Mr. Chart submitted the following report on the numbering of houses at Mitcham :—
I beg to report on the numbering of houses in this Parish as follows :—
There are in the Parish altogether some 2,365 houses, very many of these are scattered and would not fall in with any general system of numbering, nor does it appear to me at present, with so many intervening spaces of unoccupied land, that a complete system of numbering such as is applicable to towns, could with any advantage be carried out, and if carried out now it would require very frequent amendment and alteration. There are, however, streets in the Parish in which numbers already exist, but which are improperly numbered and create great confusion in the delivery of letters, in the voting lists, and other like business, where the houses are too small to be known by distinctive names, and these should be taken in hand at once, and I append a list of such streets to this report. With regard to the general system I recommend such as one as is adopted in London (where all streets and numbers commence at the end of the street nearest to St. Paul’s), and in the Parish I should adopt the Vestry Hall as a centre, and number the houses in such streets as are to be numbered from the end of the street nearest to the Hall, taking the ” even ” numbers on one side of the street, and the ” odd ” numbers on the other. With regard to Church Road there seems to be some difficulty, as this extends as now named from Hall Place to Singlegate, the houses being for the most part on one side of the road only. It has always seemed to me that this road requires dividing by distinctive names before it is numbered, and the same thing applies to the London Road, which is nearly two miles in length. Perhaps the Committee will consider this.
RESOLVED — That the usual notices be served upon the occupiers of the roads and streets named in the report, forthwith requiring them to number their houses in the manner required in that behalf.
The roads in his report were:
Aberdeen Road
Arnold Road
Bath Road
Belgrave Road
Bond’s Road
Briscoe Road
Bygrove Road
Cavendish Road
Chapel Road
Church Road
Commonside East
Commonside West
Devonshire Road
Fountain Place
Fountain Road
Gladstone Road
Graham Road
Harewood Road
High Street, Colliers Wood
Homewood Road
King’s Road
Leonard Road
Lillian Road
Manor Road
Marion Road
Norfolk Road
Palestine Grove
Park Road
Queen’s Road
Robinson Road
Sibthorpe Road
Spencer Road
Walpole Road
Waterfall Road
Western Road
Westfield Road
Wilton Road
Source: 1897 Council minutes, Croydon Local Studies Centre
