Putting Wimbledon on the map
Reports from The Championships, including on wimbledon.com, will sometimes refer to events being in ‘SW19’. This is the first part of the postal address of the Wimbledon area – the equivalent of a zip code in the US. London postcodes were first developed in 1857, with Wimbledon being in the area labelled SW – for South West London. Other urban areas of the UK were gradually brought into the system.
In 1917, during World War One, numeric codes were added to improve efficiency based on geography and the alphabet. Wimbledon became SW19. In the early seventies, with sorting at the Royal Mail increasingly mechanised, it was decided every address should have a fuller postcode which would identify a cluster of houses or major delivery point.
The postcode of the All England Lawn Tennis Club is SW19 5AE, though visitors using satellite navigation (which uses postcodes) are advised to select SW19 5AG or SW19 5AF.
However, during The Championships visitors are strongly advised to use public transport.