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.

"No, but the Visit Surrey website does give addresses just to annoy you"

Annoy is too strong a word, genuinely curious about how people seemingly arbitrarily choose a point of London's development from Roman City to sprawling Metropolis as being the definition of "London". Also somewhat curious about how advertising works and how people thing they have to sell and portray things.

Thankfully when it comes to addresses the Post Office have no need to flog anything and so don't need to give misleading addresses. For example Ham House is:
National Trust
Ham House
Ham Street
RICHMOND
TW10 7RS

I'm pretty confident that Ham House know they in the London Borough of Richmond as that will be the local authority that they deal with for various official things. As with the Council Tax I'm pretty sure that they'd get short shrift if they tried to dodge their taxes and fees to the London Borough if they claimed that they're not actually in London.

I'm pretty confident that Ham House know they in the London Borough of Richmond

They seem pretty confused to me.

Ham House, Surrey (Accredited Museum)
Visitor Information
Address:
Ham Street,
Ham,
Richmond,
Surrey,
England,
TW10 7RS

www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/place/ham-house

"They seem pretty confused to me."

Again because they're trying to sell something and they seem to think that saying "Surrey" will help them do that.

In the back office they know they're not really in Surrey and are paying their bills to the London Borough. If not London's debt collectors will, I presume, shortly be paying them a visit. "A tourist web site told us we're not really in London" isn't going to be much of a defence.

Have you been to Petersham Nurseries - just around the corner from Ham House?

petershamnurseries.com/getting-to-richmond/

Sorry, this is amusing me - I'm going out now.

"Sorry, this is amusing me - I'm going out now."

It is amusing, and odd.

Again the nurseries know that they're in a London Borough, for if they didn't they'd have been shut down for non payment of taxes and not having the correct permits.

Why do they feel it necessary to pretend that they're in Surrey? What kind of double think allows them to deal with London paperwork day in and day out and yet not actually realise that they are in London?

Baffling.

And amusing :)

I really don’t think people would be using “Surrey” to show off or sell anything . That would be a nonsense. They just genuinely believe they are in Surrey. My friend lives in Richmond and I’m sure she thinks she’s in Surrey. It sort of tripsof the tongue. A bit like “Bromley, Kent” or “Hayes, Middlesex.”

I would have sworn blind Richmond was in Surrey until shown otherwise this morning. For instance, we once saw a “doer-upper” house in Richmond and were seriously considering it, but I’ll be honest, what put us off is that we didn’t feel ready to “move to Surrey” . As DH said, “Once out of London it may be hard to ever return.”

Now I find out it’s not Surrey at all and hasn’t been since 1965!

I just thought Richmond was Surrey but, like Kent, there was a part of that county that lay within the metropolitan area (hence the non-London postcodes).

"I would have sworn blind Richmond was in Surrey until shown otherwise this morning."

But if you lived and/or ran a business in Richmond how could you not know it's a part of London?

All of your dealings with your local authority for tax, planning, parking or business regulations would have been with a London Borough. If you'd ever had to involve the Police you'd have been dealing with the London Met and not Surrey Police. When it came to voting in elections you'd be voting for the Mayor of London and not Councillors on Surrey County Council.

I was born and grew up on the eastern edge of London and bounced back and forth from there into Essex and back again over the years. I can understand non-locals getting a bit confused about what's what but to live there and not know just has always baffled me.

So if I saw a business saying it was "Essex" when it was "London", or vice-versa, I've always thought that they saw some commercial advantage to doing so and that they couldn't genuinely not know.

I like to see the county on an address though, especially a business address. I like to know what part of the country somewhere is. Unless the town is of a reasonable size I’m not going to know if it’s in Cornwall or Cumbria.

^ CecilyP If you mean the Shepperton area portion as the third Surrey split, that is included in the two way split photo I posted.

If you mean the Enfield area portion as the Hertfordshire split, that is also included in the two way split I posted and it’s Enfield. Which is not in Hertfordshire. The Herts boundary is at Waltham cross.^

No, I don’t. I was thinking of Potters Barr, once Middlesex now Hertfordshire.

Clavinova, I think it's still common to use obsolete addresses. However, I've just looked at correspondence from Sutton council and no 'Surrey' in sight either on their or my address.

Well you’d certainly expect a London Borough not to use Surrey in their address. Odd that their grammar schools do so or perhaps they’re all academies.

I like to see the county on an address though, especially a business address. I like to know what part of the country somewhere is. Unless the town is of a reasonable size I’m not going to know if it’s in Cornwall or Cumbria.

Yes it is appropriate in some circumstances. Not much point where your correspondees are all likely to be local.

Well you’d certainly expect a London Borough not to use Surrey in their address.

That's the point that seems to have people confused. For over 30+ years, some London addresses did have Surrey/Kent/Essex as part of their postal address. I don't think the Post Office clearly communicated to people that you don't need to have the confusing coutry on the envelope any more and people still use them.
And some clearly think they're in Surrey/Kent/Essex when they live in London

But once you had a postcode (1960s) you didn’t need a county. I’ve certainly never used them for addresses. If I lived in a small unknown town, I might use one to inform people of my location but otherwise not.

It looks like the Post Office only did away with postal counties in 1996-2000.

Can’t you just write the postcode and door number and it’ll get there? I didn’t know county was necessary

I didn’t know county was necessary
It isn't. It's entirely obsolete and incorrect to include the county as a few of us have said.

A friend of mine once sent a postcard from Italy to my landline phone number, London. He told me he'd sent it, so I said he was silly but actually it turned up and my dad said yes somebody had called from the sorting office; it had actually made its way to the correct district and had "try X area" written on it with an arrow from the local area code.

Changing people's county is a strange thing to do really, it strikes at their identity. I can understand why London wanted extra money so it had to absorb the outer boroughs to get it, but it must have been odd to be bureaucratically migrated like that.

Windbeneathmybingowings
Can’t you just write the postcode and door number and it’ll get there? I didn’t know county was necessary
.......
Yes you can. Most people don't, they do put street and town etc but door number and postcode will get the letter there.

Lol at Merton not being London.

I live in Merton. We're Zone 3, have an SW postcode and some fairly well publicised tennis.

I live in London.

This drove me bonkers when I went to uni. I lived in an SE postcode, opposite a DA house. I didn’t get offered accommodation (LSE) and had to commute, girl a couple streets away got halls! Totally unfair, but I suppose there had to be a cut off point. As PP upthread have said, pleased that I now live in ‘proper’ Kent so I no longer have to keep qualifying or pre-facing it...

@FuzzyPuffling, you don't happen to live in Whickham, do you?

Postal address is Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but it's actually in the borough of Gateshead. Gateshead and Newcastle are on opposite sides of the River Tyne!

@Mrex

I don't think the 1965 changes were simply a money grab by the old County of London!

I don’t know what the motivation was behind including large areas into London in the 60’s.

However, it does seem to make sense. Eg coming from central London to Sutton it’s a continuous built up, urban area. The south of Sutton backs onto the coutryside so it is a natural edge of London.

Slightly more complicated Kingston way as the built upness continues into Surrey? Thames Ditton and West Molesley are in Surrey, aren’t they?

London borough of Richmond website proving its Surrey. Also it was my address for 21 years.

It’s part of a weird Venn diagram part of Greater London and Surrey

London boroughs, towns and counties are all different so you can be part of all three...