To be annoyed at people who live in a London Borough but insist they don't (i.e Im in Surrey, Kent etc)

[Rosehip10]

As in people in places such as Richmond, Kingston (insisting they live in Surrey) or places such as Bromley (insisting they are in Kent).

These places may used to have in a different county but have been part of greater London and a London Borough since 1965.

Is is snobbery? They usually drone only about postal towns which also no longer exist.

Twickenham is in Richmond borough and heathrow is in Hillingdon (a London borough).

It's London. Unless you're going to say that "proper" London is just the bits within the old Roman City then you've already fully accepted the fact that London grows and takes over more areas. Southwark used to be a part of Surrey and Westminster was Middlesex.

Indeed, or you could say London was once just a town in the county of Middlesex!

But equally when you drive down the A3 to the Bentall Centre, you're driving through the built-up area - Surrey doesn't really start until you get to the tree-lined roads beyond the Hook turn-off.

We had two DC while we lived in Blackheath. One was born at Queen Mary's Sidcup, the other in Greenwich. There has been much banter between them over the years about how one is Kentish and the other a Londoner.

Also, there was a hilarious BT advert (which I can't find, unfortunately) released when the London area codes were first split into 0171 and 0181. Maureen Lipman and Miriam Margolyes, as Beatty and Dolly, were trying to one up each other. From memory Dolly was preening about being in "Central London" while her friend was in the "suburbs", to which Beatty replied that they were in "Greater London", unlike her poor friend who was in "Inner London".

The snobbery about London postcodes has always amused me. It doesn't happen to anything like the same degree elsewhere.

I just found this map. I had no idea I lived in the same borough as Twickenham , or that the Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames was split by the Thames! I guess because I live very near the border with H&F and Wandsworth, somewhere like Twickenham does feel quite “out into Surrey,” especially as there is no tube there. Twickenham town itself is quite urban, but there’s a lovely villagey feel in places like Teddington and anywhere along that bit of the river. Mind you, Barnes is about as close to a village as you could get in London. Anyway, thanks for enlightening me on where I actually live!

I live in the London Borough of Bexley and I have an 0208 phone number. I'm about 10 minutes from the Kent border (ignore the DA postcode).

I know all this because I couldn't afford to buy any closer to town and am clinging on to a London borough by my fingernails.

I'm loving this... Both my mum & DH are from some of these not-real-London areas & they've always given me looks when I've said that I see those areas as "basically London"... Can't wait to see the look on DH's face when I point out he grew up in a London borough, ergo, in London!

AFAIC, if you don't pass fields getting from where you live to Buckingham palace, you live in London.

This is Barnes. When we first moved here from SW1, I genuinely thought we had moved to Surrey, especially as its in the Richmond Borough . It’s known as being a bit twee in Barnes, yet, just for good balance, you’re only minutes from the Hammersmith gyratory / A4 flyover system!

I don’t get why people care about this! I’ve heard the opposite complaint, that people who live in Surrey or Hertfordshire claim they live in London but it’s not “proper London” does it really matter? The distinction is clearly pretty blurred....

It's snobbery. People where I live love to say they live in Kent rather than South East London. I'm very happy to say I live in London.

I'm amazed at some of the posts on this thread. If you're paying your council tax to the London Borough of ...... then you live in London. Bromley hasn't been in Kent since before I was born!

I live in the London Borough of Bexley, but have a Dartford postcode and a phone number that doesn't start with an 0208! It gets really odd here, we seem to have one foot in Kent (our Borough does the 11+, we have grammar Schools and qualify for the "Dartford test" to access Dartford's grammar Schools) and one in London - Oyster cards etc.

No bloody tube though, or DLR (or Crossrail - yet!)

Ha it annoys me that a very much outer London borough when DD2s college, is is classed as London whereas a nearby town where DD1 is, isn’t. So DD1 gets a lower maintenance loan, despite the property prices being higher and the fact that it is quicker to get to from central London.

Fairly recently the area I live was still classed as Middlesex, though it is undeniably inner London. I think it depends how people identify themselves. I still think of Bromley as Kent even though it’s a London borough.

AFAIC, if you don't pass fields getting from where you live to Buckingham palace, you live in London. grin
We have one field i think. I work next to Buckingham Palace
But we are outside M25 and am in walking distance of Greater London.

Getting back to the OP though, I’m not sure about that (ie snobbery about trying to live in Surrey or Kent). I think the reverse actually - that most people would try and claim to be “in London” if at all possible as it affects house prices?

^I was born in Hammersmith, and back in the 70s that wasn't considered very central at all! We used to talk about going "up west" for central London

Yes I love this as the direction of travel is due east!^

Come on, West End! If you remember the postcode changes, you're fully aware the City and East End have only really become choice restaurant/bar/club/shopping destinations in fairly recent times.

I don't, I put N/a if it's a free text box. If it's a drop down I put Kent and scowl at it.

If you get Christmas cards from people with the county on them do you get all grumpy and send it back to them with the country crossed out?

Rosehip10 is right that official Royal Mail addresses don’t include Kent, Surrey etc so the companies that expect you to put Surrey, Kent etc in your address are wrong. Lots of outer London boroughs don’t have London postcodes because the London postal districts predated the establishment of the Greater London Council in 1965, as Rosehip10 says.

Depending on context I say I live in borough name or London.

@Parisa5 Kingston is a Royal Borough like Kensington and Chelsea and Greenwich.

Interestingly when they looked to expand London they were going to include places within the M25 like Epsom but the people in the area protested loads so they left it out. However it does mean some areas within the M25 but outside Greater London have London phone numbers, London postcodes, London buses, etc.

@Parisa5 Kingston is a Royal Borough like Kensington and Chelsea and Greenwich.

Interestingly when they looked to expand London they were going to include places within the M25 like Epsom but the people in the area protested loads so they left it out. However it does mean some areas within the M25 but outside Greater London have London phone numbers, London postcodes, London buses, etc.

If you get Christmas cards from people with the county on them do you get all grumpy and send it back to them with the country crossed out?

Ha ha, of course not. I do roll an eye at their ignorance of accuracy. And I always check anyone's address that they give me against the database. Most people get it wrong. My parents for instance gave me their new address as:
X The Street
Village
COUNTY
XXX XXX

It's actually:
X The Street
Village
TOWN
XXX XXX.

I never take what anyone gives me at face value.

DH's parents live in Surrey (definitely proper Surrey and not at all London). When he writes to them he insists on including Surrey in really big letters just to annoy me.

If you're paying your council tax to the London Borough of ...... then you live in London. Bromley hasn't been in Kent since before I was born

You need to have a word with Royal Mail then. Yes, my MIL pays her council tax to Lewisham, but she has a Bromley postal address and postcode. It's a pain when you need to use the tip, as she gets told she can't use the nearest one in Bromley, and Lewisham council don't want to fix the potholes in her road because they say it's Bromley.

And yes, I used to pay my council tax to Guildford (in Surrey). But my postal address was Hampshire. All the local authority boundary changes have been rather unhelpful.

On Saturday I am doing a race in Bournemouth. A Hampshire cross country race. As far as I know, Bournemouth hasn't been in Hampshire since before 1974.

When I go into Richmond (15 min drive away) the town of Richmond itself is actually in Surrey. I would drive down the Lower Richmond Road through Sheen, but Sheen is SW14. So god knows where the official London / Surrey border is? It’s not as if there is one of those signs as Sheen becomes Richmond - “Welcome to Surrey.” Also, Richmond feels like London because it’s on the District Line.

If Richmond is in Surrey, then so is Barnes. They both became part of Greater London on the same day!

@grumpyperson it is a common thing to not be able to use a tip unless you are in said local authority area. Most places you have to show proof, ie council tax bill, if she lives in Lewisham borough then she has to use a tip in that borough. The pot hole thing just sounds like council bullshit, every county or borough has strictly defined limits so someone would have been responsible, these limits would not relate to address or postcode

Surrey is a legal entity with legally defined boundaries. It doesn’t include Richmond.

Exactly, Surrey is a large county in its own right with about a million inhabitants.