For those of you who know the area

[20wedding19]

My husband and I have recently bought our first property.
It is near Welling High Street. So it is in The London borough of Bexley but some say it is in Kent
Welling station is in zone 4. So simple question. Would you say Welling is in Kent or London please?

Your address will be Welling + postcode. There no word ‘Bexley’ or ‘Kent’ in the address.

‘London postcodes’ are just historic things. Most Londoners live in ‘outer London’ and don’t have a ‘London’ postcode.

Is DA the postcode for Dartford? that was always Kent.

Is DA the postcode for Dartford? that was always Kent.
No it wasn't - some bits are/were Kent, some not.
Why do people pontificate on stuff without knowing the facts?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DA_postcode_area

The DA postcode area, also known as the Dartford postcode area, is a group of eighteen postcode districts in England, which are subdivisions of eleven post towns. These postcode districts cover parts of south-east London and north-west Kent.

The main sorting office in Dartford ceased operating in 2012 and became a Delivery Office. The area served includes most of the London Borough of Bexley and very small parts of the London Borough of Bromley and the Royal Borough of Greenwich, while in Kent it covers almost all of the Borough of Dartford, most of the Gravesham district, the northeastern part of the Sevenoaks district and a very small part of the borough of Tonbridge and Malling.

Post towns are different from administrative units (boroughs etc.). So the post town may not be London, but it can still be in London. Same goes for Enfield, I don't think anyone would doubt it's in London (although when you do a search in those post code searcher forms, it usually still comes up as Middlesex...).

Hinge - I'm not from the following area but I always say Sheffield is in South Yorkshire but recently met someone who very much identified with it being in Derbyshire?

@Hingeandbracket

Sheffield is in South Yorkshire but recently met someone who very much identified with it being in Derbyshire?
There's nowt so queer as folk. Sheffield (the City) is categorically South Yorkshire. Some of the southern suburbs were villages and towns in Derbyshire in the past though. I guess that answers my question - some people do have these daft debates outside London and the South East of England.

They definitely do

Central Park in Dartford (Kent!) is great, especially in the summer months. I also second Chislehirst Caves, Hall Place, Danson Park and Eltham Palace. I know there are more but my brain has gone blank right now.
Framingham Woods and Petts Wood are also great for a stroll.
Check out the Darenth Valley Path walking routes, they have different routes depending on how much you want to ramble!

Oh, Shorne Woods is great too!

DarenT, not Darenth - I always do that.

Darent Valley Path - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darent_Valley_Path

Framingham Woods??? Farningham Woods.
The first sounds like something from a plot in Midsomer (which is definitely not in Kent!)

Hinge - I'm not from the following area but I always say Sheffield is in South Yorkshire but recently met someone who very much identified with it being in Derbyshire?

That person isn't normal nearly eveyone would say Yorkshire, yeah chesterfield is in Derbyshire but hat ain't Sheffield, people get hung up on postcodes and telephone codes, Doncaster postcode goes all way to Grimsby. Dinnington and worksop have same phone area code and aren't even in same county.

UB9 is London Borough of Hillingdon not Buckinghamshire

It's a mix of the two. About half is in LB Hillingdon, and half in Bucks.

Most Londoners live in ‘outer London’ and don’t have a ‘London’ postcode.

Some parts of outer London do have a London postcode. Wimbledon SW19, Kingsbury NW9.

@TeachesOfPeaches and @Kizziebel... you'd better make that argument to the entire population of Wembley.

And yes, Ealing has some Uxbridge (UB) postcodes as well. Forgot about those. It's just the fact of an expanding London.

@20wedding19, the real difficulty arises when you fill in those automated address forms in web browsers. There will be a variety of options and it's always good to know them all. It's actually a Royal Mail fact that as long as you have the correct postcode and the correct door number, then your letter has a very good chance of making it to the correct place.

@SheilaBruce Wembley is in Brent, not Harrow. I grew up in Harrow and my family are from Wembley so quite familiar with the area.

And yes, Ealing has some Uxbridge (UB) postcodes as well

UB isn't actually Uxbridge, it's Southall. The actual area of the postcode is always the 1 code, so Southall is UB1. Uxbridge is UB8. It should have been SO, but that was already taken, with Southampton. so they looked at areas nearby. Hayes (HA) was taken with Harrow, so they gave it UB as Uxbridge was nearly.

(why do I know this stuff, I really should get out more)

@SheilaBruce when people from Wembley go to vote, they are in the Brent North constituency. Why do you think Wembley is in Harrow?

Wembley has the HA postcode. HA = Harrow. The OP was asking about the confusing fact that she didn't know whether her new place was Kent or London. I said it's Outer/Greater London and used the HA example.

Seeing as Bexley used to formally be in Kent, that's just not really true. It's damn close.

And Southwark used to be Surrey...

And Oxford Street used to be in Middlesex. Mayfair used to be in the countryside to the west of London. Londinium was a small northern outpost of the Roman empire.

Things change.

I live in Beckenham, and I’m forever getting post with Kent on it. It’s not been Kent since the boundaries changed in the 1960s. I pay council tax to the London Borough of Bromley, and when some little scrote attempted to steal our car, we had a visit from a Metropolitan police officer.
We’re not in Kent.

HA = Harrow

No. HA1 & HA2 = Harrow. , HA4 = Ruislip, HA7 = Stanmore etc. HA9 & HA0 = Wembley.

If you look at some of the more sparsely populated areas, like the highlands, it's even more extreme. IV is the Inverness postcode, but IV does not equal Inverness. IV1 is Inverness. But IV52 is Plockton, which is 75 miles from Inverness.

IV is the Inverness postcode, but IV does not equal Inverness. IV1 is Inverness. But IV52 is Plockton, which is 75 miles from Inverness.

And the whole of Northern Ireland is BT. Strabane is 80 miles from Belfast but still has a BT postcode.

A NI friend of mine when asking for my new London address started saying "BT" for the start of the postcode and when I said no it was SE and why did she think a London address would have a Belfast postcode she replied that she thought BT stood for Britain as she had only ever seen BT as the start of a postcode.