What do you think of as “London”?

[CruCru]

On another thread I got into a discussion on which places are London and which are actually somewhere else. I think that only places with a London postcode are in London, otherwise they are in the Home Counties. However, quite a few people disagreed with me as they said that they lived in an outer London borough. I didn’t want to derail that thread (which was about something else) so thought I’d start my own.

To my way of thinking, if I sent a letter addressed to someone at 123 Their Street, London, Their postcode, it would only be sensible to do so if they actually live in London. If I did that for someone who lives in Harrow, Croydon or Kingston, doing so would cause confusion (but it might still arrive if the postcode was correct).

What do you think?

For me, it's any London borough. I live a couple of hours from London by train. It drives me mad when I hear people in my area (but probably elsewhere too?) use London as shorthand when they actually mean Woking/Reading/Guildford/Hitchin/St Albans etc....

Agree with PP, a Tube station doesn't equal London.

I live in Westminster and I think of Croydon and Kingston as London for sure.

However, to most people (who don't live in London!), to quote the marvellous Tracey Thorn - 'when I was seventeen, London meant Oxford St'.

I agree. See here a lovely illustration of Haringey that hangs on my wall. What bits of Haringey would you describe as “very, very suburban?”

Image didn't post for some reason

I was thinking that. Wood Green is the northernmost part of Haringey and I don’t think anyone could describe it as “suburban” at all!

Wood Green is N22 (although some bits are N8 / N15). It’s in London.

London is the 32 boroughs of London plus the City. Broadly, but not exactly, the bit of the country inside the M25.

That's it.

Bounds Green

Hmm. Cos there are a few grass verges in some parts? And it has a garden centre?

I think perhaps the issue here is that there is no real definition of “suburban” and it’s all subjective, depends where you grew up yourself.

To be fair, Crouch End and Muswell Hill, Wood Green and large bits of Tottenham were Victorian suburbs developed for middle classes commuting by tram and train to the City. But they don’t fit the modern definition of “suburban”.

Doesn’t matter though as there is a very clear political and geographical definition of London.

Doesn’t matter though as there is a very clear political and geographical definition of London

Quite, I honestly don't understand these threads (which pop up quite often). It's not subjective! I suppose you could have an argument about what counts as central London?

Funnily enough, the OP refers to being fairly sure which are “the Home Counties”, which IS a very vague concept with no official definition. I have lived in London most of my life (having grown up in Scotland) and I still couldn’t really tell you which are the “Home Counties”.

Luton and Gatwick airports are described as London Luton and London Gatwick.....
How do people feel about those....? 🤣
(I'm joking, obviously they are not actual London)

The aviation industry would describe Inverness Airport as London Inverness if they thought they would get away with it....

You mean you don't know what 'home counties' means or you couldn't name the actual counties?!

Couldn’t name the actual counties. Could guess some of them but wouldn’t be confident of a full list. But also quite vague on what it really means. As is Wikipedia…

The point of the thread is that most people I know have a reasonably strong sense of what is London and what isn’t (and it doesn’t always match with Wikipedia). When I hear someone say that someone lives in London and then that they live in Croydon, my gut says that they live in a town in Surrey, not London. Not everyone has to agree with me.

For me, the Home Counties are the commuter belt from back when men would commute in to either the City or Westminster. There was a time when it was felt that London wasn’t a nice place for a family to live in so men would either commute every day or have a London flat and a house in the Home Counties. To my way of thinking this was from about 1880 onwards but I expect it’s actually from before then. So the Home Counties (for me) are Surrey, Kent, Essex, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire and Sussex (the bits that are easier to commute from).

Having just moved from Zone 2 to a Croydon postcode, I definitely don't feel like I live in London anymore!

It's a funny thing though as a house we viewed on the opposite side of the road is still a London Postcode, and those 2 letters made all the difference mentally!

Croydon is a red herring though - there have long been arguments that Croydon is a city in itself. It is much too big to be a suburb of London.

That doesn’t mean that Harrow isn’t London, whatever one of your friends might think. A suburb by definition is attached to a city. What is Harrow a suburb of if not London?

Over the years my husband and I lived in many places in London (separately and together).

The ones I'd say were "proper London" were Golders Green, Lewisham, Herne Hill, West Kensington, Stoke Newington and Kentish Town.

We also lived in two places (Harrow and Teddington) that were officially London (in London boroughs and with London photons numbers) but which didn't seem like London as they were quite a long way out. When living there I used "Middlesex" in my address rather than "London".

If someone had asked me where I lived, my answer would have depended on them. If they lived in London themselves, or I knew they knew London, I'd have replied "Lewisham" or "Harrow". If I had no reason to believe they knew London I'd have said "London" or possibly (eg) South West London.

I find this sort of thing fascinating because its personal perception rather than geographical and political definition. I'm sure other places have similar perceptions about themselves... like the North/South divide for England.

I definitely agree that some parts are more Londony than other parts. But its a continuum not a definitive border between London and not London, which makes it undefinable.

No, there definitely are definitive borders, used when people are sent their London mayor polling cards.

Unless you lived there over 60 years ago, why would you say you lived in a country that doesn't exist any more? Was it that it sounded better somehow, or just didn't sound right to you to say London?

You are missing my point and perception vs geographical reality. There is a geographical border, but a gradual change from London to not London.

Croydon is a town, yes, so is Kingston on Thames, and Richmond and places like Stratford have their own massive shopping centre, theatre, cinema, bus station, overground and tube etc.

But all are served y TfL, all are subject to GLA planning controls and housing targets, all vote for the Mayor of London, all are in London Boroughs.

London boroughs (and therefore London) have deer parks, miles of Green Belt heath and woodland, lakes (OK - quite small, mostly), marshland, wetlands, hills (also smallish), rare orchids and bats, grazing land with cattle and sheep, several campsites...all London, within London.

But naturally people think of Central London as being 'London'.