What is your exchange name?

[Maurice Picarda]

I just bought a reconditioned 706-series GPO phone, and was asked what I wanted on the label. It turns out that my exchange, pre-1968, was called Enterprise. This is not as good as Gibbon for Putney or Floral for Mortlake, but it's not bad.

Here's the list of exchanges.

 

[Greebo]

Tulse Hill, boringly enough.

 

[spring-peeper]

Woolich.

I lived in Plumstead, but I guess that Plumstead wasn't posh enough to have it's own exchange.

 

[toblerone3]

Terminus (for Kings Cross)

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Mum-tat's 706 (which I really must get round to doing the necessary so it can use one of these new fangled socket thingies) has a label for 'Kipling' exchange (which became 857)

It's dawned on me I've never asked what the local connection (Lee / Grove Park sort of patch) has with Kipling - or for that matter whether it refers to Rudyard or some other Kipling.

 

[Schmetterling]

Advance!

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Nothing for me

 

[blossie33]

If I had a landline it looks as though I would have been one of two, either STA or LAT

I love some of the central area names, AMBassador for Paddington and how about DILigence for Wembley

I am old enough to remember when we had exchange names in Birmingham, our's was BIRchfield

 

[el-ahrairah]

where i grew up was CREsent, which is kind of charming.

 

[Maggot]

What a great list. Love DOMinion = Dagenham, EMpress = West Kensington and SKYport = Heathrow.

Also IMPerial = Chislehurst cos Louis Bonaparte son of Napoleon III lived there.

 

[marty21]

UPPer Clapton

 

[Remus Harbank]

STReatham

 

[telbert]

DOMinion.

 

[trashpony]

Dreadnought (for Earl's Court) is brilliant

Mine was Kilburn

 

[Sue]

Not got a landline so don't know. Suspect AMHerst though hankering after SPArtan .

 

[toblerone3]

SPArtan for Dalston is excellent

 

[Sue]

Also liking TROjan (Wandsworth), LIBerty (Merton and S Wimbledon) and RODney (Camberwell and Walworth -- should be Peckham, surely? )

 

[Puddy_Tat]

and RODney (Camberwell and Walworth -- should be Peckham, surely? )

I've asked Mum-tat, and she thinks that towards the fringes, the exchange names were made up to suit the combinations of letters that were available for that number, and she's not aware of any local relevance to Kipling...

 

[not-bono-ever]

TOWnley road exchange

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

274 BRIxton

not a big shock

 

[Epona]

ALBert Dock. Nothing I didn't already know, but I'm now disappointed that my exchange doesn't have a nice fancy name like some of the others.

 

[ElizabethofYork]

I don't live in London any more, but when I was a kid we lived in Clerkenwell and the exchange name was TER (837) for TERminus.

 

[stuff_it]

I'm always disappointed by this thread, I immediately thought it was going to be about what you name your server from the title.

 

[golightly]

RODney for Camberwell & Walworth. Refers to Rodney Road. I'm not aware that there was a telephone exchange there, but it's possible it was relocated when the Heygate estate was built.

 

[davesgcr]

HOP for London Bridge (Hop Exchange)

WAT for Waterloo...

 

[Vibrant-Hubb]

MUSeum

 

[QueenOfGoths]

It would have been FRAnklin (Carshalton and Wallington) which I rather like

 

[kittyP]

What is it for SW9?
I got bored looking

 

[Maggot]

What is it for SW9?
I got bored looking

BRIxton.

 

[pesh]

and REDpost