Why are we no. 404
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2005-04-25 04:50:40 - Graham EllisIt's always struck me as very odd that we're in a street that starts at number 394 and goes up from there - we're at 404 and it goes up to about 412 or so. There's lots of letters in there too - 398A, 404A, 404B. I'm quite used to USA addresses including block numbers (thus 7311 for relatives of mine who live on a 6-house street) - but in the UK?
Over the Weekend, I think I may have found a solution. Lisa and I walked across the fields to another quarter of the town and there, on Snarleton Lane, we found a similar scheme ... house numbers in the 300s on a quiet lane, with lots of "A" and "B" fillins on what looked like the newer properies.
I conjecture that the houses in the parish of "Melksham Without" were numbered in a single sequence without street names some 100 to 150 years ago, and that this numbering has stuck to this day, but with the addition of street names.
Other evidence for my theory? I know of at least one local village where, to this day, most of the houses don't have street names. And perhaps I should go out next weekend and test my theory further be looking for houses in the 150 - 250 number range on the North side of Melksham - perhaps on the back lane from Melksham Forest to Lacock.