Wondering about that city’s postal codes I found this thread
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=39058
But my question is with all those W, NW, SW, EC, SE, etc.
Is there a point in London that is considered the “center” from which all those areas spread out?
EC is considered to be “The City”, which is the financial and business heart of London (Bank, St Paul’s etc). In reality, the “centre” is made up of WC and EC postcodes - “The City” is slightly to the east and the entertainment, shopping and leisure heart - Leicester Square, Covent Garden etc - is slightly to the West (hence East and West Central).
Distances to London are traditionaly measured to Charing Cross in the forecourt of Charing Cross station. However, since Charing Cross is in WC2 I guess that is not the epicentre of postal codes.
I generally tend to think of Centre Point (it’s a big building) as the centre shock… it’s in W1, and that’s the central postcode really. It’s also the best address to have. I lived in W1 for a year and miss it a lot.
Logically – not a word that sits easily in this context, the convergence line between the postal codes ending in ‘C’ (‘C’ for central) would indicate ground zero. Following this thinking, along the line where WC1 meets EC1 lies (going out on a limb……) the Post Office’s understanding of the centre.
Conveniently for them – or more likely, by design – the largest mail sorting office in the country lies at the uppermost part of that line i.e. Mount Pleasant Sorting Office (at the junction of Roseberry Avenue and Farringdon Road). Only a WAG as I’m relying on memory (for where the line between WC and EC actually is) but I think it’s thereabouts.
That being so, it’s elementary to think the Post Office thinks Mount Pleasant is the centre of London.
The boundary between EC and WC roughly follows the line of Chancery Lane and Gray’s Inn Road. This is the ancient eastern boundary of the City extended northwards. So far as I can work out, WC1, WC2, EC1 and EC4 converge around the junction of Gray’s Inn Road and High Holborn, or, in other words, the north-westernmost point of the City. Moreover, EC1, EC2 and EC4 appear to converge at the western end of Cheapside, close to the old General Post Office in St. Martin-le-Grand. What is slightly surprising and lends further support to London_Calling’s Mount Pleasant hypothesis is that the WC1 and EC1 are used for the areas adjacent to Mount Pleasant rather than for those areas to the south which have always been thought to be the more prestigious. I am fairly sure that the Mount Pleasant Sorting Office (the biggest not just in Britain but also in Europe) predates the introduction of UK postcodes.
More support for the Mount Pleasant theory:
Just looked in my A-Z and see that Mount Pleasant is actually in an EC1 bubble on the EC1/WC1 border.Where you might expect the border to follow Rosebery avenue, it actually leaves Rosebery Ave at the junction with Mount Pleasant, goes around back of the sorting office and rejoins Rosebery Ave on the far side of Farringdon Rd. When you see it on a map it looks too odd to be a coincidence IMHO.