This is a group of street names about which I know very little, but would like to know more. I am intrigued by a number of things. What happened to First and Second Avenues amongst others? Was this part of a scheme planned on a grander scale? Who originally came up with the idea for numbered streets in Luton? Which authority approved the names?

The earliest dates I have for these streets indicate to me that they are part of a plan that was interrupted by the Second World War. I have a reference to Third Avenue in 1940 but the other roads appear on plans in the early 1950s. Third and Fourth Avenues run from East to West and Eighth, Ninth and Tenth run from North to South. Was Hill Rise originally planned to be Second Avenue? It was not until 1964 that this area came under the control of the Luton Council and I am not clear which authority was responsible for it before that time, possibly Sundon Parish Council.

With little information located to date regarding these streets I have looked at the bigger picture. For some reason I believe that the first city to use the numbered streets system is New York. No doubt I will learn that in ancient Rome Via Unus was named in 509 BC but until that happens I will regard New York as the leader. This document provides information about the plan to lay out the streets of New York in a grid pattern, formulated in 1807 and adopted in 1811. They took the opportunity to plan the city in a way that regarded it as being a blank canvas. This resulted in the grid system of numbered Avenues and Streets any visitor to New York or viewer of US television programmes will be familiar with. Our ancient towns and cities grew piecemeal and were never subject to the planning of New York or indeed Paris. This website gives some details of various plans for London, mostly a tale of missed opportunities including the rebuilding after the Second World War. More recent developments, notably Milton Keynes with its V(ertical) and H(orizontal) designated highways are far more rigidly planned.

The ‘maps’ feature on the Google search engine allows us to look at other places in England that use the ‘Numbered Avenue’ system. They can be found in a surprising amount of towns and cities, from Sussex to Northumberland. Southampton, Harlow, Brighton, Worthing, Wembley and Wolverhampton are just a few of the places with a First Avenue. The Trafford Centre in Manchester and Stansted Airport are recent developments that have adopted numbering.

Current maps do not tell us the age of the street names but the 1911 census information recently released shows that some towns had numbered streets almost 100 years ago, one example being Chatham with First, Second and Third Avenues.

The nearest we have to New York in terms of regularity is to be found in Tadworth in Surrey with 16 (very short) numbered avenues off the central spine of Holly Lodge.Hull has Avenues all the way up to 40th, but by no means a complete set. The numbering appears to be random without a discernible pattern, horizontal or vertical, to help people trying to locate a particular numbered road.

York is another place with a seemingly random arrangement of the numbers. It has Avenues from one to nine but if it is part of a planned grid it is not easy to tell.

That most sedate and English of places Frinton-on-sea has numbered avenues leading off the Esplanade.

Illustrating that superstition is alive and well in England one thing I have not found is a Thirteenth Avenue.

Numbers can be seen as a last resort and lacking imagination when used to label roads. An alternative view is that they can aid navigation and are the logical extension of the numbering of houses and premises. Whatever your view if you can shed any light on the numbered streets in Luton I will be very pleased to hear from you.