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

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

"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)

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

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)

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)

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.

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

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

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.