From: Benjamin Lukoff )
Subject: High Street Kensington Station
Date: 2000/01/29

If the actual name of the street is KENSINGTON HIGH STREET,
why is the station called HIGH STREET KENSINGTON?

Only 54 months late, but I think I've figured it out.

The London County Council decided at some point (1930s I think) that it was
going to ensure there were no duplicate road names in its area, and took to
renaming vast tracts of the county of London. I suspect that prior to this
date, Kensington High St, Clapham High St, Stepney High St etc, and the
biggest mouthful of them all St Johns Wood High St, had all been called
"High St". Obviously "High St" would have been a crap name for a station.
The station could just as well have been called ""Kensington High St" but
they happened to pick "High St Kensington" instead. When the streets were
renamed, all of the High Streets in London had the district name prefixed,
creating the present anomaly. I suppose this was also when the mouthful
"Stoke Newington Church Street" was created.

Other possibly related station name anomalies:

Bond St (did New Bond St used to be called Bond St before the 1930s?)

Marlborough Rd station (now closed, but by a road called "Marlborough
Place", presumably renamed in the 1930s)

I believe Queenstown Road Battersea station was called Queens Road Battersea
for many years after the road had changed its name from Queens Rd to
Queenstown Road.

York Rd Station - also closed, but on a road called York Way after being
renamed in the same project.

BTW, I was going to ask if St Johns Wood High St was the the only
quintuple-barrel road name in Britain, but the first page on which I opened
the A-Z contained "Royal Albert Dock Spine Road"!

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes