Where Does London End?

Then again, both Iain Sinclair and I would argue that Oxford is part of London...

Years later, when I worked at the building next door to it, I found that geographically it was almost exactly the border of Middlesex and London.

South of the Thames, the psychological border wobbles a lot more. Crystal Palace is London, Camberwell and Catford are London. Dulwich is definitely *NOT* London. Lewisham I'm not sure if it's London or if it's its own place, like Croydon. Streatham feels separated from London by the South Circular and Brixton Hill. Tooting is London, though, because it is on the Tube. (This is not always an indication, though - Hackney is London and it does not have a tube either.)

B-b-but I thought Middlesex didn't technically exist anymore! Am I not right in saying that it was kinda assimilated into London and Hertfordshire about 10 years ago? And then the Middx locals rebelled against the Post Office and Ordnance Survey and doggedly continued to call their homestead Middlesex, even though it's not...or something.

My dad confused me yesterday by querying my work address, in Ealing, saying that it shouldn't have London in it despite its W5 postcode.

So, for me, London = London postcode. London definitely != London phone number, cos that would include all manner of completely notLondon places like Sidcup and Croydon and so forth.

I am interested in the idea of "inner London" and "outer London" because the 6-zone tube always seemed quite wrong to me. Two zone is more like it.

Ealing is SOOOOO not London.

((Cheshunt always felt like greater London, too, even though it was officially outside London - it was only outside the M25 because my dad moved the M25. The locals thought it was definitely *not* London, but my mum insisted it was, and treated it as such. The neighbours still talk about the way she would just chuck all the local kids in the back of her VW van and drive them down to museums))

Enfield is even CALLED End-field because that's where London ends. ;-)

And it's sort of 'inside' on the tube map. Ealing Broadway! C'mon!

I always find that when i tell foreigners, or even people who haven't been to london, that I live in London, they always expect me to live right in the centre of town or very close, in places like pimlico or kensington. they have no idea of the sprawl that is London now.

Dulwich also counts as part of My London 'cos I also lived in East Dulwich for a bit when I worked at KCH, and our Xmas/summer parties were always held at the Griffin Sports Club. So it's all part of my experience of London.

*SOBS*

that's a pity because i was thinking of coming to the gig on saturday but now i find i live too far away... 8)

Muswell Hill does have nice buildings though. I live in a converted Victorian house, I assume in what would have been servants' quarters as we're on the top floor. Must have been a HUGE house.

Wood Green High St doesn't look much different to me to lots of other High St/Rds in London - Kilburn High Rd, Tottenham etc.

(Please come, even though it's a Very Long Way!)

x-post

Wood Green High St doesn't look much different to me to lots of other High St/Rds in London - Kilburn High Rd, Tottenham etc.

Well, see, Tottenham is Not London. Kilburn is a liminal zone, as half of it is on the wrong side of the Edgeware Rd. Wood Green High Street looks like Birmingham or something.

Elsewhere I stick to Zone 2 I guess with a few exceptions for Zone 3. If you are outside Zone 3 you are DEFINITELY not in London.

The epicentre of London is clearly the east, too. Bow, Hackney, Dalston, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green. I might be kind and include Clerkenwell in the east cos it's got Fabric in it.

S1 belongs to Sheffield town centre! why is this?

Southern Boundary - Thornton Heath, where my Auntie Daphne lives.

Western Boundary - er, um, dunno, Heathrow possibly?

Eastern Boundary - probably Walthamstow, with a long thin non-pan-supporting-oh-shit-I've-just-scalded-myslef panhandle out to Ilford.

But of course it is MUCH MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT because there are big areas within this which aren't London, making my London as holey as an Emmental cheese. The South East hardly exists at all, for example. What is this Lewisham of which you speak? Or indeed Deptford?

On the other hand, we took a bus back to Euston station after the busted gig w/kids at Wembley Arena, and looking at the bits inbetween, I had to say it looked crap. But then, does it actually look any different to the parts of london I know reasonably well? The crap you know vs the crap you dont. Answers on a postcard...

Clerkenwell is East because it's EC1. I've lived on both sides of the dividing line, EC1 and WC1 and liked EC better.

Camden is SOOOO London. It's as London as Soho or Shoreditch. Just a different kind of London.

x-x-x-post.

I'm not sure about Hampstead, though. Swiss Cottage is definitely London because I've lived there. Camden is London, as is Highgate. But there is a hole around the top end of Hampstead Heath which is not really London. Probably because there are bits you can stand and not see any buildings at all. Hampstead Village is London, much though they'd like it not to be.

As you depart it from the South (e.g. on the London-Brighton train), London for me demonstrably ends at Norbury.

As you come in from the West (on the M40), London for me begins at Hillingdon Station.

Liz's funeral was, incredibly, the first time I had ever come into London from the East.

The idea was that Harvesters can only exist in the suburbs, not in the metropolis.

All of those far west stations (Amersham, Hillingdon) on the Metropolitan line do not count as they are NOT EVEN IN A NUMBERED ZONE AT ALL!!!

I remember that Harvesters thing. I think there's one near Morden Hall. (Which is definitely country, not London) There might be one on the way to Herne Hill, too. Herne Hill is London. Tulse Hill and West Norwood are not. Though it starts being London again at about Gypsy Hill because Crystal Palace is London.

Acton is so London.

My personal tipping point when it comes to suburbs is when you find yourself zipping down a dual carriageway at 40mph, with row upon row of inter-war semi-d houses either side; it's Cricklewood, Neasden, Acton, Eltham, Falconwood, Bexley, Roehampton, Richmond... Suddenly you're somewhere where the buses thin out and there aren't traffic lights every 200 feet. Perhaps that's NotLondon.

Like Ambrose, I can't really square the idea of the suburbs being 'not part of London' because there are so many of them and they take up so much of the city. I've been thinking about this thread a lot in the last couple of days and the biggest split on the thread appears to be between those who grew up in London and those who didn't.

Non native Londoners = London is a place you move to, there are different preconcieved ideas about what it is, should be, should feel like, where it starts and whatnot. The idea of London being A City in the conventional sense when really it isn't, its a loose conurbation of villages that have grown together over time, each with a completely different look and feel to it.

Those of us what grew up here = Our experience of London is so different. When you're a kid, you never go to Proper Central London unless its with your parents or a school trip. You certainly never go to Bow or Brixton or Highgate or wherever unless you actually live there. (Except I think I went to the toy museum in Bethnal Green once). Your experience of London is grounded in the suburbs, the semi-detached houses and local schools and the couple of high streets and shopping centres*. The boring bits, in other words. So maybe we don't think of London in the same place and are more likely to give a pass to weird Outer London bits like Croydon and Orpington and Ealing and so forth. Sidcup to me, totally feels like London, hellish as it is.

So to me, like Mark, London ends when the fields start, when you're on the road out of the city and there's suddenly no more houses. The only place where this might fall apart is where East London becomes Essex. But then again, bits of Essex are overspill for working class East Londoners who've come into money, so maybe it counts after all. Part of the relentless expansive march of the city, eating all in its path.

*Another thing I've noticed over the past few years is it's the native Londoners (myself, Mark C, Jel and the Pinefox immediately spring to mind) who are the most parochial, and we've all stayed pretty close to the area we grew up. The Blackheath-Greenwich corridor I've lived for the last few years is basically my childhood playground, and I'm still finding out new things about it. Like the bottomless pond and the HARE AND BILLET GHOST, but that's for another thread.

(it wasn't my idea)

(xpost - oh well, at least they had an excuse)

There have been some very interesting answers on this thread - and it is strange the way that native Londoners have such different preconceptions to the imports.

HOWEVER

"its a loose conurbation of villages that have grown together over time, each with a completely different look and feel to it" doesn't ring true for me. the differences are pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, and the 'villages' line is odd: practically, most of the suburbs grew up over the last 120 years in a more-or-less-planned fashion.

my own london is teh tiny. the only bit of west london i've been to in a whole year is the cine lumiere in south ken.

Growing up there, i'd always say i was going 'up' London. i lived 3 mins walk from Ruislip Gardens tube, where the Central Line is elevated at several parts. Maybe this is subconsciously where the 'up' came from. But considering I was north west of London it is odd how we'd say 'uptown' and not 'downtown'. I suppose taller buildings might also have something to do with it.

Conclusion - Stow on the Wold is greater London.

xp -- i lived in cambridge, which is north of london, so obv we'd go 'down' to london. now i go 'up' to cambridge.

*Obviously on a working weekday the increase in passengers would be more gradual, about the same number would get on at each stop between W. Ruislip and NHG.

have you read alice in wonderland?

pah, london is based on lord of the rings as any fule kno.

I see it every day on the bus, and I wonder about it. Damn, maybe I should have put it on the "Every Day Bus Ride Mysteries" thread instead.

(Cue Kate trying to explain Neverwhere to Ron, and why he would have loads and loads of strange mythical creatures and invisitble lions turn up if they had their next record release party on the HMS Belfast.)

(I'm glad I'm not the only one who spent ages trying to decipher the quasi-French of the train bridge only to realise it was B OUR GUEST. Who is Bour Guest? Is he Bill Stickers' lawyer perhaps?)