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Oddly until 1960 the OS plot plans show that the whole road was know as Stocks Lane which makes sense because it was originally a Drove Road from the farms at Merton Manor Merton Grange where the Village Primary School now is to the cattle market and tanneries at Potton. Between 1960 and 1970 the portion south of the Baptist Chapel was renamed Honey Hill. I never got a proper answer as to why but my suspicion is that the building of council housing at the north end in the 50's and 60's prompted the owners of the posh houses at the southern end to lobby for a name change. Incomers are never easy for a village to accept but when those incomers are townies coming to work on a new industrial estate that makes it even worse.
A few recent roads around me have been named after people, but instead of just the surname the whole name has been used, in one case including a title (Sir Frank Williams Avenue). Although this makes the connection to the individual being honoured clear, and results in uniqueness (I doubt there is likely to ever be another Olaf Schmid Mews anywhere else) it results in some long addresses. I noticed however that the council have recommended for the next development use of a theme of names of British scientists, but have referred to 'concentration on surnames'.
roadtester wrote: ↑Mon Feb 25, 2019 22:30
My house is built on what were the grounds of the former RAF hospital in Ely (which survives in shrunken form as an NHS facility).
The streets are based on surnames. Purely by chance, I was chatting to someone at a party in Cambridge who asked me where I lived. I explained where it was with reference to the RAF hospital and he told me that one of the new streets of houses had been named after his late father who had been an RAF doctor and CO of the hospital before dying quite young while still serving. I'm guessing the other roads are similarly named.
It's similar here in Hawkinge (just outside Folkestone). The estates that were built on the former RAF Hawkinge are all named after either pilots of aircraft.
Regarding similar road names, in Folkestone we have a Radnor Park Road, Close, Avenue and West, all very near each other (and Radnor Park, funnily enough). There is also a Canterbury Close off Canterbury Road which was built about 15 years ago, and a Park Farm Close off Park Farm Road. We also have a Bouverie Road West but longer have a Bouverie Road East.
So I've signed up so that I can put in my twopennyworth. Back in the late-70s/early-80s, I worked for the local authority planning department (Development Control, not forward planning). Part of my job included drawing up plans of new housing estates showing the road names and house numbers. In theory, the developers would supply the road names but, in the majority of cases, they left it to the council building inspectors and got on with making lots of money. In practice, the building inspectors weren't interested either, so it fell to me to allocate road names in what was reported to be the fastest growing residential area in Europe (I never did find out if that was true). Consequently I had to find hundreds of new road names over the years. A lot of them had local connections, for example the names of officials of the light railway that used to run through one site, but others continued themes that had already been started. It could be fun as well. A small development which was squeezed into a space on the local 'birdland' estate adjoining the railway line was christened Puffin Close. We had admirals,forests (including Borgie Close - The Borgias was on the BBC at the time) and Somerset County Cricket players. At one point I even raided Domesday Book for some new major roads into town. I tried to be as careful as possible and as far as I know I only made one mistake in allocating a name that turned out to be pronounced similarly (though spelt completely differently) to an existing road on the other side of town. As an aside, the one thing that I wasn't allowed to do, unless absolutely necessary, was number culs-de-sac anti-clockwise or use the number thirteen. It's all a long time ago now...
Marzo wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 13:57As an aside, the one thing that I wasn't allowed to do, unless absolutely necessary, was number culs-de-sac anti-clockwise or use the number thirteen. It's all a long time ago now...
Did you go for 11a, or just omit 13 from the sequence?
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Marzo wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 13:57
So I've signed up so that I can put in my twopennyworth. Back in the late-70s/early-80s, I worked for the local authority planning department (Development Control, not forward planning). Part of my job included drawing up plans of new housing estates showing the road names and house numbers. In theory, the developers would supply the road names but, in the majority of cases, they left it to the council building inspectors and got on with making lots of money. In practice, the building inspectors weren't interested either, so it fell to me to allocate road names in what was reported to be the fastest growing residential area in Europe (I never did find out if that was true). Consequently I had to find hundreds of new road names over the years. A lot of them had local connections, for example the names of officials of the light railway that used to run through one site, but others continued themes that had already been started. It could be fun as well. A small development which was squeezed into a space on the local 'birdland' estate adjoining the railway line was christened Puffin Close. We had admirals,forests (including Borgie Close - The Borgias was on the BBC at the time) and Somerset County Cricket players. At one point I even raided Domesday Book for some new major roads into town. I tried to be as careful as possible and as far as I know I only made one mistake in allocating a name that turned out to be pronounced similarly (though spelt completely differently) to an existing road on the other side of town. As an aside, the one thing that I wasn't allowed to do, unless absolutely necessary, was number culs-de-sac anti-clockwise or use the number thirteen. It's all a long time ago now...
Enough hints there to work out that it was Weston-super-Mare (without looking up Borgie Close). They're still building like mad there!
You can find any answers you want on the Internet. Some of them may even be correct.
Marzo wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 13:57
In theory, the developers would supply the road names but, in the majority of cases, they left it to the council building inspectors and got on with making lots of money.
Interesting - I’d have expected the developers to want take an interest in this and in particular to promote attractive street names in order to make it easier to sell their houses.
13 usually just got left out entirely. I did manage to sneak it in a couple of times when I pointed out that it would create problems further on. Virtually none of the developers were local and all of the usual suspects - birdland, shrubland, etc. - had already been used. Why pay staff to come up with names when somebody else would do it free of charge?
I once did a presentation comparing the centre of Weston with North Worle, pointing out that the new estates used roughly five times as many road names in a similarly-sized area as the Victorians had done.
I suspect the big developers probably do generally leave it up to local authorities to come up with names on a new estate because otherwise they would have to have a small department to come up with them. I think smaller, more local developers who are perhaps putting a small cul-de-sac in on the site of a large house or turning a former office building into flats are more likely to suggest their own names as they feel they have more of a stake in it and feel it is important from a marketing point of view.
FleetlinePhil wrote: ↑Mon Feb 25, 2019 15:13It has long amused me that Burnley, Oldham and Rochdale all have a Yorkshire Street leading in the appropriate direction from their town centres, as though the Lancastrian residents really couldn't care less which particular bit of Yorkshire the streets were headed to.
Conversely, there are major arterial routes in Brighouse and Huddersfield called New Hey Road, as they led onto what is now the A640 to Newhey. These were obviously turnpike routes, built before the industrial revolution, and before Rochdale (the much bigger town right next to Newhey) became a significant destination in its own right. It's probably not a coincidence that the otherwise gently curving A640 across the Buckstones pass takes a lot of sharp bends around the 19th century reservoirs, suggesting they weren't there when the road was originally built.
Marzo wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 13:57As an aside, the one thing that I wasn't allowed to do, unless absolutely necessary, was number culs-de-sac anti-clockwise or use the number thirteen. It's all a long time ago now...
Did you go for 11a, or just omit 13 from the sequence?
What's wrong with 13? I've lived at 13 since it was built 58 years ago and my neighbour, at 15, for the same period. Must be some sort of record.
Marzo wrote: ↑Fri Mar 01, 2019 13:57As an aside, the one thing that I wasn't allowed to do, unless absolutely necessary, was number culs-de-sac anti-clockwise or use the number thirteen. It's all a long time ago now...
Did you go for 11a, or just omit 13 from the sequence?
I recall from my long lost days as a paper boy that a number of streets in Middlesbrough went 9, 11, 11A and 15.
The map just about fits both on the same screen. I once got a little tangled looking for an address off the northerly East Street while on the southerly one.
^^ This is the reason I’m always very keen on following Royal Mail’s guidance to the letter. Particularly including the postal town (although I realise it’s probably the same one here).
Believe it or not, the official policy from the Passport Office was that the county was what mattered most. Never mind if the customer had included a town, or village, but if the county was omitted, you were supposed to get rid of something else and add it to the address.
That’s not a policy I followed, however (having many years experience of sending letters to customers). I also know that the people who scan application forms (another contractor) also substitute addresses incorrectly.
So in the East Street example above, it’s entirely possible that someone could have written their address correctly on the application form, but a contractor could’ve substituted the wrong street and postcode entirely, and altered it to match.
The slightly bigger road with the garden centre on it is Norton Road, Letchworth while the one that meets it from the south-east (or bottom right of screen) is Norton Road, Baldock. Not far north of here the former road crosses into (Central) Beds and becomes Norton Road, Stotfold (postal town Hitchin). Norton is a village that is now sort of a suburb of Letchworth.
On the former A12 (now A1124 / B1408) out of Colchester, London Road moves through Lexden, Stanway, Copford and Mark's Tey. An aunt of mine has lived on this road, first in Stanway, then in Copford and has had much misdirected mail.
Interesting job going at my local council - East Cambridgeshire.
A part-time street-naming and numbering officer:
22.5 hours per week - working pattern to be agreed
In this role, you will take responsibility for the Street Naming and Numbering statutory function for the Council, ensuring the naming of all new roads and numbering of properties is carried out in accordance with statutory regulations.
The successful candidate will be the primary point of contact for all Street Naming and Numbering requests and queries and update the Council’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer accordingly.
