On Sun, 15 Aug 2004, Alan (in Brussels) wrote:

"Dave Arquati" a écrit dans le message de
...
John Rowland wrote:
From: Benjamin Lukoff )

If the actual name of the street is KENSINGTON HIGH STREET, why is
the station called HIGH STREET KENSINGTON?

Only 54 months late, but I think I've figured it out.

The London County Council decided at some point (1930s I think) that
it was going to ensure there were no duplicate road names in its
area, and took to renaming vast tracts of the county of London. I
suspect that prior to this date, Kensington High St, Clapham High
St, Stepney High St etc, and the biggest mouthful of them all St
Johns Wood High St, had all been called "High St". Obviously "High
St" would have been a crap name for a station. The station could
just as well have been called ""Kensington High St" but they
happened to pick "High St Kensington" instead. When the streets were
renamed, all of the High Streets in London had the district name
prefixed, creating the present anomaly. I suppose this was also when
the mouthful "Stoke Newington Church Street" was created.

Interesting, I've wondered that too... the problem is that many people
- especially visitors or newcomers - use Tube stations as landmarks,
so just as when someone refers to "Tottenham Court Road" they
invariably mean St Giles Circus, most students at Imperial refer to
Kensington High St as High St Ken. It seems to roll off the tongue a
bit better too.

Is it only me who thinks 'High St. Ken' sounds more like the name of a
church ;-)

Or a mayor.

tom

--
When I see a man on a bicycle I have hope for the human race. -- H. G. Wells