London SW2

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SW2 is officially the London distinct postcode for 'Brixton Hill Sorting Office', located in Blenheim Gardens, off Brixton Hill.

However, this is often abbreviated to Brixton, and therefore a common but erroneous assumption has emerged that this is the postcode for Brixton. In fact the centre of what people think of as Brixton town straddles the boundary between SW2 and SW9, which the post office considers to be Stockwell.

The SW2 postcode area also includes the whole of Streatham Hill and much of Tulse Hill.

The boundary between SW2 and SW9 is fairly arbitrary, even plain wrong to anyone who knows the area. To the west of the town centre, the boundary runs north of the Clapham–Camberwell axis; to the east, it runs south of it. To add to the confusion, parts of SW4 east of Bedford Road — technically Clapham — have quite a Brixton feel to them, and are regarded as Brixton by a majority of local residents.

SW2 contains Brixton Prison and the Ritzy cinema, while it transpires that Brixton's stations, its famous street markets, the Brixton Academy music venue and even Brixton's main retail post office are actually (according to their postcode) in Stockwell.

A further source of confusion has been that the the job centre in SW2 (now located in Josephine Avenue) is called Brixton South. This name was used even when the service operated from a building opposite Streatham Hill railway station at the southern end of the postal district.