House Numbering - United Kingdom

United Kingdom

British houses started being numbered with the Postage Act of 1765. In rural areas many houses remain named but un-numbered. The odd numbers will typically, although not always, be on the left-hand side as seen from the centre of the town or village, with the lowest numbers at the end of the street closest to the town centre. Intermediate properties usually have a number suffixed A, B, C, etc., but there are several that have been given a half number, e.g. the old police station at 20½ Camberwell Church Street. At least one property (built next to no.2 after the street had been numbered) has been numbered zero.

Before the early/mid nineteenth century, it was common in England for numbering to proceed sequentially along one side of the road and then back down the other (in a similar way to "boustrephedon" writing). Subsequent changes to local numbering can present pitfalls to researchers using historic street directories, for instance.

This approach – numbering all plots on one side of a street consecutively, continuing clockwise back down on the opposite side of the street – still exists, for example in Pall Mall, culs-de-sac, streets with buildings only on one side, some new towns, and in many villages in Wales. For instance, 10 Downing Street, the official home of the First Lord of the Treasury (usually the Prime Minister), is next door to 11 Downing Street, the home of the Second Lord of the Treasury (usually the Chancellor of the Exchequer). Houses which surround squares are usually numbered consecutively clockwise.

Consecutive numbering is also used in some cases where only one side of the road is built up, as in Crayfield Road, Levenshulme, whose southern side is a former railway (now a cycle track).

Some UK local authorities avoid the number 13 for house numbering, because that number is considered unlucky.

In the UK Fanlights were used in front doors, first introduced in the 1720s and these showed a unique representation of a house number to identify which house was which number.