"Olde Ealing"
 

In reading a comparison of Boston and London house prices in a Boston newspaper, I saw a house pictured in what was said to be "Olde Ealing".

Has someone taken the Mickey out of them or has the "Queen of the Suburbs" become quainte?

Somebody is definitely taking the Mick.

In my experience, US Americans use terms such as Olde, Towne and Shoppe, far, far more often than anyone on this side of the pond.

The irony is, of course, that the buildings in most "Old xxx" areas of London suburbs tend to be a bit newer than Boston.

Conservation of the architectural heritage (apart from the parish church, which around London the Victorians "restored" beyond recognition anyway) simply wasn't a priority for Tudor, Stuart or Hanoverian burghers working their way up the property ladder in then-rural villages like Ealing, Hampstead or Harmondsworth. In places like Kew and Richmond there was a positive orgy of - really jolly tasty, but still destructive - Georgian improvement

With a tiny handful of exceptions, even the oldest surviving buildings rarely go back before the early 18th century. Relative newcomers by the standards of the City of Boston or the Commonwealth of Massachusetts - but is anything still standing there from before the 1760 fire?

Ackislander & Mjdh1957, such designations are very popular in New England.

Point of fact – my dear cousin/sometimes travel companion lives in a lovely house on “Olde Towne” Road in Lynnfield, about 12 miles north of Boston.

Her neighborhood was quite upmarket when her folks bought the house in the early 60s in the $35,000 range with 3 baths!

>>Has someone taken the Mickey out of them<<

I wouldn't put anything past a London estate agent. They're forever inventing new designations to make somewhere sound a bit posher than most people would know it to be. So what, in my childhood, was once a rather dull nowhere-very-much between some main roads and open spaces became (get this) " 'Twixt the Commons"; likewise, we now have in our area "Charlton Slopes" (i.e., not the grotty bit down the hill by the main road). I wouldn't be at all surprised if some small corner of Ealing is singled out in this way.

There's always the New Town in Edinburgh - bits of it are only around 250 years old.