Thursday 19 August 2010

Post Office, Stoke Newington

Before they introduced bright red signs...

Post Office
Stoke Newington
Allen Rd
N. 16

Note the uppercase 'T' in 'Stoke'. A mistake by the sign writer?

Location: Allen Road / Picture taken on: 14/08/2008

5 comments:

Sam Roberts (Ghostsigns) said...

Yes, I think he wanted to write it all in upper case but then realised he didn't have space and switched. I wonder if the proprietors noticed and if he was deducted some of his fee for the error?

Sebastien Ardouin said...

When I first saw it I thought the upper case letters 'STN' could be some kind of area code. However I doubt it. Bad planning by the sign writer is the most likely explanation for this oddity.
As for the proprietors, I am sure they would have noticed the mistake when they came out to look at their freshly painted sign.

Martin said...

The Post office were run by the same people as the Phones back then (The GPO). SToke Newington would have been how the telephone exchange name was written out.

The post office for each exchange area would have been available by asking for 'the post office', so this form of sign would make sense.

Sebastien Ardouin said...

Thanks for the message Chip Munk. However there was no telephone exchange in London with the STN code. The numerical equivalent (786) was that of the SUNyhill exchange in Hendon.

Pebbles said...

I have lived just a 100 yards from where this Post Office was, all my life. The telephone exchange was Clissold, which was cut to CLI and then became 254.