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County name and abbreviation discussion (e.g. Hampshire -> Hants)

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Ken H

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Mr Beech
Whitwell

Mr Beech
S80

Rob Beech
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Have all got to me within the last 15 or so years.
Missus, before I met her got a letter addressed
{her christian name}
broken leg
her small town.

But a friend got a letter clearly addressed to Settle, N yorks that had been via Seattle!
 
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Ken H

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On the other hand I regularly (as in, several times a year over the past few years, so it’s not just a one off mistake) get post for a completely different address in another part of London, where the sender has correctly written the intended recipient’s address including postcode. The only similarity in the detail on the post is the door number and first half of the street name.

It isn’t a railway abbreviation. It’s the standard abbreviation for the county.
Maybe, rather than counties, they put the first part of the postcode.
or maybe not. Clapham(N Yorks) is in LA2. (LA is Lancaster)
 

robbeech

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It shows what the system is capable of. Sadly, parallel to all this there is so much mail that doesn’t get delivered to the right place even when the full address is on it.
 

Calthrop

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The first time I came across "Hants" was also in a railway context - the direct line from Reading to Taunton referred to as "The Berks and Hants".

None of which route lies anywhere within Hampshire ! One could be forgiven for feeling sometimes that Rule No. 1 for British geographers is: nothing is even supposed to make sense...
 

adrock1976

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What's it called? It's called Cumbernauld
Newport...??!!

From north to south:

Fife (full name is Newport on Tay, which strangely has a DD postcode (centred on Dundee) rather than KY which is centred around Kirkcaldy)
Shropshire (SY postcode centred around Shrewsbury)
Gwent (NP which is centred around Newport Gwent)
Isle of Wight (PO postcode which is centred around Portsmouth)
 

Ianno87

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From north to south:

Fife (full name is Newport on Tay, which strangely has a DD postcode (centred on Dundee) rather than KY which is centred around Kirkcaldy)
Shropshire (SY postcode centred around Shrewsbury)
Gwent (NP which is centred around Newport Gwent)
Isle of Wight (PO postcode which is centred around Portsmouth)

Don't forget Essex too!
 

Basher

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Newport Teesside TS post code ( Shildon Newport Railway Ran)
 

Busaholic

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I've lived in Kent for almost 30yrs and I never knew where Thanet was until this year.
There are a few in Thanet who don't know where Kent is. I speak as a Kentish Man as opposed to a Man of Kent.
 

CharlieBrown

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At Jodrell Bank Onservatory we once re
You can write whatever you like on there though, and it will almost certainly still be delivered as long as you've included some kind of identifying information.
I sent someone a letter not long ago that literally just had their house number and a postcode. That was it. It made it to them without problems.

You can probably just write 'The Prime Minister' on there, and it will still be delivered.

A letter once made its way to me that had my name on it and a house number but no street name.
At Jodrell Bank Observatory we once received a letter addressed to "The Frenchman, The Big Dish, Somewhere up North"
 

deltic1989

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But if you're sending it to somewhere like Leicester or Nottingham, it's kinda obvious what county it's in!

You would think so wouldn't you? :D

I was on the phone to my insurance company last week, renewing my car insurance. Got to the part where the friendly young lady asked for my address. "00, Street, Clifton, Nottingham", says I......."What county is that in Mr Deltic?" says she.
"Suffolk" was my response. I then had to clarify that I was pulling her leg, as she seriously didn't know which county Nottingham is in.
 

Mojo

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You would think so wouldn't you? :D

I was on the phone to my insurance company last week, renewing my car insurance. Got to the part where the friendly young lady asked for my address. "00, Street, Clifton, Nottingham", says I......."What county is that in Mr Deltic?" says she.
"Suffolk" was my response. I then had to clarify that I was pulling her leg, as she seriously didn't know which county Nottingham is in.
To be fair, Nottingham isn’t covered by Nottinghamshire County Council, nor is Leicester covered by Leicestershire for that matter.
 

AM9

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To be fair, Nottingham isn’t covered by Nottinghamshire County Council, nor is Leicester covered by Leicestershire for that matter.
The vagaries of county and local authority boundaries don't alter which geographical county places are actually located in. As far as the post office is concerned, Both Nottingham and Leicester are firmly positioned within the physical boundaries of the counties that have respectively taken names from those cities.
 

Oscar46016

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I think the shortening of county names came about as you couldn’t display the whole names on paper maps!
 

sprunt

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You would think so wouldn't you? :D

I was on the phone to my insurance company last week, renewing my car insurance. Got to the part where the friendly young lady asked for my address. "00, Street, Clifton, Nottingham", says I......."What county is that in Mr Deltic?" says she.
"Suffolk" was my response. I then had to clarify that I was pulling her leg, as she seriously didn't know which county Nottingham is in.

The real ridiculous thing is IT systems that demand a county is entered for a UK address, whether online or on the system this woman was using. My full (obviously redacted) address is:

nn xxxxxx Street
London
N8 nXX

so it really annoys me when online forms insist that I fill in a "County" box.
 

Smethwickian

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Errr, Smethwick!
Did both cities initiate a Universal Declaration of Independence from the rest of their respective counties at some point?
Regarding the admin of council services, yes.
Like Telford & Wrekin (within but not administered by Shropshire), they are unitary authorities responsible for all services.
Ceremonially and for some non-council services such as police they remain in Leicestershire / Nottinghamshire / Shropshire or West Mercia as appropriate.
 

Ken H

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The real ridiculous thing is IT systems that demand a county is entered for a UK address, whether online or on the system this woman was using. My full (obviously redacted) address is:

nn xxxxxx Street
London
N8 nXX

so it really annoys me when online forms insist that I fill in a "County" box.
Why do they do that? All you need is house number and postcode to uniquely identify an address.
Any decent system has the postcode gazetteer, so it should ask for postcode, then pick an address from the list of addresses in that postcode. The gazetteer will then return the correct postal address sans county.
I suspect they are US systems where addresses seem to need state even though they have a zip code.
 

whhistle

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When I am writing an address on an envelope, I always put the County in the address :)
That's like the people who still type "www." in the address bar.
Make a concious choice not to use it and it'll become habit saving seconds each time you visit a website.
 
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