Y55k4SUD6
Hi, great blog thanks for taking the time to publish it. B3ta sent me here…
I have an oddity of having a duplicate address (except postcode) with another property the other side of the county! There are several Bishopstone’s in the world and two in Wiltshire, and so I share housename, village name, county… and as the villages are only a few 10s of houses each road names don’t tend to be used for the older properties, even when they are used it doesn’t help much (Where we’re going, Marty, we don’t need roads!) To further compound the oddity both sets of occupants have surnames that sound like military ranks so posture is forever co fused and we frequently have to exchange post!
There’s also Boundary Road / Station Road in Portslade. Different councils for each side of the road due to, um, reasons!
https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2184349
I loved in a house that had 2 post codes. It was a converted house into 3 flats one on top of each other
Played a royal pain in the bum with council tax electoral role and credit searches. As no one had the correct address
In Brighton we have a street signed ‘Avenue’ https://maps.app.goo.gl/NAcKMtR3P5GwKWM76 because someone misread a map when they split ‘Bartholomews Avenue’ into two parts. AFAIK it has no addresses on it.
Another Edinburgh dual-street situation is Saxe Coburg Terrace and Saxe Coburg Street in Stockbridge. The Street is on the east side and also extends around a corner, the terrace is on the west side and has only a few houses. Like others, they both have different numbering.
I had no idea that two identical house numbers in one postcode was unusual, I used to live at 1 Coastguard Cottages and my neighbour a mile down the way was 1 Lighthouse Cottages. In between had been another row of cottages, that also had a number 1, but was demolished in the 80s and I can’t remember the name of the row.
…I’m so glad other people exist who think this is interesting
In Kent, ‘street’ means ‘village’. So there are lots of places that end in Street – like Stone Street. Near Orpington, there’s a place called Green Street Green. It’s named after the village green of Green Street. In Dartford, they decided to name a road after it. Green Street Green Road. I win.
Green Street Green is also the longest placename whose only vowel is ‘E’, as mentioned here…
https://paulplowman.com/stuff/town-and-street-name-nerdery/
Dear address fanatics,
I’m looking for the longest UK address, which fills all the four lines i.e. line_1, line_2, line_3, line_4 when you have to enter the billing address ? Does anyone know about this ?
Thanks
With regard to house numbers that aren’t consecutive (such as 9,156): one explanation might involve a numbering system relating to something other than the ordering of the houses on the street — for example, the numbering of buildings on an old estate map. In Churchill, Oxfordshire (where I live), there’s a lane (Hacher’s Lane) in which the houses have non-consecutive numbers, with many leaps (such as number 3, when there are far fewer than thirty-three houses in the lane), because the houses kept their estate designations when the village was sold off in 1922.
I used to deliver to some houses in Manchester which were – if I recall correctly – just off the northern side of Plymouth Grove in Manchester close to where it meets the A34. They were relatively newly built around 2020 and had suffix letters to the house numbers which went a very long way through the alphabet – we’re talking up to about Q if my memory serves me well. I assume they had been built where there was previously a large building or open area, and they had to fit in with an existing numbering scheme. This got me wondering what is the suffix letter for a house number which is furthest through the alphabet, and do any progress beyond Z using a system such as AA, AB, AC, etc?