ON an American street, but IN a British one. Do the twain ever meet?

In the United States, we say that someone lives on a street, whereas I've noticed that British people say in. For instance:

Bubba lives on Washington Street.
Colin lives in Cavendish Avenue.

I believe we both would use at when a number is given. For instance:

Bubba lives at 16 Washington Street.
Colin lives at 7 Cavendish Avenue.

I don't think it matters if it's a road, avenue, street, circle, or lane — as far as I know, in America, we always live on a street. Does it vary in British English, or is it always in? If it varies, what are the rules?

Solution 1:

One thing to keep in mind is that for a long time, people lived "in" Cavendish. Note that there may have been a couple roads in Cavendish, none of which had names, but you were speaking of a geographical entity rather than a linear place. Even as recently as 1998, when I lived in Kathmandu, you could be in "Thamel" or Jawalakel (two neighborhoods), but on any one of about 6 streets.

Americans, having lived less long in ancient place areas view roads more as routes rather than locales, hence the differentiation - Americans live on a route between two places, whereas Britons live in a place, that has taken on a road name.

Solution 2:

As commonly happens in this age of global communication/mass media, British usage is shifting more in line with American. Until a couple of decades ago, British usage favoured in the high street by a factor of about four to one...

...but if that chart is to be believed, it's nearer 50-50 today. Though per comments below (special thanks to @sarah), I wouldn't want to overstate the recent trend implied by the chart. Although the corresponding AmEng usage chart shows a marked preference for "on", it does show a significant number of instances for "in" - almost all of which turn out to be spurious, in that the sources are invariably British, but misclassified. It's also worth noting that "high street" is quite rare in AmEng anyway, which in itself suggests many such instances may be wrongly classified.