London postal district
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The system of
London postal districts predate the introduction of
postcodes throughout the
United Kingdom in the
1960s and have been adapted over time.
Origins
The first system of ten sectors identified by letters was devised under the aegis of
Sir Rowland Hill and introduced in 1858; the numbered subdivisions were a war-time measure and date from 1917. The 1917 subdivisions remain important, because they form the first part of the two-part modern postcode (so N1 1AA is an address in the old N1 district), and because they continue to be used by Londoners to refer to their districts.
The London postal districts are organized by sectors, as follows, and then numbered alphabetically within their sectors.
* In central London, WC and EC (West Central and East Central).
* In the rest of London, N, NW, SW, SE, W and E.
* In parts of outer London the districts are subdivisions of 63 other
post towns and were introduced at the same time as the other
UK postcodes.
District sequence
The numbering system appears arbitrary on the map: for example, NW1 is close to central London, but NW2 is a long way out. This is because, within each sector, they were numbered by first assigning the number 1 to the closest district to the centre, and then the rest of the numbers were assigned alphabetically by the name of the location of the postal delivery office. There are a number of exceptions to this rule: those postal districts SE19-SE27 follow a similar rule around
Crystal Palace with SE19 itself being the area central to Crystal Palace; and the
new town of
Thamesmead is assigned SE28, created after the current postal district system. Due to its high density, it was deemed that Thamesmead should be assigned a new postcode rather than staying a part of the lower-density SE2 district.
The London postal districts were created solely to help sort and deliver mail and therefore rarely coincide with the boundaries of
London boroughs (and were created before even the older, smaller
metropolitan boroughs).
Relationship to London boundary
The initial system was designed to extend to roughly a 12 miles radius from the centre of London, and consequently the postal districts covered an area much larger than the
County of London boundaries of 1889. 44 of the 119 districts were outside the London boundaries such that places such as
Leyton in Essex,
Ealing in Middlesex,
Totteridge in Hertfordshire,
West Heath in Kent and
Barnes in Surrey were covered by the London postal area.
In 1965 the creation of
Greater London caused London's boundary to expand to include these places officially as well as postally, however the new boundary went far beyond these postal districts to include places that were not in the London postal area.
Royal Mail did not follow this change and expand the postal area to match. It now has a policy of only changing postcodes if there is an operational advantage to them and has no plan to change the postcode system to match up with London's boundaries.
Places in London's outer boroughs such as
Enfield,
Ilford,
Romford,
Bromley,
Richmond and
Croydon are therefore covered by parts of twelve adjoining postal areas (
EN,
IG,
RM,
DA,
BR,
TN,
CR,
SM,
KT,
TW,
HA and
UB).
The London postal district includes all of the
City of London and the
City of Westminster, all of the boroughs of Camden, Greenwich, Islington, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Haringey, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, very nearly all of Waltham Forest and Newham, and parts of Barnet, Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Hounslow, Kingston, Merton, Redbridge and Richmond. Barking and Dagenham, Hillingdon, Harrow, Havering and Sutton are entirely outside the postal district.
Significance
It is common to use postal districts as placenames in London, particularly in the property market: a property may be described as being "in N11", especially where a postal district is synonymous with a desirable location but also covers other less prestigous places. They are a convenient shorthand for social status, such that a 'desirable' postcode may add significantly to the value of property, and property developers have pressed for the boundaries of postal districts to be altered so that new developments will sound as though they are in a richer area. Some groups on the fringes of the London postal districts lobby to be excluded or included in an attempt to decrease their insurance premiums (see
SE2) or raise the prestige of their business (see
IG1). This is generally futile as the Royal Mail only changes postcodes in order to facilitate the delivery of post.
NE and S
There are no London postal districts labelled "NE" or "S". These were in the initial division but were later removed as they were considered unnecessary.
Following a report by
Anthony Trollope in 1866 most of the NE district was transferred to the E sector; the rest was left without a letter designation until the introduction of the IG and RM postcodes almost a century later (though only a part of the area covered by these new codes was in the old NE London district). The S sector was divided between SE and SW in 1868.
The NE and S codes have since been applied to
Newcastle Upon Tyne and
Sheffield respectively.
Trivia
All Head District Sorting Offices, except London South East, were connected by and had stations on the
Post Office Underground Railway.
The
BBC soap opera EastEnders is set in the fictional postal district of
E20.
Sewardstone in Essex is the only place to be outside the Greater London boundary but within the London postal area.
Presentation
All London postal districts were traditionally prefixed with the
post town 'LONDON' and periods were commonly placed after each figure.
e.g. LONDON S.W.1.
Use of the periods ended with the implementation of the national postcode system. More recently, the Royal Mail have specified that the post town and district should each appear on a separate line in order to increase the effectiveness of their
OCR equipment.
Note: NW11 (Golders Green) seems to be out of the usual alphabetical order, possibly because its post office was referred to as Willifield Green, which would come alphabetically after Willesden. The fictional postal district on "East Enders" is called Walford, a mixture of Walthamstow and Stratford, but is numbered E20. Walford may have another connotation in that Edward Walford was one of the most prolific London historians in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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The postal districts of neighbouring postal areas cover the rest of Greater London:
*
List of postal codes in the United KingdomAdditional information:*
Establishment of London postal districts -- mailing list discussion:*
British Postal Museum Information sheet on postcode history;Maps, photos, and other images
*London postcode map;*
intoLondon.com has a
clickable map with which you can zoom in and explore the different postcodes of London, including their landmarks and transport links.
*Map of London in 1859 with NE and S districts shown;*
Map of districts in 1900
