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. See pics at the bottom.

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.

Pics of the Alaska Street man hole cover taken in May 2026 – it's amazing that 6 months after I first noticed that this had an empty segment that it has not been infilled in some way – surely it is a road hazard!

Railings made from wartime stretchers – spot one and you'll start seeing them everywhere!

In my last post, looking at remnants of woodblocks, I mentioned that I'd been walking through the residential streets in Bermondsey, between Long lane and Tabard Street, here. I'd returned to this zone on a Friday because I'd actually intended to have a look around the much-diminished Bermondsey Antique Market and, being as I was in the vicinity, I thought I'd revisit some repurposed WW2 metal stretchers I'd often noticed on a corner along Long Lane. 

There are similar examples of stretchers as railings across London (see the list at the bottom) and whenever these have been pointed out to me, they have often been described as oddities. I was sure I'd seen more than just a handful of these things in Bermondsey so, after a conversation with a Vauxhall-based friend who had doubted me, I headed back to take a few snaps as evidence. 

I approached via Hankey Street and found some stretchers there lining both sides of the meandering street:

Hmm, I'd never walked down this road before and thought that these stretchers didn't look like the ones I spotted before; I was sure the buildings behind them had been the red brick late-1930's London County Council variety and that the stretchers had faced Long Lane, so I continued down to Manciple Street, turned left and left again into Staple Street and found it was also lined with stretchers, many with privet hedges growing through them.

When I again joined Long Lane I found the stretch of stretchers that I was looking for, adjacent to the post box including one that's been in a war of a different kind:

Interesting that these metal mesh fences were added after the war. I'm assuming they replace broken or trampled fencing. 

I headed eastwards along London Lane and, deciding that this needed a proper investigation and the market could wait for another week or two, I turned right into the state via Weston Street and found myself in 'Stretcher Central' because the things are almost everywhere casting interesting shadows on the pavement, their layers of peeling paint showing they were previously painted a bright shade of green:

The bended bars and black mesh continues around and past the LCC's 1930's buildings at the southern end of Mancipal Street and into Pardoner Street and Law Street. 

I followed the stretchers along Law Street passing an old pub that is now Leo's Den Nursery but still sports an old pub sign of a sheep hanging above the door – how amusing if the pub used to be called The Slaughtered Lamb (poor little lambs!) – then all the way down to Tabard Street and left around Pilgrim House into Potier Street. 

Phew! I decided that was enough and managed to get to the antiques market just as the stallholders were packing up. 

This Bermondsey estate and its 'sister' the Rockingham Estate just to the south, surely must contain the greatest concentration of these things. 

Hackney and Lambeth can also boast quite a few, the latter having a Facebook page on the subject. More information about Lambeth's housing estates can be found on Municipal Dream's excellent Substack page. 

I am pretty sure I have spotted stretcher fences in Camden, but I cannot now recall where I saw them, and there surely must be some stretchers surrounding similar estates in Tower Hamlets...?

Here follows a list of others I have either seen or been told about. However, some of these might have since been removed and replaced as per the ones in Pytchley Rd, off Dog Kennel Hill in East Dulwich as shown here in 2014 which I am hoping have been repurposed somehow. Please let me know about any of the others on the list so that I can add streetview links to those that don't have them:

• Amhurst Road, Hackney
• Atkins Road, Wandsworth
• Downs Estate (around Blackdown Hse), Hackney 
• Glebe Estate, Camberwell Road
• Kennings Way and White Hart St, Kennington
• Mereton Mansions, Brookmill Road, Deptford
• Shrewbury House, Kennington Oval
• Springfield Estate, Union Grove, Lambeth
• Watergate Street/Trevithick St, Deptford
• ... any more?

More bits of woodblock paving – Bermondsey and Chalk Farm

Walking northward through Camden recently, as I passed the the station and crossed Inverness Street I stopped occasionally to check that these manhole covers in Chalk Farm Road are still filled with wood blocks – yep. Good. 

I went for a wander, musing that the markets here aren't markets any more, just Bansky and Winehouse opportunities surrounding some food outlets. I continued up the street then just after The Roundhouse, I found another wood-filled manhole cover within the large triangle of pavement at the corner of Regent's Park Road:

Only two segments retain wood, but that's enough for me!

A few days later I was ambling through the residential streets between Long Lane and Tabard Street in Bermondsey, SE1, and I found another man hole cover in Hankey Place, the wood almost hidden by the greenery growing within it. How lovely!

This broken line design is new to me – the lines are usually solid as per the one at Chalk Farm, above. We can assume that this was a specific feature of covers made by this particular maker, who is shown around the rim of the cover plate as: Frederick Bird & Co., engineers, ironfounders, West Drayton near London. This is a company I have seen adorning many coal hole cover plates including those made by Bartle & Co of Notting Hill Gate who implemented Bird's patented self-fastening locking system, as shown here. 

Lots more lumps of London wood blocks here.

More wood blocks – side streets and access roads

Here's the latest update on woodblock sightings. These are all in side streets or back alleys.

Find the current list here.

First, here's one I spotted and photographed years ago but completely forgot abbot until recently. This unusual elliptical shaped man hole cover can be found just inside the side alley to the right of 169 Bermondsey Street, SE1:  

Next, a regular circle-shaped man hole cover, jam-packed with lovely big chunks of wood. This can be found in Crooked Billet Lane, a narrow street under the Overground railway line at the southern end of Kingsland Rd, E1. I read in a 1930's London guidebook that this little street was [then] a wonderful evocation of a bygone Victorian age (or something like that). Not so today – a couple of 1880's buildings do remain on the right/north side but, apart from that, there's not much left except this marvellous example of the old road surface that would have covered the whole street 150 years ago: 

A similar example can be found lurking in the little road parallel to West End Lane, West Hampstead, specifically behind Oddbins with access from Sumatra Road, NW6:

Finally, I mentioned earlier this year that I'd been on a tour of the Holborn Kingsway tram tunnel and I'd noticed that many areas of its woodblock road surfaces were still intact. Here are some more pics: 

Bermondsey Beach – little things mean a lot

I was recently in Bermondsey for a River Thames event and, as mudlarking guide, I was there to share a bit of local history and provide a kind of Show & Tell with the attendees, explaining to them the dos and don'ts of access to the foreshore and what we might hope to find on the surface in this area.

Bottom left: a little bit of broken cardboard that happened to make the shape of J (for Jane)!

As I explained to the group, unless you have, like I do, a permit purchased from the Port Of London Authority which allows you to scratch the surface, you can do little more than walk the dog or enjoy the peaceful atmosphere. You cannot dig. Even if you do have a permit (and the PLA are not allocating any new ones at the moment) you can only disturb the very top couple of inches. But, quite frankly, you don't need to dig as it's simply a matter of getting your eye in and, if all you are picking up are broken bits of shell and pottery sherds, that's fine. But please be selective. Many people take bag loads of found items home with them and then don't know what to do with it all. Hence, it ends up in household rubbish and then in landfill which is a shame. Better for it to stay as part of the River Thames. Therefore, I always encourage people who join me for my foreshore forages to choose just three items to take home with them and leave the rest behind to be covered by the next tide. As with all unusual finds, if you do find something that you think might be an artefact of historical interest, simply contact the lovely people at Portable Antiquities Scheme who will advise you. 

Here are some little gems that picked up at Bermondsey, some of pieces are tiny, less than 1cm across, and we found them simply sat on the higher drier parts of the beach looking carefully around our legs. All the blue and white crockery was in an area less than 2 metres square. It's not that someone dumped it there, it's because the tide dropped it there being as it was all of similar weight. This is evident on curved stretches as the tide copes with different obstacles and the beach changes from a swathe of sand to small shingles, then a heap of bricks and masonry, then a muddy section and back to shingle again. 

The seven fragments top left are single-sided, late Georgian through to twentieth century as are the six little pieces in the top middle pic which are two-sided (the flip side shown top right). And I do love bit of tide-worn glass, or sea glass as some people call it. I don't know what that B stands for (it's probably from a beer bottle) but holding up the fragment to the light made it look like a cola ice lolly, especially against the beach!

I found quite a few bits of intriguing pottery, some glazed on both sides (top left and centre) plus some lovely little pieces of semi-precious stone, marble, flint some of which have holes worn within them or are pleasing shapes shuch as the ling tubular bit of flint and the Shard-shaped triangle which I had meant to hold up against the London skyline to replace the building on the Southbank, but completely forgot to do that!

Bottom left, above, shows a collection of stones with layered rocks and sediments some of which resemble fancy cakes or cuts of meat. As a gauge of size, the largest piece is approx 35mm long. A larger version of the 'roulade' is here to better illustrate the food idea. One of the pieces looks at first like it is glazed, especially as the pattern within the stone resembles a map of Cyprus! And the collection bottom right is simply about colours and textures; a selection of alabaster, coral, brick and stone. I also collected a few fragments of clay pipe (not shown here) which I will soon turn into items of wearable jewellery etc.   

Finally, some Health and Safety advice about accessing the foreshore – despite any historical images you might have seen showing people paddling in the Thames or sitting on deckchairs on its beaches, the Thames is not akin to a day out the seaside. If you do venture down there be sure to wear sensible, preferably waterproof, shoes or boots and access only via staircases that are clearly managed and maintained. However, note that these steps can be very slippery due to algae or silt. And on the foreshore, if a surface looks dodgy or slippery then it probably is; don't stand on it or you might sink into soft ground. Be sure to stay close to the access steps because when the tide starts coming in again it will come in fast and you really don't want to get stranded or swept away in the current. And, if you do want to pick anything up, please remember that the water is not clean; wear gloves, use sanitiser. 

M. Walker & Sons, Tanners, Vinegar Yard, Bermondsey

For years – actually at least two decades now – I have been revisiting a ghosted hand-painted sign that overlooks Vinegar Yard in Bermondsey, here, to see if I can decipher the wording

Well, it's finally showing through, and there are some lovely logos also visible these days.

At the top, above and behind the crane, it reads:

M. WALKER & SONS LTD
TANNERS, CURRIERS & EXTRACT MANUFACTURERS
ROSE HILL TANNERS
BOLTON, LANCS

Extract is a reference to vinegar, used in the leather tanning process. 

Then, to the left, below the crane there is a logo of sorts that reads: 

ROSE HILL
SOLE LEATHER
WALKER BOLTON
around an illustration of a rose

Underneath in block letters, we have:

"ROSE HILL"
"DAINTY ROSE"
AND
RAILWAY
SOLE BLENDS
AND [oil?] SOLES
[horizontal rule]
....INNED
[something... I can't see below that]

On the right side there is a correlating panel that starts with diamond-shaped motif containing the words:

DRI REGD PED
LEATHER

REGD and LEATHER are set smaller than the product name.
It continues:

"DRI-PED"
SUPER LEATHER
CHROME SOLE
AND
MECHANICAL
LEATHERS
[????]
CURRIER [or CURRIED] 

It appears the company was making heavy quality leather for shoes and work boots.
William Walker and Sons, 1895-1980, are listed here with lots more info about the company here in The Bolton News

There are quite a lot of ads for Dri-Ped available online. My favourite is this one.

More wood blocks street paving in London and further afield (part 3)

In April 2021 I wrote piece about areas of wood block paving still visible in London. These I'd found mostly in the Clerkenwell, Islington, old Finsbury and Shoreditch areas, plus the large remnant at the south side of County Hall. I followed that up six months later with an update, adding other sightings in Southwark and Islington along with a panel in an alley off Clerkenwell Rd that I did indeed go to look at in person, and I did take more pics, but what have I done with them?!  

Well, since then I have spotted some more, and one of them was just a couple of days ago, a few minutes' walk from my home in Holloway N7. I was crossing the junction of Holloway Rd heading west and standing on the central reservation directly in front of Barclays, now closed and empty, and looked down to see this wood-filled manhole:

How, had I not seen it before?!  In my defence, I rarely ever cross the road at that point. Here's the Google Streetview of that location, looking back from Barclays to where I was standing. As you would expect, I then made a search of the whole junction to see if there were any others in the vicinity, but no. 

So I came home and added my photos of my new find to my 'Wood Blocks More' folder which contains, in no particular order... 

Within the covered entrance to Bermondsey Leather Market on Weston Street:

A couple in Hampstead, NW3:

Further afield, outside London, I found a lovely example in Waltham Abbey: 

And in Whitstable there is a paved floor within the gatehouse entrance to the castle gardens:

Someone told me they saw a filled manhole cover in Chalk Farm Road, Camden, but whoever that was didn't take photos or provide me with any more info. I've just been up and down that road onscreen via Google Streetview but I can't find it. I'll have a proper look next time I am visiting the markets.

I'll leave you with a pic of one of the first examples I ever spotted – I cannot believe that I omitted to include this one, as well as the other two that are very near here, when I compiled my initial post on this subject back in April last year. Unusually, this is not in the road but instead it's set within the pedestrian pavement outside Pizza Express, Upper Street, Islington, hinting perhaps that the road used to wider. Here it's looking lovely after the rain and I think the outer shape resembles the London Underground roundel: 

Re the other two nearby, they are actually in Islington High Street, behind the old tram electricity station, today an Amazon outlet. One is still intact see here, but the other one a few metres south on the No Entry sign near The York pub, was infilled about two years ago. I do have some pics before they slapped it full of tarmac and when I find them, and the photos in the Clerkenwell alley, and the Camden example, I will compose Part4. Ooh the excitement, ha ha!

………

Update August 2023: I have set up a London A-Z Directory of Woodblocks. If you can add to the list, please leave a comment under this blog post or email me at jane@janeslondon.com

Rotherhithe and Bermondsey

Following on from a post earlier this year about Surrey Docks, here are some more of my photos taken along the riverside near Rotherhithe and Bermondsey.

Boats, old signs, river views... even cormorants and stalactites.