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@oat44
Excellent! It was mainly to lament the absence of NE as a North East London postcode (and S for South Londoners). As you can see in hms' shot, it did exist once, from 1856, before being merged with E and N in 1868/9. It was eventually reassigned to Newcastle.
There are quite a few other streets with the old signs showing NE.
Apparently we have Anthony Trollope to thank for this. He was commissioned to find ways to cut costs in the post office and discovered that NE and S residents were an unusually illiterate bunch who didn't write enough letters to justify their own postcode anymore. Charming. (shamelessly stolen from Londonist)