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London postcodes can inspire all kinds of debate. Are you a staunch NW vowing to never cross the river, or a fierce SE, who thinks Peckham is the greatest place on earth? Or perhaps you are one of those pompous people who says that anyone without an N, SW, E or W postcode can’t possibly claim to live in London.
But today we’re here to put our differences aside and answer a different London postal conundrum. Why is there no NE or S postcode in the capital?
How do London postcodes work?
The capital’s postcode system was originally cooked up in the 1856s by a chap called Sir Rowland Hill. To deal with the sudden increase of post in the ever-growing metropolitan area, he devised 10 different postcode areas for the city: N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW, WC and EC.
What happened to NE and S?
The NE and S post codes were abolished in the 1860s due to low mail volume. We can thank Anthony Trollope for this, as the man who introduced the postbox was asked to investigate the efficiency of the post system. He found that the south and the north-east weren’t generating enough letters to warrant their own code, so he simply got rid of them.
The residents in S were absorbed into either SW or SE; at the time most of them were happy to just get on with it, but the NE removal was quite a bit more controversial. Fearing backlash, the Post Office didn’t actually tell the well-to-do northeast London residents that their postcode had changed to E, so letters continued to be addressed to NE. When they were finally informed two years later, many simply rejected the change and continued using their former postcode anyway.
So there you go. Postcodes are just one of the many weird things about the capital that don’t always make sense but we embrace them anyway. In 2026 there isn’t any rhyme or reason for the lack of NE and S more than a historic hangover.
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