Woodblocks and ghostsigns in Southwark (and a bit of Lambeth too)

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 name of the company here is Post Office Telephones – I have never seen/noticed any circular plates bearing this name anywhere else. The wood is partially missing in one section and this allows us to see the thickness of the remaining pieces. Update Nov2025: that damaged quarter is now completely empty – all the wood has gone, ditto the metal nodule thing, but the other three sections look practically the same as shown above.

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 to investigate the streets that abut and run beneath London's first railway line (via Greenwich). In Spa Road, not far from where the station used to be, I spotted another man hole cover between the 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. I had been told there were other manholes with wood blocks in them near Spa Road, but I didn't see them on this occasion. See an update below.

In Jamaica Road I hopped on a bus and headed back to Waterloo so that I could scour the streets for more wood-filled 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. 

Update on woodblocks Dec 2025: chatting to a friend about this woodblocks/manholes thing he identified where the other one is near Spa Road. Turns out it's a 5x5 grid cover rather than a circular plate and the really annoying thing (for me) is I had walked past it back in April after I had bought snacks in that Co-op store, duh! Here's a google screenshot taken from here.

He also told me about another one I hadn't spotted, not in Southwark, but in Lambeth, set within the triangular island at the junction opposite Morley College, where St George's Rd meets Westminster Bridge Rd, shown below and here:

 

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