London area dialling and post code boundaries.

[bicbasher]

mods note - split from this thread

Pre 65, there were London postcodes given to areas outside the County of London boundary, such as Penge and South Norwood and to this day there are parts of Essex with London telephone numbers, while Orpington and Romford within Greater London have local STD codes.

 

[PeterC]

Pre 65, there were London postcodes given to areas outside the County of London boundary, such as Penge and South Norwood and to this day there are parts of Essex with London telephone numbers, while Orpington and Romford within Greater London have local STD codes.

Going east the LCC stopped at Bow Bridge, London Postal Districts at Ilford Bridge and London phone numbers between Chadwell Heath and Romford. Romford postcodes continue into Essex as far as East Tilbury

 

[AlbertBeale]

Pre 65, there were London postcodes given to areas outside the County of London boundary, such as Penge and South Norwood and to this day there are parts of Essex with London telephone numbers, while Orpington and Romford within Greater London have local STD codes.

Long before '65 in fact! Not postcodes back then, but London postal districts (SE5, N1, etc etc) date back to the First World War - the underlying geographical sectors had been set up in the 1850s or so. (The existing London districts were integrated into the postcode system - by adding a second half to the "district" part - when the postcodes were established about half a century back.) As pointed out, the London Postal Area has never related to the London administrative area (nor indeed to the borough components of the latter) - it's been based purely on administrative and geographical convenience/logic, including being based on the railway terminus and radiating line(s) serving each geographical sector. The London Postal Area area is largely, though not exclusively, within the current Greater London administrative area, leaving lots of administrative London with non-London addresses and a much smaller amount of London addresses outwith present-day "administrative London". In LCC as opposed to GLC days, there was a lot more of "postal London" outside "administrative London".

It's also noted above that the boundary of London phone numbers extends beyond the the London Postal District into surrounding counties (both geographical and administrative counties, that is); though in most directions the London phone boundary is within the present London administrative boundary. As far as the relationship between London telephones and "postal London" specifically, the former area extends beyond the latter virtually everywhere - except, I think, for a very small area of Erith.

 

[Enthusiast]

As far as the relationship between London telephones and "postal London" specifically, the former area extends beyond the latter virtually everywhere - except, I think, for a very small area of Erith.

I don't quite understand that.

"Postal London" in that direction ends with London SE2 and specifically the boundary crosses the A206, Woolwich Road at a point some 4km from Erith Town centre. Beyond that point Dartford (DA) postcodes prevail. Of course any telephone number can be provided to pretty much any location with the current technology, but working on the traditional London Telephone Area boundaries, the London Telephone Region ends pretty much in the same vicinity. Beyond that, Dartford (01322) telephone numbers would normally be allocated. So I can see no overlap between the postal and telephone areas in the vicinity of Erith.

Of course all of this is shot to pieces by the preposterous "Greater London" land grab. The majority of the London Borough of Bexley is served by DA postcodes and encompasses all of Belvedere, Erith and Crayford (with its north eastern boundary formed by the rivers Cray and Darent) as well as Sidcup and parts of Chislehurst. All of this was sequestrated from Kent in 1965.

 

[AlbertBeale]

....

It's also noted above that the boundary of London phone numbers extends beyond the the London Postal District into surrounding counties (both geographical and administrative counties, that is); though in most directions the London phone boundary is within the present London administrative boundary. As far as the relationship between London telephones and "postal London" specifically, the former area extends beyond the latter virtually everywhere - except, I think, for a very small area of Erith.

I don't quite understand that.

"Postal London" in that direction ends with London SE2 and specifically the boundary crosses the A206, Woolwich Road at a point some 4km from Erith Town centre. Beyond that point Dartford (DA) postcodes prevail. Of course any telephone number can be provided to pretty much any location with the current technology, but working on the traditional London Telephone Area boundaries, the London Telephone Region ends pretty much in the same vicinity. Beyond that, Dartford (01322) telephone numbers would normally be allocated. So I can see no overlap between the postal and telephone areas in the vicinity of Erith.

I accept that the tiny pockets of the London Postal Area which extend beyond the London telephone code area are hard to find. However, they do exist....

I remember looking at a London phone book (ie one giving numbers for people/businesses with London postal addresses) some years back, and noticing very very occasional listings with a non-020 number. The ones I remember were on the Erith phone exchange (though not necessarily in what you'd think of as Erith, of course, given that phone exchange boundaries were for the convenience of the phone engineers, and didn't always match other definitions of the place, just as postal districts often don't since they're for the convenience of the post delivery system.) [The Erith exchange had 5-digit local numbers, which had an extra digit - a 4 - put on the front to get the now more standard 6-digit numbers when it was subsumed into the Dartford area code during one of the tidying-ups of the system many years ago.]

Anyway, to prove my point that such places exist, here is a current example of somewhere within the London postal system but outside the London phone system: the Belvedere Sports Club is on the London SE2 part of Woolwich Road (its address is 101A Woolwich Rd to be precise), ie it's within "postal London", but its phone has a "Dartord" (ie 01322) number.

So the post and phone boundaries of London do intersect [a bit!], and at least near Erith even if not in Erith.

 

[Enthusiast]

So the post and phone boundaries of London do intersect [a bit!], and at least near Erith even if not in Erith.

Yup, got you now. I mistakenly believed you were talking about Erith town centre.

There are some very strange border arrangements with telephone areas. If you look at this map:

020 Area Code – Explore London & Local Exchanges | GeoPunk

Information about the 020 area code including Pimlico, Moorgate, Monument, Southbank, Whitehall, Mayfair. Find maps, number blocks and telecom data for the region.

www.geopunk.co.uk

Go to the south east corner where 020 (London) 01689 (Orpington) and 01322 (Dartford) come together. You will find a "finger" of the 01689 area projecting northwards into what is otherwise the London (020) area. This seems to accommodate just the northern end of Chipperfield Road. Immediately to the east of there, 01689 almost ends - but not quite. There is a pinch point at the eastern end of Chapmans Lane and then 01689 opens out again to encompass a large area towards Hockenden and Swanley, stretching beyond the railway to the south.

However, I feel we (or at least I) digress!!!

 

[Busaholic]

There was the County of London which was between 1889 and 1965 which was most of what is Inner London today, in South London it expanded to Woolwich to the east.

The current Greater London has been around since 1965 when towns such as Croydon, Sutton, Kingston, Uxbridge, Harrow, Enfield, Romford, Bexleyheath and Bromley were switched from their respective counties into London.

The Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich extended eastwards to Abbey Wood and some of the developing Thamesmead, The 'old' London County Council area then became replicated in the Inner London Education Area of the new Greater London Council, I was born and spent all my youth in Woolwich borough, and we were unimpressed with losing our borough's name when we were merged with Greenwich. Some of us lived in Royal Eltham, after all.

 

[bicbasher]

The Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich extended eastwards to Abbey Wood and some of the developing Thamesmead, The 'old' London County Council area then became replicated in the Inner London Education Area of the new Greater London Council, I was born and spent all my youth in Woolwich borough, and we were unimpressed with losing our borough's name when we were merged with Greenwich. Some of us lived in Royal Eltham, after all.

ILEA lasted a bit longer than the GLC, before it was replaced by the London boroughs providing educational services, I think it was 1990 when it was finally axed?

 

[Busaholic]

ILEA lasted a bit longer than the GLC, before it was replaced by the London boroughs providing educational services, I think it was 1990 when it was finally axed?

You're right. and just as a finale on the LCC/ILEA matter, the only difference in the boundaries was that North Woolwich was placed in the London County but not in the ILEA area.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Yup, got you now. I mistakenly believed you were talking about Erith town centre.

There are some very strange border arrangements with telephone areas. If you look at this map:

020 Area Code – Explore London & Local Exchanges | GeoPunk

Information about the 020 area code including Pimlico, Moorgate, Monument, Southbank, Whitehall, Mayfair. Find maps, number blocks and telecom data for the region.

www.geopunk.co.uk

Go to the south east corner where 020 (London) 01689 (Orpington) and 01322 (Dartford) come together. You will find a "finger" of the 01689 area projecting northwards into what is otherwise the London (020) area. This seems to accommodate just the northern end of Chipperfield Road. Immediately to the east of there, 01689 almost ends - but not quite. There is a pinch point at the eastern end of Chapmans Lane and then 01689 opens out again to encompass a large area towards Hockenden and Swanley, stretching beyond the railway to the south.

However, I feel we (or at least I) digress!!!

A fascinating map ... I guess many of the weird boundaries relate to where there was cable capacity (and which local exchange that cable ran from) when housing was been expanded (or when more people started wanting home phone lines in the years after WW2).

The Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich extended eastwards to Abbey Wood and some of the developing Thamesmead, The 'old' London County Council area then became replicated in the Inner London Education Area of the new Greater London Council, I was born and spent all my youth in Woolwich borough, and we were unimpressed with losing our borough's name when we were merged with Greenwich. Some of us lived in Royal Eltham, after all.

And remember that Woolwich, in LCC days, also included an enclave north of the river (North Woolwich, of course!), which had no connection to the rest of the LCC area but was surrounded by parts of Essex. (And pre-LCC it was part of Kent, not Essex, for reasons possibly related to someone wanting to control both sides of the river crossing there hundreds of years back.)

 

[johncrossley]

Of course all of this is shot to pieces by the preposterous "Greater London" land grab. The majority of the London Borough of Bexley is served by DA postcodes and encompasses all of Belvedere, Erith and Crayford (with its north eastern boundary formed by the rivers Cray and Darent) as well as Sidcup and parts of Chislehurst. All of this was sequestrated from Kent in 1965.

How much countryside do you pass through when travelling from Belvedere, Erith etc. to central London? If anything, Greater London is artificially small. The Greater London Built Up Area as defined by the Office of National Statistics, based on actual physical locations of buildings rather than lines drawn on a map by politicians, includes substantial area outside of the GLA boundary.