UK Street Numbering

[a chesters]

Looking at Google Maps, to try to locate some of my ancestors houses, Mr Google has the street numbers consecutive, odds and evens on the same side of the street. Here in Sydney, the odds are on one side, and the evens on the other. (I am on the odd side )

In the UK, are the numbers consecutive, as per Google, or is Mr Google wrong?

Whichever, it would make it easier to locate the houses I am interesed in looking at.

A Chesters
in rather warm Sydney

[fastfusion]

we all a bit odd in this family history caper

however if you see a street with numbers 1,2,3 on the same side  sometimes it is tenement housing  much as you would have a block of flats.......   but normally  it is exactly the way you would see it in Australia inless u lived of a boat where the pier numbers follow the outer extremtity of the line leaving from the boathouse to come back to the boathouse.

[fastfusion]

furthering that   I forgot to mention   if there are houses facing a waterway or beach and there are no houses on tother side   then the estate numbers will be 1234 etcetc 

[a chesters]

Thank you for your prompt reply.

That means that i will have to try to read the numbers on the houses, as Mr Google simply goes one after the other with "approximate"

Just went to the other side of the street, and it still gives even numbers, just as it did before I changed sides. Bother etc

[trystan]

Yes, generally you'll have odd numbers on one side and even numbers on the other.

There are a few exceptions (as Fastfusion says).

On housing estates the numbers can go a bit funny too, especially if the builders decide to squeeze in extra plots. Also, due to demolition and reconstruction the numbers can go out of synch.

I used to have a paper round - so I know the frustration of the door numbers (not to mention some letter boxes, and the growling dogs behind them).

Sometimes you can see the door numbers themselves in Google Streetview (but they may be blurred out).

Trystan
(In a cold and wet and dark Bury, Lancashire)

[youngtug]

The trouble is, different areas and times had different ideas. A lot of the Victorian and early 1900's streets in my home town are numbered consecutively along one side and then back along the other. Some streets have houses built at various times and the numbering system can be a little odd, some are not numbered,only having names.

[alanmack]

Hi,
    RC members living outside the UK should remember that the buildings/plots in some of our older towns date from before 1500 (AD that is!). The numbering in the main street of my own home town runs up the south side for half a mile or more, then back down the northern side to about number 150 or so. This is not uncommon all over the UK.

Alan

[KGarrad]

And don't forget that, in many towns, streets have been re-numbered over the years!

[mike175]

I don't think anybody has mentioned that numbering usually starts from the end of the street nearest the town centre, with odd numbers on the left and evens on the right, looking out from the centre, and side streets are similarly numbered starting from the main street. I would have assumed everyone knows this, but the education system seems to have left recent generations surprisingly ignorant of basic general knowledge 

However, as pointed out previously, there are many exceptions to the rules . . . 

Mike.