In message , at
00:29:15 on Sun, 15 Aug 2004, David Boothroyd
remarked:
They also sometimes changed the numbering, adopting a uniform scheme
that the smallest number would be the closest part of the street to
St. Paul's Cathedral.

Not perhaps to St Pauls Cathedral, but to the central Post Office just
north of the Cathedral, after which the tube station now known as St
Pauls was originally named.
--
Roland Perry