please empty your brain below
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Such a well-written piece - that last sentence: "chef's kiss".
Waterhouse | 12.08.23 - 7:31 a.m. | #
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The St. Helier estate near Morden also has an alphabetical layout of streets, with lots of place names. I suppose that it is an easy way and it maybe less controversial than using “famous people”. A few years down the line and some street names might have to change because of objections to their political or other views.
I wonder if that was a reason then? If so, someone had farsight!
Jo W | 12.08.23 - 7:36 a.m. | #
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I'm glad you went there, and gave us the pictures, and the word pictures, particularly the last few paragraphs. But plotting initial letters, or sequence seeking, strike me as essentially desk based exercises.
I have not seen "working class" and "brexit voting" conflated so blatantly before. One is something to be proud of, the other ashamed. But the figures do correlate, I have to admit.
Malcolm of Kent | 12.08.23 - 7:45 a.m. | #
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Edge of London communities are pretty interesting and very varied!
David | 12.08.23 - 7:49 a.m. | #
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The alphabetical monasteries of St Helier are also on my list for this kind of treatment.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 12.08.23 - 7:49 a.m. | #
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The shopping precinct has the same post war estate look as The Broadway in Debden and the one in Harold Hill of which the name slips my mind.
Charlie | 12.08.23 - 7:58 a.m. | #
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Fascinating stuff, it must have been an interesting meeting when they agreed those street names!
Mikey C | 12.08.23 - 8:14 a.m. | #
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I have never considered either being "working class" or "Brexit voting" as things either to be proud or ashamed of, just descriptive terms. But then again I grew up on and was shaped by a the culture (good and bad) of another LondonEssex council estate. I do think it's true that a lot of the anti-Brexit animus on show in the past few years has been not much more than thinly disguised snobbery, though.
I do wonder why South Ockendon was not included in the GLC area when that came into being, given how extremely nearby the boundary is. I suppose there's a case that it looks to Grays more than anywhere in Havering as a focal point, but a community like this could really have done with the generally higher quality of public services found in London boroughs (even Havering)
Dominic h | 12.08.23 - 8:31 a.m. | #
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When I see areas like this I always wonder about the beefs between the kids on the different estates. Do the As dislike the Gs? Are there regular rumbles between the Bs and the Es? Or is it more that the Alphabets turn on the Flowers, though they both hate the Cars?
Scott | Homepage | 12.08.23 - 8:36 a.m. | #
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Very interesting piece, and a lovely description of the place in the last paragraph.
In Denver, Colorado, the east-west streets are numbered (1st, 2nd, 3rd), and the north-south streets are mainly alphabetical (Alameda, Brighton, Colfax, etc). In general makes it easy to know how far you are from a destination.
Greg | 12.08.23 - 8:54 a.m. | #
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I grew up on the St Helier Estate and to this day could only walk you around the P to W roads, which make up most of the Carshalton side of the estate, it’s a big place.
Kev Hennessy | 12.08.23 - 9:21 a.m. | #
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I'm not sure Eskley is made up. There is a Michaelchurch Escley in Herefordshire which is sometimes spelled Eskley.
Nice to see my less-than-common surname on that list too.
Cornish Cockney | 12.08.23 - 9:46 a.m. | #
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The Avontar is a stream in Ireland, a tributary of the Suir.
There is a village called Michaelchurch Escley is Herefordshire, but in the past it was often written Michaelchurch Eskley. It is named after a nearby brook.
Arcany appears to be an alternative spelling of a subgroup of the Akan people. But I suspect another derivation. Probably a small river.
My suspicion is that few - probably none - of these is made up.
Andrew | 12.08.23 - 10:15 a.m. | #
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Yes, Arcany or Erkenny appears to be an old spelling for a tributary of the river Nore in southern Ireland. I suspect this now the Erkina.
Andrew | 12.08.23 - 10:43 a.m. | #
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Eskley, Arcany, Avontar and Gatehope are all watercourses in Bartholomew’s 1904 Survey Gazetteer of the British Isles. (see here)
Rich G | Homepage | 12.08.23 - 11:07 a.m. | #
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Not quite 'alphabetical' street naming but roads in the Heathrow complex have their initial letters of their names based on the compass point they are deemed to be in (N, W, S, E).
Joel | 12.08.23 - 11:32 a.m. | #
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Lovely post, which evokes a host of memories!
My Southampton years are peppered with musings about what the dockers and Ford workers of Swaythling thought about announcing they lived in Lobelia or Pansy Roads (amongst others).
One of the chief delights of 1980s South London for me was travelling on the P4 bus past the composite Brockley road names of Elsiemaud, Phoebeth and Amyruth (amongst others).
cau1khead | 12.08.23 - 11:37 a.m. | #
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Beckton E6 has its fair share of odd and unique road names.Long Mark Road, Horseleaze, etc.
scrumpy | 12.08.23 - 2:33 p.m. | #
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The Ford names are oddly chosen. Only the Anglia was made and/or sold in the UK. The others are American or Australian models and one of them is spelt wrong - Fairmount should read Fairmont.
Jonathan Wadman | 12.08.23 - 9:34 p.m. | #
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Thank you, that explains what an odd place it is. I have only been once, last May, when the over-75-year-olds in central Upminster got their Covid boosters in a pharmacy - Hemants in Derwent Parade. Here is a photo of the window.
Margaret | Homepage | 14.08.23 - 8:02 p.m. | #
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Clearly used the same building plans as South Oxhey to the North West of London. (The extremely similar shopping parade now replaced by modern flats) See also Britwell in Slough.
Claire Moore | 20.08.23 - 4:05 a.m. | #
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