Street Numbers

[Mart 'n' Al]

Slightly off Topic I know, but I sometimes despair at the fact that shops don't seem to have street numbers anymore. Shops spend a fortune on an extensive fascia above the shop, but nine times out of ten there is no street number. It must be difficult for postmen?

Martin

[Chilternbirder]

I don't know the area but renumbering from consecutive to odds and events was common during the second half of the nineteenth century. This has to be allowed for if doing an analysis of a street during this period.

Church Street in London's Spitalfields was only renumbered in 1893 when it was renamed Fournier Street as part of an exercise to try to eliminate duplicate street names in London. The consecutive numbering was anti clockwise starting at Spitalfields rectory.

[youngtug]

There are no hard and fast rules on numbering, some streets have random numbering of houses in my experience.

[stanmapstone]

The 1881 and 1891 censuses for Princes Street list odds and evens separately

In 1871 I can't imagine the enumerator dodging back and to across the street, it would be common sense to go down one side then up the other as the enumerator would sensibly take the shortest route through his district. 

Stan

[Mart 'n' Al]

Part of Wirksworth, Matlock DE4 4EU, is known as Puzzle Town, as there is no logic at all to the layout of the numbers.  A maze of lanes and alleys connects the houses in a way known only to residents and older postmen.  It is a very pretty area.

Martin

[stanmapstone]

Looking at the 1857 Town Plan Princes Street only had one row of houses https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/436255/566308/13/101250

On the 1896 Town Plan there were the same row of houses and four houses had been built on the other side together with St. Mark's Church
https://www.old-maps.co.uk/#/Map/436255/566308/13/101249

Stan

[PaulThommo]

A big thank you to everyone who replied and gave their advise, I am now better informed about the subject. Appreciate all your assistance. Thanks, Paul

[Jon_ni]

Background info:
In the early/mid 19th century numbering of long urban streets commonly changed (from clockwise, strict consecutive to odds (consecutive) which face evens (consecutive)). Where this took place it presents a street-long pitfall to researchers using historic street directories and other records
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_numbering

from a blog:
It can be inconvenient not knowing which side of the street a particular house is. It is also a convention that numbering starts from the town centre outwards or from the end of a side street adjoining the main street.
Imagine a street with 20 houses, where the houses on one side were numbered 1-10, and the houses on the other 11-20. What would you do if/when that street ever gets extended? You'd have a jump from 10 to 21 (or higher) on one side, and possibly a similar jump on the other.
Keeping houses on each side odd and even completely solves this problem.

info from the Post Office https://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/house-numbering-in-the-uk/

Examples of streets and numbering changes in Oxford using Directories http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/streets/xtra/numbering%20system/index.html
& which also contains the following text:

The Local Authority’s powers to require street numbers and road names to be displayed are contained in the Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847 sections 64 & 65 as set out below.

Section 64 : Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847 Houses to be numbered and streets named.
“The commissioners shall from time to time cause the houses and buildings in all or any of the streets to be marked with numbers as they think fit, and shall cause to be put up or painted on a conspicuous part of some house, building, or place, at or near each end, corner, or entrance of every such street, the name by which such street is to be known; and every person who destroys, pulls down, or defaces any such number or name, or puts up any number or name different from the number or name put up by the commissioners, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding [level 1 on the standard scale] for every such offence”.

Section 65 : Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847 Numbers on houses to be renewed by occupiers.
“The occupiers of houses and other buildings in the streets shall mark their houses with such numbers as the commissioners approve of, and shall renew such numbers as often as they become obliterated or defaced; and every such occupier who fails, within one week after notice for that purpose from the commissioners, to mark his house with a number approved of by the commissioners, or to renew such number when obliterated, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding [level 1 on the standard scale], and the commissioners shall cause such numbers to be marked or to be renewed, as the case may require, and the expense thereof shall be repaid to them by such occupier, and shall be recoverable as damages.

obviously no longer enforced as when I google a location & click on Streetview many houses seem unnumbered following renovation etc
John

[Greensleeves]

In a street that is consecutively numbered the norm would be clockwise - down one side and back up the other (Winchester High Street springs to mind as an example). What numbers were opposite each other would depend on any variances in the width of the properties, and space taken up by side roads.

Just to be awkward, I am sure, he street in which I live  - and which is not a cul-de-sac - has houses numbered consecutively, but in this case the numbering starts at the beginning of the road with the first house on the right, and thus goes anti-clockwise.

The house in which I lived previously had no number, albeit that the neighbours either side did have numbers -  our house only had a name.  That caused endless problems with post codes etc, as can be imagined.