On Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:53:50 -0700 (PDT), John B
wrote:

On Jul 19, 2:03*pm, Mizter T wrote:
Is there a London postal district? AIUI, there are various postcodes
that fall within Greater London, including E ones, BR ones, and so on.
Some of these sorting offices also cover areas outside London.

You understand wrong - yes, there is a London postal district. It
consists of all postcodes that begin NW, N, E, SE and SW.

All other postcodes, e.g. BR (Bromley), CR (Croydon), IG (Ilford) are
emphatically *not* part of the London postal district.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_postal_district

Aha, thanks.

Beware of thanking someone for a Wonkypaedia reference. That article
is duff as the area described is the London Postal Area, as can be
determined by reference to the map in an old (or current?) London
Postal Area telephone directory. A London Postal District was one of
the geographically-defined subdivisions of the LPA, each had a
"District Office" as would have been seen painted on the side of the
mail vans serving that district. The Districts were further divided
into alpha-numeric Subdistricts.

Similarly, I'm sure there are pizza establishments in outer London
that deliver to Hertfordshire, Essex, Surrey and Kent, and pizza
establishments in Herts, Essex, Surrey and Kent that deliver to
London.

Eh?

The fact that one of many delivery services organises its network in a
particular way, even if it's (for the time being) the biggest, doesn't
define government or geographical boundaries.

And back when they were in Kent, they were in Kent. This isn't
relevant now.

No - the official Royal Mail requirement to include postal counties
continued past the creation of Greater London. I'll try and find the
date when the requirement was dropped.

Yes, I was aware of that - I expressed it badly above. First they
stopped being in Kent, then a delivery company stopped forcing people
to write their location incorrectly. Now neither of those things
happens, although as you've mentioned upthread people are allowed to
write their location incorrectly if they choose.

Also, like it or not, lots of people in the fringes of London in some
areas - e.g. parts of the London Borough of Bromley are a good example
- would give their address as Kent, and would furthermore identify
with Kent (and also as soft of being part of Kent), at least in a
number of ways - whilst also quite possibly identifying with London as
well. Some on the edges would likely recoil as being labelled
Londoners.

As I said, like it or not. I'm sure you won't, but identity is a multi-
layered, amorphous thing, not something decreed by John Band.

To some extent... but location is clearly decreed by official
boundaries. People who live in Bromley can identify as Kentish and not
Londoners if they like - but their geographical location is London.

Sewardstone, near Epping Forest, meanwhile is outside Greater London
but has a London postcode - E4.

It has a postcode that's primarily used within Greater London, yes.
I'm surprised by that actually - how did the PO's E district get so
far out...?

The E4 postcode is part of the London postal district. "Greater
London" has absolutely *no meaning* whatsoever in a postal address
sense - cast-iron fact.

As above, I didn't realise the entity 'London postal district' still
existed - I thought that N or E was a postal district, as is usually
the case for the initial letters of a postcode (e.g. GU or PO).
Nonetheless, it is clearly true that addresses within the LPD are
primarily within Greater London.

The London fares (aka Travelcard) zones of course cover an area larger
than Greater London - and that's the case even if we're only talking
about the 'proper' zones 1-6.

'The TfL zonal area'. Yes, OK, I'll give you that one, ish.

AFAICS it's not officially called the "TfL zonal area" (not least
because logically that would include zones 7-9, which aren't
recognised by the TOCs as such as they're more of a unilateral
creation by TfL.) FWIW, the London Connections map refers to the
"London Fare Zones".

...in its NR variant, although not in its TfL variant...!
www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/lon_con.pdf

And I've just looked up the PDF of the now out-of-date National Fares
Manual 98, section A to be precise, which refers to the "London Fares
Zones area" on page A4 (PDF page 6) - it's still online hehttp://www.atoc.org/retail/_download...8_Common_A.pdf

Obviously the 'proper' zones 1-6 firmly have their origins in the
boundaries of Greater London.

Yup, plus simplifications and subsidies from neighbouring counties
AIUI.

I think there's a number of other examples where an official or quasi-
official body of one sort or another defines London in different ways.

Examples (from the present day)?

Perhaps I've overstretched myself here... hmm! OK...

The Port of London Authority has, er, authority over the whole Port of
London, which consists of the tidal Thames from Teddington in the west
all the way out to the Thames estuary in the east - see:
http://www.pla.co.uk/display_fixedpa...d/178/site/pla

Yes, like it.

The London area of British Waterways stretches out to Bishop's
Stortford, Hertford and Slough.

Again, good.

I was going to say that there's plenty of references to a "London"
that isn't coterminous with Greater London in the broadcasting world -
however I've just checked the licenses for Carlton and LWT, the two
regional licensees for the Channel 3 service that cover London and
beyond, and there's no reference to "London" in the licenses apart
from where there's the list of transmitters. The BBC provide regional
television and radio services for a wide area that stretches beyond
Greater London that carry the name "BBC London", so one could argue
that's quasi-official. Of course broadcasting isn't really a very good
exemplar, as radio waves tend not to obey official boundaries!

Hehe. Is BBC TV 'BBC London'? I thought it was overall southeast, but
it's so long since I watched local BBC news I've no idea.

NATS has a "London Area Control" and "London Terminal Control", both
of which extend well beyond Greater London (OK, I'm stretching things
just a bit!). And then the government officially defines the "London
airports" as being Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted - only one of which
is inside Greater London (and until 1994, some of it wasn't in Greater
London) - though of course they're referring to airports that serve
London rather than airports that are within London.

The Church of England's Diocese of London only covers part of Greater
London (and includes at least one bit outside of Greater London,
Spelthorne), and doesn't stretch south of the river at all. Meanwhile
the Dioceses of Rochester, Southwark, Guildford, St Albans and
Chelmsford cover other areas in Greater London. Not official, you
might say? Well, the CoE has a number of unique responsibilities that
other churches don't have (AIUI basically the result of it being the
"established church")- e.g. marrying anyone at their parish church,
likewise providing funerals for those within the parish.

Interesting - I'm surprised it doesn't match up slightly better with
the county, I suppose that's the thing about Really Really Old
boundaries..

Erm... what else... I think the NHS used to define London in different
ways, but things have changed on that front (reflecting the general,
gradual move towards administering things in line with the Greater
London boundaries).

Of course sporting organisations define London in a great many
different ways - the very obvious example being cricket. One could I
suppose put forward an argument that some of these sporting bodies are
quasi-official, not least because the courts generally respect the
broad concept that they have authority over their respective sports.

Yes, it's a shame that cricket hasn't reorganised to match revised
county boundaries, if only for the reaction this would provoke among
Yorkshiremen g

Lastly, the really obvious point that I didn't make earlier is that
"London Underground" provides services to places outside of Greater
London (and it isn't underground in these places either!).

Good point. There aren't any underground bits of Underground outside
London, are there? Maybe some of LHR would have counted pre-1984...