How to pronounce selected London place and street names
The correct pronunciations of some London place names are totally unguessable. For example, outsiders can’t reasonably be expected to know how to pronounce Southwark or Beauchamp Place or those Thames islets called ‘eyots’.
Even official sources make mistakes. When they were first introduced, the recorded announcements on the tube got east London’s Plaistow wrong. A chorus of cockney complaints prompted London Underground to implement a swift correction.
Some pronunciations that are obvious to Brits can be baffling to everyone else. The American writer Jean Hannah Edelstein has blogged about her time as a London resident: “The first place I lived was Great Dover Street, an LSE hall of residence in Borough, which was pronounced ‘burra’, which I only learned when I got to the tube stop and heard it announced. Which I couldn’t quite believe.”
Certain well-known London addresses can be famously difficult for foreign visitors to articulate properly. Leicester and Grosvenor Squares are classic instances. And this author has eastern European friends who speak excellent English yet are incapable of saying ‘Thames’ right.
A handful of the places listed below may seem curious inclusions. For example, how else could ‘Cheam’ be pronounced? Guidance in such apparently unambiguous cases is usually given because the author has noticed people arriving at Hidden London via a search for something like “how to pronounce Cheam”, without at that time being able to find the answer they sought. Aldersgate, Fitzrovia and Leadenhall are other examples of inclusions based on past user searches. And given the many quirks of London speech, who can be blamed for wanting to check whether some place name is really pronounced as it’s written?
"Thames" is pretty easy. It's pronounced "Tims". But Worchester? I don't know - Wooster?
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