It is nearly 70 years since we have had a coronation, so naturally, I started looking up roads named after that ceremony.

My 1936 copy of Phyllis Pearsall’s Geographers’ A-Z Street Atlas only shows two ‘coronations’:
Coronation Road E13
Coronation Road NW10

But hold on a minute, haven’t there been dozens of coronations since the start of roads being named in the 6th century and the 1936 coronation? But here in London, there are only two.

Next turning to a modern road atlas I find the originals plus five new ones:
Coronation Avenue N16
Coronation Close, Bexley DA5
Coronation Close, Ilford IG6
Coronation Road E13
Coronation Road NW10
Coronation Road, Hayes UB3
Coronation Walk, Twickenham TW2

But how many coronations have taken place in the intervening period which would promote the naming or re-naming of a London street?

Precisely two, the late Queen in 1953 and her father King George VI in 1937.

With the increase of Republican support, what national event has taken place in the last 86 years to inspire local authorities to give their thoroughfares a regal connotation?

In a word television.

Since 1960 the world’s longest-running television soap, Coronation Street, has appeared on our television screens, but not one local authority has grasped the nettle and given the moniker Coronation Street, otherwise Bill Roach might turn up.

Featured image: Manchester: Coronation Street Sign. The sign on the corner of the road says we are on Coronation Street by Lewis Clarke (CC BY-SA 2.0).