More woodblock street surfaces – this time in Southwark

Marching southwards down Waterloo Road on Sunday, running a little behind schedule to get to the start point of my own guided tour(!) I glanced to my left along Alaska Street and spotted a circular cover plate in the road. Hmm. Should I come back to this later, or check on it now? I opted for the latter and I'm glad I did.

Well I wasn't disappointed – in fact, I was elated – I have never seen a man hole cover plate of this design, let alone one so elaborately filled with chunks of wood:

The wood is partially missing in one section and this allows us to see the thickness of the remaining pieces. Note also, that the name of the company within the metal moulding is Post Office Telephones, a type I have never seen/noticed before. Here's the view looking back to Waterloo station:

After leading my Southwark Ghostsigns walk which finishes near Borough Market, I wandered eastwards to Bermondsey, and investigated the streets that abut and run beneath London's first railway line (via Greenwich). Then, in Spa Road, not far from where the station used to be, I spotted another man hole cover between the old Queen's Head pub and Bermondsey Council's old town hall building. I wiped away the bits of fallen tree seeds with my foot: 

There are only tiny bits of wood still visible within this one. It's a London County Council access point showing us that trams used to travel up and down this street when it was Bermondsey's municipal hub. It's hard to imagine that now. 

In Jamaica Road I hopped on a modern bus and headed back to Waterloo so that I could scour the streets for more woody man hole covers near Alaska Street, but I found no more – it just proves that you rarely find things when you are looking for them.

I had more luck looking for cars, as there are often some lovely old vintage motors along these streets. Three old Citroens were parked in Roupell Street (though not including the 'Anthill Mob' one with running boards shown in that link) and two Morris Minors sat beautifully alone in Whittlesey Street looking like a photo shoot:

I'm glad to report that the Windmill Walk ghostsigns are still hanging on in there, barely changed in decades. I never did manage to decipher the big one which I think contains the word 'BAKER' through the middle, but the slim one is easy to read – a cuffed manicule points the way to St Andrews Church. 

My collection of wood blocks can be found here – let me know if you see any others