Search This Site

22 December 2008

A seasonal christmas card quiz

Here's my 12 loosely-themed (London) pubs of Christmas, 2008.
If you can recognise any of them then please do get in touch with me at the address above left.
Eat, drink and get merry!
If anyone would like to buy some of these Christmas cards, then please do get in touch.
Inside reads, Eat, drink and get merry.

20 December 2008

Pointing the way to go

Every now and then I find an old sign with a strangely-shaped pointing hand on it. Some of these manicules are very odd indeed. A friend pointed out(!) to me that one of the ones below looks like a pair of long johns!


11 December 2008

More bootscrapers of central London

Well, I thought I'd seen more or less every kind of boot scraper there could be, but walking through Temple, St. James' and Belgravia during the past week I have found lots more really good ones. Some of the Temple ones, shown here in the top two rows, are so simple and understated; almost like they are only half there as they disappear into walls. Along Whitehall I found a pair either side of the doorway to The Parliamentary Counsel that, unusually, face the street rather than each other. But then again, if they were perpendicular to the wall then people would trip over them. There must have been H&S reps even in those days! I am particularly fond (fond? bootscraperspotteritis setting in here) of the curved corner versions, and the really simple straight ones like the dark one on the bottom row, which can be found just off Belgrave Square.

8 December 2008

More coal holes

I have found some more good ones over the past few months. And all fairly central. One even has a key hole in it which, I suppose, means it wasn't self-locking like a lot of the others. I must find out how the coalmen opened and lifted these lids, especially the self-locking ones. Perhaps they had huge magnets or special crowbar-type things? If anyone knows please do let me know.
See my constantly-expanding collection of London coal hole cover plates here.

Click here to read Yelfy's research about Hayward Brothers.

And here are some wonderfully different and colourful coal holes from the North of England.

4 December 2008

Comments are now enabled under each posting

What a muppet I have been. Thanks to Nick pointing out that I hadn't enabled comments I have this morning been through and clicked all the relevant boxes. Thanks Nick.