I want to understand London addressing system.

Hi all,

im planning a trip in December to London, i've been there before, but i never came to understand the addressing/street system.

can someone guide me please?

For example, this is the selfridges address (i got it from their website):


PO Box 5157
Leicester LE3 1ZW

What is Leicester? what is LE3? and 1ZW?

i will greatly appreciate the help.

Best regards,

HiSoC8Y

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I'll try and explain this the best I can.

In the UK postcodes are made up of letters and numbers that are 6+ characters in length. Outside of London most codes generally begin with the first letter of the nearest town or city. In the example you gave the code began with LE - that is for Leicester in Leicestershire. I believe that the next character refers to as section within that area, followed by the last three letters which point to a specific road or section of a road. With London it is different because of the sheer size of the place. In the centre there is two main areas - EC and WC (east central and west central), the remaining postal areas start with N, NW, SW, SE, W and E.

Hope that helps. :)

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I suspect that the Selfridges address you are quoting is their head office address for postal queries/complaints etc.

The main branch is on Oxford Street.

A PO box is a Post Office box where businesses direct their mail so the full address is not public (I have friends with home-run small businesses that use PO boxes so that their personal address is not public)

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