High Street Kensington Station
 

From: Benjamin Lukoff )
Subject: High Street Kensington Station
Date: 2000/01/29

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.

Other possibly related station name anomalies:

Bond St (did New Bond St used to be called Bond St before the 1930s?)

Marlborough Rd station (now closed, but by a road called "Marlborough
Place", presumably renamed in the 1930s)

I believe Queenstown Road Battersea station was called Queens Road Battersea
for many years after the road had changed its name from Queens Rd to
Queenstown Road.

York Rd Station - also closed, but on a road called York Way after being
renamed in the same project.

BTW, I was going to ask if St Johns Wood High St was the the only
quintuple-barrel road name in Britain, but the first page on which I opened
the A-Z contained "Royal Albert Dock Spine Road"!

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

High Street Kensington Station
 

John Rowland wrote:
From: Benjamin Lukoff )
Subject: High Street Kensington Station
Date: 2000/01/29


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.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

High Street Kensington Station
 

In article ,
"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.

It started earlier than that. The Metropolitan Board of Works (1855-1889)
had begun the work of renaming streets to remove duplicates and stop
people getting post intended for the occupant of the same property on a
different street of the same name. It changed 3,000 names in its time.
The LCC had to be prodded by the Post Office to continue it, and by 1935
it had changed 2,700 names. At this point it began to see light at the
end of the tunnel and took a policy decision that there were to be no
duplicated names at all. In many libraries in London you will find the
LCC publication giving the names of streets in London.

They also sometimes changed the numbering, adopting a uniform scheme
that the smallest number would be the closest part of the street to
St. Paul's Cathedral.

Incidentally are there only two streets in London which have fractional
numbers in them? (Balls Pond Road and London Wall)

--
http://www.election.demon.co.uk
"The guilty party was the Liberal Democrats and they were hardened offenders,
and coded racism was again in evidence in leaflets distributed in September
1993." - Nigel Copsey, "Contemporary British Fascism", page 62.

High Street Kensington Station
 

John Rowland wrote:
From: Benjamin Lukoff )
Subject: High Street Kensington Station
Date: 2000/01/29

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.

According to Douglas Rose, the station was opened as "Kensington (High
Street)" in 1868, but was gradually renamed as "High Street Kensington"
by 1880, perhaps to avoid confusion with Kensington (Addison Road), the
present Kensington Olympia.

Before D stock was introduced on the District, the destination boards on
the front of the old CO/CP stock said just "High Street".

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

High Street Kensington Station
 

In message , at
00:29:15 on Sun, 15 Aug 2004, David Boothroyd
remarked:
They also sometimes changed the numbering, adopting a uniform scheme
that the smallest number would be the closest part of the street to
St. Paul's Cathedral.

Not perhaps to St Pauls Cathedral, but to the central Post Office just
north of the Cathedral, after which the tube station now known as St
Pauls was originally named.
--
Roland Perry

High Street Kensington Station
 

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at
00:29:15 on Sun, 15 Aug 2004, David Boothroyd
remarked:
They also sometimes changed the numbering, adopting a uniform
scheme that the smallest number would be the closest part of the
street to St. Paul's Cathedral.

Not perhaps to St Pauls Cathedral, but to the central Post Office
just north of the Cathedral, after which the tube station now known
as St Pauls was originally named.

According to http://www.gendocs.demon.co.uk/lon-str.html , the aim was
of the 1888 renumbering was to arrange for the lowest number to be
closest to the *local* post office.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

High Street Kensington Station
 

"David Boothroyd" wrote in message
...

The Metropolitan Board of Works (1855-1889)
had begun the work of renaming streets to remove
duplicates and stop people getting post intended for
the occupant of the same property on a different street
of the same name. It changed 3,000 names in its time.
The LCC had to be prodded by the Post Office to
continue it, and by 1935 it had changed 2,700 names.
At this point it began to see light at the end of the tunnel
and took a policy decision that there were to be no
duplicated names at all.

Thanks. I've seen a lot of street signs in North London that say something
like "Smith St N" instead of "Smith St N1". Do these signs date from an
interim period where names were unique to each sector but not to the whole
county? If not, what was the point of them?

Incidentally are there only two streets in
London which have fractional numbers in them?
(Balls Pond Road and London Wall)

I think there's one in Barnard Hill, N10. Also, The Vale in Childs Hill has
a number 0.

Incidentally, in HA5 there are two Pinner Roads, one at each end of the
area. Are there any other duplicated roads within a single postcode area
(not including cases where a single road has become split)?

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

High Street Kensington Station
 

"Dave Arquati" a écrit dans le message de
...
John Rowland wrote:
From: Benjamin Lukoff )
Subject: High Street Kensington Station
Date: 2000/01/29


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 ;-)

IMHO the basic problem is that general English usage requires any additional
word(s) specifying which of various options applies to precede the generic
name (IOW: we say eg 'East Acton' rather than 'Acton East') but the
convention in making lists is to adopt a simple alphabetic order. So such
lists fail to group closely related names together, and anybody consulting
one has no simple way of finding out if a particular name is part of such a
group or not.

One solution would be to adopt the 'army' practice of putting the generic
name first : eg 'brush, hair' followed by 'brush, paint' ; so that a list of
station names would have eg Acton followed by Central, East, North, South,
Town and West, regardless of the presentation on station nameboards. Or
would that only compound the confusion?

Regards,

- Alan (in Brussels - mind the spamtrap)

High Street Kensington Station
 

John Rowland wrote:
"David Boothroyd" wrote in message
...

The Metropolitan Board of Works (1855-1889)
had begun the work of renaming streets to remove
duplicates and stop people getting post intended for
the occupant of the same property on a different street
of the same name. It changed 3,000 names in its time.
The LCC had to be prodded by the Post Office to
continue it, and by 1935 it had changed 2,700 names.
At this point it began to see light at the end of the tunnel
and took a policy decision that there were to be no
duplicated names at all.

Thanks. I've seen a lot of street signs in North London that say
something like "Smith St N" instead of "Smith St N1". Do these signs
date from an interim period where names were unique to each sector
but not to the whole county? If not, what was the point of them?

I believe there was a time when the postal districts were simply North,
West, East etc. It was later that they were sub divided into smaller areas
with a number added to the original, hence W1, SW19 etc. Then of course came
the current postcodes.

Found this:-
http://www.wikisearch.net/en/wikiped..._district.html



Incidentally are there only two streets in
London which have fractional numbers in them?
(Balls Pond Road and London Wall)

I think there's one in Barnard Hill, N10. Also, The Vale in Childs
Hill has a number 0.

Incidentally, in HA5 there are two Pinner Roads, one at each end of
the area. Are there any other duplicated roads within a single
postcode area (not including cases where a single road has become
split)?

High Street Kensington Station
 

David Boothroyd wrote in news:david-
:


Incidentally are there only two streets in London which have fractional
numbers in them? (Balls Pond Road and London Wall)

There is a 59 1/2 Southwark street !

High Street Kensington Station
 

"John Rowland" typed


"David Boothroyd" wrote in message
...

The Metropolitan Board of Works (1855-1889)
had begun the work of renaming streets to remove
duplicates and stop people getting post intended for
the occupant of the same property on a different street
of the same name. It changed 3,000 names in its time.
The LCC had to be prodded by the Post Office to
continue it, and by 1935 it had changed 2,700 names.
At this point it began to see light at the end of the tunnel
and took a policy decision that there were to be no
duplicated names at all.

Thanks. I've seen a lot of street signs in North London that say something
like "Smith St N" instead of "Smith St N1". Do these signs date from an
interim period where names were unique to each sector but not to the whole
county? If not, what was the point of them?

Incidentally are there only two streets in
London which have fractional numbers in them?
(Balls Pond Road and London Wall)

I think there's one in Barnard Hill, N10. Also, The Vale in Childs Hill has
a number 0.

pedant I'd say that end of The Vale was in Golders Green. House has
'zero' in large letters outside it.

Incidentally, in HA5 there are two Pinner Roads, one at each end of the
area. Are there any other duplicated roads within a single postcode area
(not including cases where a single road has become split)?

Locally to me, but NOT in the same postcode area, are Bacon Lane,
Edgware and Bacon Lane Kingsbury. They are less than two miles apart.
They would have been in Middlesex until quite recently.

Edgware and Edgware Road cause much local confusion too. Was on 142 bus
at Edgware on Friday whe poor Arab lass wanted Judd Street, whic isn't
even close to Marble Arch.

--
Helen D. Vecht:
Edgware.

High Street Kensington Station
 

On Sun, 15 Aug 2004 10:03:37 +0200, "Alan \(in Brussels\)"
wrote:

One solution would be to adopt the 'army' practice of putting the generic
name first : eg 'brush, hair' followed by 'brush, paint' ; so that a list of
station names would have eg Acton followed by Central, East, North, South,
Town and West, regardless of the presentation on station nameboards. Or
would that only compound the confusion?

Which is fine until there is a cock-up involving orders for hangars,
coat and hangars, aircraft :-)

On parts of the Continent mainline stations within a town are called
town identifier, so we might have, say, London Victoria, London
Clapham Junction, etc, which can sometimes be slightly confusing for
visitors.
--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

High Street Kensington Station
 

John Rowland wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 15 Aug 2004:

Thanks. I've seen a lot of street signs in North London that say something
like "Smith St N" instead of "Smith St N1". Do these signs date from an
interim period where names were unique to each sector but not to the whole
county? If not, what was the point of them?

I think these signs date from when London was divided up into N, NW, SE,
SW, etc, without numbers. Then they subdivided it: N1, SW2 etc, and
now, of course, it is divided up even further into postcodes. No dates
for either, sorry! Although postcodes, I know, came in during the
1960s.
--
Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
(trying out a new .sig to reflect the personality I use in online forums)

High Street Kensington Station
 

Arthur Figgis wrote to uk.transport.london on Sun, 15 Aug 2004:


Which is fine until there is a cock-up involving orders for hangars,
coat and hangars, aircraft :-)

There wouldn't be if "hangers, coat" were spelt correctly!

On parts of the Continent mainline stations within a town are called
town identifier, so we might have, say, London Victoria, London
Clapham Junction, etc, which can sometimes be slightly confusing for
visitors.

Well, we do have London Victoria, London Waterloo, etc. Clapham
Junction, oddly, is "Not London", or so it is marked on tickets.
--
Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
(trying out a new .sig to reflect the personality I use in online forums)

High Street Kensington Station
 

Alan (in Brussels) wrote:

IMHO the basic problem is that general English usage requires any
additional word(s) specifying which of various options applies to
precede the generic name (IOW: we say eg 'East Acton' rather than
'Acton East')

But we have Dagenham East, Hounslow West, Bromley South, Penge East, ...

I wonder whether the "East Acton" form is used where such a district
already existed, and the "Bromley South" form was a new term invented by
the railway. But where one such station exists, others with the same
town name seem to adopt the same order. Are there in fact any places
with both forms in use at different stations, e.g. (fictitious example)
Surbiton South and West Surbiton ?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

High Street Kensington Station
 

Richard J. wrote:
Alan (in Brussels) wrote:

IMHO the basic problem is that general English usage requires any
additional word(s) specifying which of various options applies to
precede the generic name (IOW: we say eg 'East Acton' rather than
'Acton East')

But we have Dagenham East, Hounslow West, Bromley South, Penge East,
...

I wonder whether the "East Acton" form is used where such a district
already existed, and the "Bromley South" form was a new term invented
by the railway. But where one such station exists, others with the
same town name seem to adopt the same order. Are there in fact any
places with both forms in use at different stations, e.g. (fictitious
example) Surbiton South and West Surbiton ?

Acton Town & Acton Central plus North, South, East & West Acton (not
forgetting poor little Acton Main Line, just to keep the set complete :-) )

There are also the Ealings; North, South, West, Common and Broadway.

High Street Kensington Station
 

Piccadilly Pilot wrote:
Richard J. wrote:

Alan (in Brussels) wrote:


IMHO the basic problem is that general English usage requires any
additional word(s) specifying which of various options applies to
precede the generic name (IOW: we say eg 'East Acton' rather than
'Acton East')

But we have Dagenham East, Hounslow West, Bromley South, Penge East,
...

I wonder whether the "East Acton" form is used where such a district
already existed, and the "Bromley South" form was a new term invented
by the railway. But where one such station exists, others with the
same town name seem to adopt the same order. Are there in fact any
places with both forms in use at different stations, e.g. (fictitious
example) Surbiton South and West Surbiton ?


Acton Town & Acton Central plus North, South, East & West Acton (not
forgetting poor little Acton Main Line, just to keep the set complete :-) )

There are also the Ealings; North, South, West, Common and Broadway.

North Wembley but Wembley Central, Stadium & Park. East Finchley & West
Finchley, but Finchley Central. (Are there any "Central Something"
stations instead of "Something Central"?)


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

High Street Kensington Station
 

In message , at 15:54:08 on Sun, 15 Aug
2004, Dave Arquati remarked:
(Are there any "Central Something" stations instead of "Something
Central"?)

Not according to:

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/realtime/fs_realtime.htm
--
Roland Perry

High Street Kensington Station
 

In article ,
"John Rowland" wrote:
"David Boothroyd" wrote in message
...

The Metropolitan Board of Works (1855-1889)
had begun the work of renaming streets to remove
duplicates and stop people getting post intended for
the occupant of the same property on a different street
of the same name. It changed 3,000 names in its time.
The LCC had to be prodded by the Post Office to
continue it, and by 1935 it had changed 2,700 names.
At this point it began to see light at the end of the tunnel
and took a policy decision that there were to be no
duplicated names at all.

Thanks. I've seen a lot of street signs in North London that say something
like "Smith St N" instead of "Smith St N1". Do these signs date from an
interim period where names were unique to each sector but not to the whole
county? If not, what was the point of them?

Yes - originally, London was divided by the Post Office into sectors
by compass point in 1858. In 1917 the system was revised and the
North Eastern and Southern sectors abolished while the subdivisions
were created. Of course postal London does not have the same boundaries
as any other incarnation of London administrative boundary.

In this period it was usual for people to give their postcode in the
form eg "Edgware Road, Western".

--
http://www.election.demon.co.uk
"The guilty party was the Liberal Democrats and they were hardened offenders,
and coded racism was again in evidence in leaflets distributed in September
1993." - Nigel Copsey, "Contemporary British Fascism", page 62.

High Street Kensington Station
 

"Richard J." wrote in message ...

Before D stock was introduced on the District, the destination boards on
the front of the old CO/CP stock said just "High Street".

As did the platform tickets.

High Street Kensington Station
 

In article , (Alan \(in Brussels\)) wrote:

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

Just been reading John Simpson's autobiography - he refers to an Iraqi at
a dinner-party seeking to pretend he knows all about England (though he
thinks Suffolk = Sussex). He finally gives the game away with "When all this
is over, I would love to see Edgware Road again. And High Saint Kensington."

--
Peter Beale

High Street Kensington Station
 

On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 00:05:00 +0100, Peter Beale wrote:

In article , (Alan \(in Brussels\)) wrote:

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

Just been reading John Simpson's autobiography - he refers to an Iraqi at
a dinner-party seeking to pretend he knows all about England (though he
thinks Suffolk = Sussex).

I doubt the average American, or ecen European, has heard of Suffolk or
Sussex. I'd wager a good number of Brits confuse them.

High Street Kensington Station
 

In article , David
Boothroyd writes
Incidentally are there only two streets in London which have fractional
numbers in them? (Balls Pond Road and London Wall)

There is, or was, a cluster of shops just off Upper Ground[*] that went
something like 0, 1/3, 1/2, 1, 1 1/2, 2.
[*] A quick Google suggests that it may be Gabriel's Wharf.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

High Street Kensington Station
 

"Paul Weaver" wrote in message
.. .

I doubt the average American has heard of Suffolk or Sussex.

I suspect the average American has a Suffolk County *and* a Sussex County
within 100 miles of their home.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

High Street Kensington Station
 

"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...
In article , David
Boothroyd writes

Incidentally are there only two streets in London which have fractional
numbers in them? (Balls Pond Road and London Wall)

There is, or was, a cluster of shops just off Upper
Ground[*] that went something like 0, 1/3, 1/2, 1, 1 1/2, 2.

[*] A quick Google suggests that it may be Gabriel's Wharf.

They should have done something like that at the east end of Allendale
Avenue, N3. [I can't make head nor tail of the random numbering system they
have used.]

Incidentally, in Park View (Tokyngton) number 1 is at the dead end!

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

High Street Kensington Station
 

In message , David
Boothroyd writes
Incidentally are there only two streets in London which have fractional
numbers in them? (Balls Pond Road and London Wall)

No, Dowgate Hill in the City has some for one.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG, Birmingham, UK
Registered "Blue Badge" Tourist Guide for
London & the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

High Street Kensington Station
 

Paul Weaver:
I doubt the average American has heard of Suffolk or Sussex.

John Rowland:
I suspect the average American has a Suffolk County *and* a Sussex County
within 100 miles of their home.

I was curious enough to look this up. It turns out that there is only
one area in the US that's within 100 miles of both a Suffolk County
(namely the one that forms the eastern half of Long Island) and a
Sussex County (namely the one that forms the northern tip of New Jersey.

The western arc bounding the zone runs more or less through the centers
of Atlantic City NJ, Philadelphia PA, and Allentown PA; it passes
through the Catskills and crosses the Hudson River north of Hudson NY,
and ends near the MA/CT/NY common boundary point. Scranton PA, Wilkes-
Barre PA, and Albany NY are all a bit outside the zone.

The eastern boundary arc is shorter (more of it is at sea), running from
the point mentioned above, more or less though the center of Hartford CT,
and clipping off the east end of Long Island, ending at Southampton NY.

The zone therefore includes the entire metropolitan area of New York City,
half of those of Philadelphia and Hartford, and most of the rest of New
Jersey. Probably about 10-12% of the US population.

(There is one other Suffolk County, which includes the city of Boston,
Massachusetts, but the only places that are within 100 miles of it
and Sussex County NJ are also within the area described above. There
are two other Sussex Counties; one forms the southern 1/3 of Delaware and
the other is in southeastern Virginia, a rural district south of Peters-
burg. Neither of these is near enough to a Suffolk county to matter.)

ObLondon: from Toronto's international airport you can fly nonstop to
either of two different Londons.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "These Millennia are like buses."
--Arwel Parry

My text in this article is in the public domain.

High Street Kensington Station
 

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

High Street Kensington Station
 

In the message : ...
Piccadilly Pilot wrote:
"Dave Arquati" write
Richard J. wrote:
Alan (in Brussels) wrote:


IMHO the basic problem is that general English usage requires any
additional word(s) specifying which of various options applies to
precede the generic name (IOW: we say eg 'East Acton' rather than
'Acton East')

But we have Dagenham East, Hounslow West, Bromley South, Penge East,
...

I wonder whether the "East Acton" form is used where such a district
already existed, and the "Bromley South" form was a new term invented
by the railway. But where one such station exists, others with the
same town name seem to adopt the same order. Are there in fact any
places with both forms in use at different stations, e.g. (fictitious
example) Surbiton South and West Surbiton ?


Acton Town & Acton Central plus North, South, East & West Acton (not
forgetting poor little Acton Main Line, just to keep the set complete
:-) )

There are also the Ealings; North, South, West, Common and Broadway.

North Wembley but Wembley Central, Stadium & Park. East Finchley & West
Finchley, but Finchley Central. (Are there any "Central Something"
stations instead of "Something Central"?)

No 'Central something' stations (not even a 'Central Park' somewhere?), but
plenty of 'Central something' thoroughfares: according to eg p. 293 (index)
of the 2000 OS/Philips London Street atlas there are 5 cases of 'Central
Avenue' in different postal districts and another 7 in named boroughs. Also
a similar frequency of 'Central Parade' as well as a sprinking of the usual
other types: Ct., Gdns., Rd., St., Way...

And that perhaps provides an alternative way of answering the OP's question:
the rule for street names in English is that the local identification (if
any) always precedes the type of throroughfare. Perhaps one day a new
station will take its name from the adjacent existing street, and then we'll
see which rules apply.

Regards,

- Alan (in Brussels - mind the spamtrap)

High Street Kensington Station
 

In article , (Alan \(in Brussels\)) wrote:

And that perhaps provides an alternative way of answering the OP's
question:
the rule for street names in English is that the local identification
(if any) always precedes the type of throroughfare.

A frequent exception to that is where a street has been split in two by
a new ring-road or the like. E.g. in Salisbury George St and George St
South, Meadow Rd and Meadow Rd South either side of A36 Churchill
Way, in Coventry Woodside and Wainbody Aves North and South
either side of A45 Kenpas Highway.

--
Peter Beale

High Street Kensington Station
 

In message , at 15:30:17 on Mon, 16
Aug 2004, "Alan (in Brussels)"
remarked:
No 'Central something' stations (not even a 'Central Park' somewhere?),

New York! "Central Park North (110st)" on the 2,3 (Red) line.

http://www.mta.nyc.ny.us/nyct/maps/submap.htm
--
Roland Perry

High Street Kensington Station
 

Alan (in Brussels) wrote:

No 'Central something' stations (not even a 'Central Park'
somewhere?), but plenty of 'Central something' thoroughfares:
according to eg p. 293 (index) of the 2000 OS/Philips London Street
atlas there are 5 cases of 'Central Avenue' in different postal
districts and another 7 in named boroughs. Also a similar frequency
of 'Central Parade' as well as a sprinking of the usual other types:
Ct., Gdns., Rd., St., Way...

And that perhaps provides an alternative way of answering the OP's
question: the rule for street names in English is that the local
identification (if any) always precedes the type of throroughfare.
Perhaps one day a new station will take its name from the adjacent
existing street, and then we'll see which rules apply.

Hmmm, which could have resulted in Queen's Drive East (instead of West
Acton) and Queen's Drive West (instead of North Ealing). :-)

High Street Kensington Station
 

"Alan":
No 'Central something' stations (not even a 'Central Park' somewhere?),

Roland Perry:
New York! "Central Park North (110st)" on the 2,3 (Red) line.

That is, by the way, a street name. Central Park is bounded by what,
in terms of the street grid, are 59th and 110th Streets and 5th and
8th Avenues; but the sections of 59th, 8th, and 110th that are adjacent
to the park are instead called Central Park South, West, and North
respectively. 5th Avenue keeps its name, though.
--
Mark Brader "Eventually, of course, I fell into the trap of
Toronto becoming comfortable with find(1)'s syntax..."
-- Steve Summit

My text in this article is in the public domain.

High Street Kensington Station
 

In message , at 15:24:32 on Mon, 16
Aug 2004, Mark Brader remarked:
New York! "Central Park North (110st)" on the 2,3 (Red) line.

That is, by the way, a street name.

As is High St Kensington. What an excellent symmetry.
--
Roland Perry

High Street Kensington Station
 

"Alan (in Brussels)" wrote in message
...

And that perhaps provides an alternative way of answering
the OP's question: the rule for street names in English is
that the local identification (if
any) always precedes the type of throroughfare.

.... except that there is a road called High Street Harlesden. This was in
Middlesex, not London, until the 1960s.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

High Street Kensington Station
 

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 15:24:32 on Mon, 16
Aug 2004, Mark Brader remarked:

New York! "Central Park North (110st)" on the 2,3 (Red) line.


That is, by the way, a street name.


As is High St Kensington. What an excellent symmetry.

I thought the point was that High St Kensington is not a street name but
Kensington High Street is... :-)

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

High Street Kensington Station
 

Paul Weaver wrote to uk.transport.london on Mon, 16 Aug 2004:

On Mon, 16 Aug 2004 00:05:00 +0100, Peter Beale wrote:

Just been reading John Simpson's autobiography - he refers to an Iraqi at
a dinner-party seeking to pretend he knows all about England (though he
thinks Suffolk = Sussex).

I doubt the average American, or ecen European, has heard of Suffolk or
Sussex. I'd wager a good number of Brits confuse them.

We have just had American guests who confused them..... we had planned
to take them to Sussex, but it didn't happen.
--
Annabel - "Mrs Redboots"
(trying out a new .sig to reflect the personality I use in online forums)

High Street Kensington Station
 

(Mark Brader) wrote in message ...
(There is one other Suffolk County, which includes the city of Boston,
Massachusetts, but the only places that are within 100 miles of it
and Sussex County NJ are also within the area described above. There
are two other Sussex Counties; one forms the southern 1/3 of Delaware and
the other is in southeastern Virginia, a rural district south of Peters-
burg. Neither of these is near enough to a Suffolk county to matter.)

Actually, the 100 mile radius of the Delaware Sussex County does
intersect the 100 mile radius of the Long Island Suffolk County. See

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=&...avy&MAP-STYLE=

However, it looks like the only area in which these intersections do
not also intersect the radius of Sussex County, NJ is in the Atlantic
(with possibly a tiny nick of land near Atlantic City)

http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=&...MAP-STYLE=topo

OK. I'm officially a geek.

ObLT: wasn't it somewhere near there that they dumped the excess NY
subway cars? (Well, OK, that isn't utl but we seem to have been
talking about the subway a lot... :) )

High Street Kensington Station
 

"John Rowland" wrote in
:

"Alan (in Brussels)" wrote in
message ...

And that perhaps provides an alternative way of answering
the OP's question: the rule for street names in English is
that the local identification (if
any) always precedes the type of throroughfare.

... except that there is a road called High Street Harlesden. This
was in Middlesex, not London, until the 1960s.

And in my part of the world we have High Road Leyton, High Road
Leytonstone and High Road Woodford Green. Maybe it's an old south west
Essex custom ... ?

Iain

High Street Kensington Station
 

"Piccadilly Pilot" wrote in message
...
John Rowland wrote:

I've seen a lot of street signs in North London that say
something like "Smith St N" instead of "Smith St N1".

http://www.wikisearch.net/en/wikiped..._district.html

Thanks!

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes