John Rowland wrote:
Richard J. wrote:
John Rowland wrote:
In Thames Rd aka Strand On The Green, just west of the railway
bridge is an alley called Post Office Alley which contains a small
old floodgate at the river end. Set into one wall of this alleyway
is a line of solid metal knobs which are shaped like carpentry
dovetails. The line is level (i.e. level with a spirit level rather
than level with the rather sloping ground). There is nothing in the
other side of the alley. I presume they serve some flood defence
purpose but I can't figure it out. Any clues?

I can't help with your question, but just to correct one point in
your post:
Thames Road is not "aka" Strand on the Green. The name Strand on the
Green is applied both to (a) the riverside village just downstream
from Kew Bridge, and (b) within that village the highway along the
river bank. That highway starts as a road but the road soon veers
away from the river at which point it becomes Thames Road. Strand on
the Green (the highway) continues along the river bank as a mere
towpath, but still has houses fronting on to it (with postal
addresses of xx Strand on the Green) whose land reaches back as far
as Thames Road, sometimes with separate buildings fronting on to
Thames Road.
Buildings or gates on the south side of Thames Road may therefore
carry either Thames Road numbers or Strand on the Green numbers,
usually without specifying which. As far as I remember, the
situation is not helped by the numbers on the two roads running in
different directions.
Finding house number X in Thames Road can be difficult!

"What is the name of this road" is often a surprisingly difficult
question to answer: it is not rare for the two sides of a road to
have different names, although this is a particularly unusual
example, because there are Thames Road properties on both sides of
the road, and there are Strand On The Green properties on both sides
of the road, and the experience of someone driving along the road is
that both sides of the road are changing name back and forth. In
particular, there are some properties numbered as Strand On The Green
on the north side of the road east of the point where Thames Road
starts, which defeats your argument.

Oh, didn't realise that. It's worse than I thought.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)