Whacky Signs.

[steve1]

Where we live the houses are numbered consecutively . This is relatively uncommon  in the U.K. This can confuse delivery people who think that next to us should be no. 9 when it is actually 8. However as no. 8 is named and doesn't have a number at all, the confusion is increased accordingly.

 

stev

[Budgie]

1 hour ago, steve1 said:

Where we live the houses are numbered consecutively . This is relatively uncommon  in the U.K.

 

When I was young, for summer holidays my family used to go to visit my grandparents who lived in Aberdare. If I remember correctly all, or at least most, of the streets in Aberdare and its surroundings had its houses numbered consecutively.

[Enterprisingwestern]

 

When British Gas went over to a "paperless" office (haha) I had the job of identifying the roads in NE Derbyshire and the Peak District which didn't have an official name, customers previously being known by a generic description of the direction they lived in and who they lived near or round the back of. The locals being fiercely independant, only British Gas ever identified them by their proper address, the first 5 letters of the road being the official start of the identifier on the computer, although in Sheffield this caused a stir when inputting Penistone Road!

 

Mike.

[johnarcher]

2 hours ago, Colin_McLeod said:

It's easier in Co Kerry. Where I live there are no house numbers at all.  I share an address with about 20 others.  The postman knows who live in which

house.

 

 

We do have Eircode however with a different code for each individual house.

I had the same when we lived in a small village (or hamlet) in France.

(Apart from Eircode of course)

[eastglosmog]

3 hours ago, steve1 said:

Where we live the houses are numbered consecutively . This is relatively uncommon  in the U.K. This can confuse delivery people who think that next to us should be no. 9 when it is actually 8. However as no. 8 is named and doesn't have a number at all, the confusion is increased accordingly.

 

stev

Coming downhill on the side of the street where I live, the numbers go 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 2, 1, due to some late Victorian infilling, Just to add to the confusion, there is a close with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 on the other side of the road. 

[melmerby]

Where I used to live in Melmerby, there was no road name and no house number, just a house name, village and postcode.

Some people had numbers, some also had road names.

It caused merry hell with the parcel firms trying to find where to leave a parcel!

(Royal Mail, of course, knew where everything was.)

Edited May 23, 2019 by melmerby

[Coryton]

3 hours ago, Budgie said:

 

When I was young, for summer holidays my family used to go to visit my grandparents who lived in Aberdare. If I remember correctly all, or at least most, of the streets in Aberdare and its surroundings had its houses numbered consecutively.

 

And then there are terraces in Edinburgh where the terraces, not the streets are named.

 

So the "street" name is different for houses on opposite sides of the same road.

 

I'm still trying to understand why next to Coryton station is a house built in what was presumably the garden of an older house, with a number like 23a (I forget the actual number and I'm not going to go and look it up for the purposes of this post).

 

As it's on the end of the road and not only are there no more houses but nowhere to put any more, why it needed an 'a' in the number I have no idea.

 

I like the way in the US when a house gets added between two others, they will give it a number like 45 1/2.

[Coryton]

3 hours ago, Enterprisingwestern said:

 

When British Gas went over to a "paperless" office (haha)

 

The "paperless office" certainly did use to be a joke.

 

But I think to a large extent many of us are there now. I get almost all the documents I have to read electronically, and rarely print them out.

 

The one time I do tend to print things out is so I can proofread my own documents - somehow it's much easier to find errors on paper than on the screen. (And I can do it on a busy train).

[melmerby]

1 hour ago, Coryton said:

I like the way in the US when a house gets added between two others, they will give it a number like 45 1/2.

What happens when 5 houses are built on the land between two existing houses?

 

These houses in Norton Lane close to where I live originally had gardens that extended back to the tree line

Bit by bit land was sold off and new houses built behind the orginals (which had been numbered in the normal UK style as consecutive even numbers)*

The accesses to the new houses are just that, not new roads and the new houses are still in Norton Lane:

https://goo.gl/maps/EqM3CafgG5XXZsa96

 

There are three or even five extra houses in some places

Although I drive past them I don't know how they are numbered!

 

* there were some gaps in the numbering but not necessarily where the extra houses have been built, the Royal Mail postcode finder is completely jumbled up with up to three properties with the same number, distingused in some case by an added name, some with an additional "A" or "B"

Edited May 23, 2019 by melmerby

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, Coryton said:

I like the way in the US when a house gets added between two others, they will give it a number like 45 1/2.

Often the sequential numbering is not unity. All the houses on my street end in 5 on the odd side and 0 on the even side.

 

Were one of the lots subdivided it would be easy to insert a 1, 3, 7 or 9.

 

Where i grew up, every address was incremented by two on the odd or even side of the street - 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 etc. What I remember as number 3 has been subdivided. I assume it is now 3a and 3b. Google has not yet kept up with that distinction.

[pH]

4 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

And then there are terraces in Edinburgh where the terraces, not the streets are named.

 

So the "street" name is different for houses on opposite sides of the same road.

 

 

Something similar in Glasgow, except that the road is also named. For example, Great Western Road has named  terraces on either side of it and addresses are in the terrace, not on Great Western Road.

[pH]

2 hours ago, melmerby said:

What happens when 5 houses are built on the land between two existing houses?

 

Something like that happens here, where a single-family home is demolished and (say) six townhomes are built on the lot. In that case, the house number is retained, and each new home numbered within it e.g #1-1200 Smith Street, or just 1-1200 Smith Street. 

[Enterprisingwestern]

4 hours ago, pH said:

 

Something similar in Glasgow, except that the road is also named. For example, Great Western Road has named  terraces on either side of it and addresses are in the terrace, not on Great Western Road.

 

Leith Walk in Edinburgh is similarly fragmented, Harburn Hobbies being on it but not as a postal address.

 

Mike.

[eastglosmog]

9 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

And then there are terraces in Edinburgh where the terraces, not the streets are named.

 

So the "street" name is different for houses on opposite sides of the same road.

 

....................

We've got one of those as well, in rural Oxfordshire.  Caused me a bit of amusement one day when the local police asked me where it was, and I could point out they were standing by it!

[Bernard Lamb]

11 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

 

 

I like the way in the US when a house gets added between two others, they will give it a number like 45 1/2.

In Narrow Street, Limehouse , London, England there is a house with the number 136 1/2. So it occurs on our side of the pond as well as in the US.

Bernard

[Coryton]

19 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

In Narrow Street, Limehouse , London, England there is a house with the number 136 1/2. So it occurs on our side of the pond as well as in the US.

Bernard

 

Interesting. Very rare, I think.

 

Though in the NRM I seem to recall a platform sign with a fractional number (that wasn't 9 3/4).

 

And fascinating as this discussion is, here is a sign that amuses me every time I see it.

 

 

I don't know what it originally said at the top, but I do sometimes wonder if it is a metaphor for life.

[melmerby]

In Peacocks Stores (budget womens clothes) there are big posters in the windows saying in big letters "20% OFF EVERYTHING"

Underneath it says "selected lines only"

 

Quite how does "selected" reconcile with "everything"?

Edited May 24, 2019 by melmerby

[Coryton]

3 minutes ago, melmerby said:

In Peacocks Stores (budget womens clothes) there are big posters in the windows saying in big letters "20% OFF EVERYTHING"

Underneath it says "selected lines only"

 

Quite how does "selected" reconcile with "everyhitng"?

 

Perhaps they've noticed that for years The Works has been getting away with huge signs proclaiming clearance sales where EVERYTHING MUST GO*.

(*Selected lines only)

 

When I first saw them I thought they were going out of business.

[PhilJ W]

52 minutes ago, Coryton said:

 

Interesting. Very rare, I think.

 

Though in the NRM I seem to recall a platform sign with a fractional number (that wasn't 9 3/4).

 

And fascinating as this discussion is, here is a sign that amuses me every time I see it.

 

 

I don't know what it originally said at the top, but I do sometimes wonder if it is a metaphor for life.

As I paged down I thought 'Wrong Way' was a street name.

[Coryton]

55 minutes ago, PhilJ W said:

As I paged down I thought 'Wrong Way' was a street name.

 

I'm sure that somewhere there really is a "Wrong Way".

 

I like Seagate's address:

 

"1 Disc Drive"

[luckymucklebackit]

2 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

Perhaps they've noticed that for years The Works has been getting away with huge signs proclaiming clearance sales where EVERYTHING MUST GO*.

(*Selected lines only)

 

When I first saw them I thought they were going out of business.

 

 

Debenhams (and others) have been getting away with similar for years, sale notices always announce  up to 70% off

Jim

[101]

7 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

 

I like Seagate's address:

 

"1 Disc Drive"

 

In Liverpool there is a shopping centre called Liverpool one and in that shopping centre Everton have a shop which they called Everton two

 

So their address is Everton two, Liverpool one , football humour at it's best 

[melmerby]

7 hours ago, luckymucklebackit said:

 

 

Debenhams (and others) have been getting away with similar for years, sale notices always announce  up to 70% off

Jim

 

10 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

Perhaps they've noticed that for years The Works has been getting away with huge signs proclaiming clearance sales where EVERYTHING MUST GO*.

(*Selected lines only)

 

When I first saw them I thought they were going out of business.

Subtle difference.

"*" with strapline, or "Up to"

 

Peacocks just says 20% off Everything (no up to, no * with strapline), that's why I pointed it out.

Only underneath in small type does it qualify it, which is different (and possibly illegal?)

[Kingzance]

9 hours ago, Coryton said:

 

I'm sure that somewhere there really is a "Wrong Way".

 

Insert the location "Southland 9600" in Apple's mapping app and it will take you to Te Anau, a lovely small town in New Zealand. Here is a street sign I just had to photo from there! 

[Coryton]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

 

Subtle difference.

"*" with strapline, or "Up to"

 

Peacocks just says 20% off Everything (no up to, no * with strapline), that's why I pointed it out.

Only underneath in small type does it qualify it, which is different (and possibly illegal?)

 

Fair point.

 

But adding a "*" to "Everything must go" doesn't really seem on either.