With the help of the geocoder web service available at worldkit, worldinpictures.org¹ now understands UK postcodes.

The geocoder only gives accuracy down to the first part of the postcode but I allow searches on full ("SW1A 0AA") or partial codes ("SW1A").

Unfortunately the geocoder doesn't give results for all postcodes - "N1" for example doesn't get resolved. Not sure if this is due to the worldkit web service or the source data it uses (which comes from jibble.org).

Still this makes searching within the UK that bit easier - at least until the google geocoder supports it...