please empty your brain below
It’s said that the roads St Helier estate (near Morden and Sutton) in South London are named in alphabetical order after Monasteries and Abbeys starting in the north-west with Aberconway Road and ending with Woburn Road in the south-east. This is in remembrance of the area's historic ownership by Westminster Abbey.

Ian C | 27.04.18 - 7:17 a.m. | #

Blimey - that is one large alphabetical area, with a lot of streetnames starting with A to the north, then a lot of Bs, then a lot of Cs etc, all the way down to a lot of Ws.

"To help in locating roads, all were arranged alphabetically, with the A's in the north-west corner, ranging through the estate to the W's in the south-east."

But there are no distinct alphabetical chains.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 27.04.18 - 7:32 a.m. | #

Stockton on tees Council estates usually start streets with a specific letter. Look up Redhill Road on the map and see the surrounding streets.

Richard | Homepage | 27.04.18 - 7:45 a.m. | #

Another cat post! May we please have pictures next time?

Debster | 27.04.18 - 8:10 a.m. | #

The newish town of Chafford Hundred in Thurrock (between Grays and Lakeside Shopping Centre) was built plot by plot from 1986. In the first area built, the streets all start with A, then next an area with Bs and Cs etc. It gets a bit haphazard, but we do have A-H, J-N and P-W. It wasn't until I was writing this that I realised that we are missing I and O.

Amanda | Homepage | 27.04.18 - 8:15 a.m. | #

Frinton is NOT the posh end of Clacton, there are 2.5 km open fields separating the two. Holland-on-Sea is the posh end of Clacton-on-Sea. Frinton-on-Sea is the posh end of Walton-on-the-Naze, which is continuously built up between the two.

Max Roberts | 27.04.18 - 8:29 a.m. | #

And isn't Hailsham inland from the sea at sunny Eastbourne?

Petras409 | 27.04.18 - 9:00 a.m. | #

Close by the numbered avenues in Hull are a few alphabetical sequences of streets. The longest stretches from Ancourt to Saxcourt. And none of them skip any letters!

https://goo.gl/maps/fvc5cM5WCyM2

TheLupineOne | 27.04.18 - 9:26 a.m. | #

What are the chances that Britain's longest chain of alphabetical streets might be immediately alongside Britain's longest chain of numerical streets? But that's Hull for you.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 27.04.18 - 9:47 a.m. | #

Welcome back to Tooting!!

south london lad | 27.04.18 - 9:49 a.m. | #

I reckon Tooting chose Ipswich because the planners couldn't think of a seaside town that began with the letter I.

dg writes: Ilfracombe.

milliem | 27.04.18 - 12:35 p.m. | #

Not chains, but similarly unimaginative: a lot of the post-war suburbs/estates in Sunderland have street names that all begin with a single letter. So one area has Greenwood Road, Gleneagles Road, Guernsey Square, etc.; others have A, B, C, F, H, K, M, P, R, s, and T names. (Actually, P seems to get used in two different places.)

Ben | Homepage | 27.04.18 - 12:58 p.m. | #

Following on from the previous comment, the roads on Heathrow Airport are named after the initial letter of their compass point.

Joel | 27.04.18 - 1:59 p.m. | #

I’m not sure if it was ever a complete list, even before the war damage and road-building, but there’s a patch of alphabet streets in Poplar, on both sides of the A12. Mainly Scottish names, they go from Ailsa to Zetland and were built on land owned by the McIntosh family in the 19th century.

dg writes: Here's a map from 100 years ago... impressively sequenced, but not complete (and mostly redeveloped since).

gp | 27.04.18 - 3:09 p.m. | #

What about Poplar/South Bromley's A(berfeldy) to Z(etland) of Scottish street names?

langdon | 27.04.18 - 3:15 p.m. | #

Shirley Oaks, Croydon is fairly complete.
Previously it was a Children's Home with alphabetically named houses. The layout is much the same. So today, Teasel Close is where Thistle/Violet cottages used to be.

Dee | 27.04.18 - 3:28 p.m. | #

Your post doesn't specifically limit this to the UK, does it?

The east west streets in downtown San Diego are named A St through to L St. (The north south ones being numbered.)

Eric | 27.04.18 - 4:58 p.m. | #

And (now that DG has linked to a map) it seems that the streets north of A street are named Ash, Beech, Cedar and are all named after trees up to Palm Street.

Eric | 27.04.18 - 5:37 p.m. | #

All very interesting...

But surely I cannot be alone in thinking that the street name sign for Deal Road (and possibly Ascot Road, and maybe Jersey Road) shouldn't have a line break in them?

RG | 27.04.18 - 6:30 p.m. | #

As Eric says"not limited to UK" so a bit about my birthplace..Washington,DC: The entire 87 square miles of DC was planned to have four quadrants [NW,NE,SE,SW], divided by North Capital St, South Capital St, East Capital St, and the Mall. Each of the North/South streets are numbered outward from the dividers. West they go to 57th St; East up to 53rd. The East/West streets are the alphabet [less J,X,Y,Z]. After W the second alphabet begins with two syllable names.Third alphabet with 3( and stops with Tamarack). Then there are the Avenues which go diagonally and are(mostly) named for one of the 50 states. And of course to really confuse the non-natives, there are all the little short Places, Drives,and Streets which are randomly named alphabetwise, and may be aligned in any direction.

Colesville Garth | 27.04.18 - 10:38 p.m. | #

That's fascinating Colesville Garth - ta. #NeverKnewThat

I wouldn't worry about the non-natives, especially the British. We have randomness not written into our constitution.

drD | Homepage | 27.04.18 - 11:51 p.m. | #

My uncle lives in Yellowcress Drive in Bisley near Woking, part of an estate named alphabetically after plants. However, this list suggests b, t, u, v, w and x are missing

Elsewhere in the world Portland, Oregon has an alphabet district named after people that is only missing x and z.

Whiff | 28.04.18 - 5:20 p.m. | #

San Francisco, Sunset District streets are named from I to W. There was supposed to be an X but it was changed to Y.

[Google Maps link]

Miles Archer | 19.05.18 - 10:12 p.m. | #











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