Could this be London's oldest coal hole cover?

Last Monday, wandering up and down the streets between The British Museum and St George's church, Bloomsbury, wandering into shops and galleries (galleries are shops too!) behaving like the rest of the tourists around me, I spotted a few oddities along the way, in the form of street furniture and details on buildings. Most of these can wait for another day but here I am going to talk about a few coal hole covers I spotted, one of which I think might be the oldest I have ever seen or, simply the most intriguing.

Turning into Museum Street from New Oxford Street there is this fairly modern building at the corner.

It looks to be 1980s/90s in style and it's strange that I had never before noticed it. This kind of thing often happens on my guided walks when I show people a huge Art Deco era building and an attendee who lives or works in the area tells me it's the first time they have seen it, often asking me how long it has been there. Basically, we simply walk past walls without looking up as we scurry from A to B.

Had I not been snooping around looking for a date stamp on this building (nothing found) I probably wouldn't have revisited the first of a row of coal hole cover plates which was partially hidden by racks of souvenirs (shown below right) – the image on the left is the a view looking back southwards to the top of the street. 

I've noticed these cover plates before but never thought to investigate them until now. There are at least five similar plates along this stretch of Museum Street bearing the name and address of Wilson & Co, 117 Charterhouse St, London, which is next door to the beautiful Doulton-tiled Fox & Anchor pub mid-way between Smithfield Market and Barbican station. 

Mr H. Wilson is listed in the 1895 directory as a pavement light manufacturer as seen in the circular glass sections within the cover plates here in Museum Street, the conical or pyramidical prisms designed to direct light into the basement space below the pavement.  

Coal hole cover plates usually indicate that the adjacent building is/was a house/residential and, stepping back for a wider view of this red brick terrace, it's clear to see that the shops we see today were not part of the original design. This terrace is called Talbot Mansions, the name indicating that it was constructed as an apartment block, therefore needing coal for residents on every level.

 

Either there were multiple entrance doors along here giving the appearance of a row of terraced houses with each door adjacent to a coal hole plate or there a couple of entrances at street level, the coal holes being accessible at various points below ground. 

Panels on the side of the building show the build date of 1890 but I cannot ascertain the relevance of the letter S. It could be the initial of the owner or the developer/builder.

Diagonally across the junction there is Ruskin House at 40-41 Museum Street, bearing an ornate hanging sign that includes the name of George Allen & Unwin, a publishing company founded in 1911.

In the googled pic above you'll notice a side doorway with an in-wall boot scraper to the right of it. To the left of that door is what I think might be a very old coal hole cover or, possibly, the oldest one I have yet discovered. 

That white snakey thing is an air-con extractor.

As you can see, this appears to be the right size for a coal hole cover. The lidded style with a knob at the centre could possibly pre-date the smoother branded and lockable cover plates like the Wilson ones across the street. I did try to lift the lid, but it's fixed in place. 

The square surround is also peculiar to me as I have never before seen the like of it, and I wonder if it's the same age as the lid. It could be that the two elements are made of different quality metals. 

Another idea is that this could be an access plate for a drain we cannot see...? 

The companies listed here a in the 1880s include Edward Morrison, inspector of weights and measures, and James Brodie who was an ornamental human hair manufacturer, which I assume means he made fancy wigs, perukes and toupées.

That's as far as I've got. If you have any further info please use the comments section below or contact me via janeslondon@gmail,com

I'll be back with part three of my musings in the museum zone in a few days' time – you can expect mosaics and mastic, man holes and more metal

Coal hole covers in Canonbury Square, N1

Last week I delivered a talk about coal hole cover plates at London Historian's History in the Pub night. This meant I had to wade through my photos to choose the best ones to best illustrate the diversity and how these things intrigue me. I am known for stopping suddenly in the street, mid-conversation with a friend, because I have spotted a name or a design that I have never seen before. I have written about these discs in the past, see here. 

Since last Wednesday's talk I have been revisiting my archive in an attempt to better collate them and delete the repeats, but with coal holes now uppermost in my brain, I have been out spotting more and have further expanded my photographic collection. I've even started making a A-Z list of the ironmongers' names that I have found. This shows how names evolve and businesses move to new locations or expand within an area. Talk about nerdy, or is it geekery?!

Yesterday I was in Canonbury Square, Islington, N1, so I walked the full perimeter to see what unusual delights I could find:

I discovered only five names and quite a lot of generic ones with no specific wording – the patterns on the plates offering a textured non-slip surface, as per the ones along the eastern side where George Orwell used to live. The one showed bottom right here can be found nearest to the green plaque commemorating the Big Brother author. 

Of the named ones, I would guesstimate about 80% of them,bear the name John Aston, a company that was located nearby at 70 Essex Road at the corner of Britannia Row. The lovely Georgian building, that +100 years ago would have been festooned with ironmongery and all things household is still there today but it's occupied by an estate agent. However, the Aston company lives on as part of Aston Matthews further along the street at 114-117. 

Of the other plates in Canonbury Square, Alfred Syer and John Hunter were both based about a mile away adjacent to the busy Nags Head shopping area of Holloway N7 and, being just around the corner to me, would have been my personal local ironmongers, though I wouldn't have needed a coal hole cover plate – these are 1870's houses but there are no coal cellars along the street – the coal would have been taken through the house to the coal bunker in the garden at the rear of the scullery. 

The name Harry Hunt is new to me, having never seen one of those before, but I'm sure if I go for a wander around Newington Green I will find lots more. The G. Guy one is strange being as Orchard Street is near Selfridges, off Oxford Street, and quite how this plate ended up in Canonbury is anyone's guess. I wonder if oddities like this were replacements for missing or broken plates, either brought by here by the new resident, or purchased from a second hand dealer.

A large Hayward Brothers coal hole cover – size really does matter

There are lots of coal hole cover plates embedded into the streets of Marylebone. A large percentage show they were manufactured by Hayward Brothers of Union Street, Southwark. At the eastern end of Devonshire Street, outside what is now the Turkish Embassy at 69 Portland Place, there is this coal hole cover plate, also made by Hayward Bros:

But look closely near the centre and see that it a 21" coal plate. I can't say that I have ever seen one of these larger formats anywhere else. To put this into context, here it is in vague proportion with a collection of other Hayward Bros cover plates in the immediate vicinity, all of which have standard 12" plates, some of them set some within a ring/rim. 

And to further illustrate the size difference, here re shots that include my lovely trainers.

Cool huh – both the large cover plate and my Nike Internationalists!   

Question is, why was this building created with just one very large access/storage point for coal rather than a long bunker under the pavement with multiple standard size plates as I have seen outside many other large properties? I suspect it was a constructed as large family home, but I don't have access to the any info as to who lived there originally. Any additional info welcome. 

For more of my posts about coal hole covers, simply click here. 

How to lift a coal hole cover plate – a dilemma

I have often pulled together collections of coal hole cover plates showing how diverse the range of designs can be. Most of them sport a pattern on them to make them anti-slip and often used as a means of promotion for the hardware store or iron founder. They show no visible signs of how the covers/lids might be lifted and evidence about this process, or diagrams to explain the construction, has proved elusive or inconclusive*. 

Whilst presenting a talk about coal holes at London Historians History in the Pub evening last month I asked the audience for ideas about their usage and the consensus was that the scullery maid would have pushed up the cover plate from the coal bunker below so that the delivery man could then remove the lid by hand. He would them drop it back into place after delivering the order. Being flush to the pavement, with no protruding lips to get a grip on, meant the lid was unlikely to be tampered with, or stolen/removed, and the coal below was as good as inaccessible via a short narrow access pipe barely big enough to squeeze your head through.

Some plates were 'self-locking' as shown here. If you look closely you'll see that there are little notches/gaps in the design within the outer circles and it has been suggested that perhaps these needed to be aligned to make the mechanism work. I think this is very dubious idea being as in this example we can see there there are four gaps at 90 degrees other on the cover plate, yet there are six at 60 degrees on the rung. And how would you rotate it?! 

The explanation is that a catch was released from below ground and this enabled the cover plate to pop up proud of the pavement, making it easy for the coal to be dropped down into the hole. The plate was then dropped back into the outer casing and pressed flat to the pavement, causing locking mechanism to click back into position. However, these self-locking plates must have proved unsuccessful seeing as additional locking mechanisms were later added as per here.  

*Hayward's of Union Street, Southwark, were the B&Q of their day and as such would most certainly have produced an extensive catalogue ... do you have any reference of these?

All suggestions and further info is most welcome. Please use the comments section below or email me at jane@janeslondon.com 

Coal hole cover plates made by the Luxfer Company of Finsbury

Striding up Sackville Street earlier this week, cutting through from Piccadilly to Vigo Street, I happened upon these two unusual coal hole cover plates made by The Luxfer Company of 16 Hill Street, Finsbury (Clerkenwell), London EC.

I say 'interesting' because these two have keyholes in them, one having been subsequently filled in with a strange circular disc device. I would estimate that I have only ever spotted about ten coal hole cover plates with lockable elements within them, such as this other Luxfer example here outside 107 Gt Russell Street.

These 12-14" lids cover access holes used by coalmen to drop the black stuff directly into  bunkers/cellars below street level. Many others sport the words 'self-locking' although I am still at a loss as to how the self-locking mechanism worked. I mean, the cover plate with its tapered sides probably locked itself with a click once it was reinstalled, but surely some kind of mechanism was needed on the underside to release it pre being lifted to take delivery of the coal...? Answers and suggestions please!

The keyholes in cover plates/lids such as these are surely later additions to the original design being as they do not appear to be geometrically aligned in any way – note the difference in these two. I suggest the addition of locks was a kind of belt and braces system to foil would-be coal thieves, or super skinny child burglars gaining access to the basement area.

Lots more coal hole cover plates here in my previous posts, including some that have these bizarre keyholes within them.

...............................................

UPDATE, 1st May 2022... 

Can you believe it... two days after I wrote the above... I stumbled on another plate with a keyhole that was new to me. This one is outside 21 Riding House Street, W1. It's unusually set within a small concrete panel complete with six lightwell/ventillation blocks that must've been added at the same time.  

I'll probably start noticing these all over the show from now on.

More coal hole cover plates – this time in Marylebone

Last week I was looking up at demons and here I am looking down again, but it's far from gloomy... 

I was recently on a mission to check up on some 'Art Deco' buildings in the area between Marylebone Station and Baker Street when I happened to spot a few coal hole cover plates with names on that I was sure I hadn't seen before. The one that first caught my eye was in Balcombe Street almost at the junction Ivor Place and it bore the name 'Whitehead'. I took a snapped a quick pic and was about to continue my journey when I noticed another plate a few metres away with the same name but a sporting different design (see below, top left and middle). Hmmm... I scanned some adjacent plates and noticed the diversity of names, a couple of which I was convinced weren't in my mental database. 

Oh gawd. What to do? Continue with PlanA or let myself get distracted by this new project? Of course, I went for the latter. 

From the Ivor Street junction, I walked northwards keeping to the left/west side of Balcombe Street, then at the top I crossed over to the other side and went back down to where it the street meets Dorset Square. I then did a circuit of the square and went back up the left side of Balcombe Street to complete the full loop, ending back at the Whitehead plates.

I have endeavoured to show the plates in roughly proportion to each other here. Most residential plates are the smaller 12" ones (excluding the outer ring), though I did snap a couple of the larger 15" ones which are more usually seen outside larger establishments such as pubs or restaurants and this hints to me that some of these houses here, being a stone's throw from Marylebone Station, were hotels. Indeed, I didn't check to see if they might still be. 

A few of the plates here have holes within the designs to allow ventilation within the coal cellar below. These are evidently part of their manufacture, but I have seen many examples elsewhere where holes have been retrospectively drilled in a random fashion by people who clearly have no regard for the design!  The three different Matts plates (below) show how that company's name and address has evolved in many ways.

Notice how in some cases the patterns on the covers are the almost identical. This is simply because the ironmonger's name has been added to a pre-made mould that was already available at the foundry. However, some of the more successful and wealthy ironmongers had their own bespoke, and therefore identifiable, designs created, as per the Gibbons plate at the very top and, although the initial process would have been expensive, repeat orders from that mould would be the same price as the off-the-shelf ones.

Unusually, compared to other streets of this era, there is no clear single winner amongst the range of local ironmongers shown. Elsewhere, it's evident that one local business has been engaged to supply the plates for a whole terrace having been contracted by the developer or contractor when the houses were first built. Instead, in this part of Marylebone, there is a mix of all sorts – some show local businesses in Marylebone, Edgware Rd and Lisson Grove, but others come from further afield, but only a few miles, as can be seen by the streets and locations on them. There are, of course, quite a few sporting the name Haywards of Southwark, the company being the B&Q of their day. And, without going back to count them, I'd guess either Sampson of Euston Road or Matts of Paddington were the two most common local names in this vicinity, with Stone coming in 4th. 

Something else I found in Balcombe Street that I don't think I have seen before... some HUGE slabs of York stone paving which I estimate are almost the size of a double bed.  

At the top end of the street, north of Ivor Place, on both sides of the road, some unusually large pieces of natural stone sit above the coal cellars as street paving. These super-size slabs must have been really expensive and I wonder how they were transported and how difficult it was to install them. There are coal holes within every one of them although some of the lids have been removed or infilled. I am intrigued by the ones that have been filled/replaced with strange bits of flint that looks like left-overs from church walling – something else I have never seen the like of before. 

Looking down can be so fascinating... later that day, I as good as stumbled upon a 21" Haywards cover plate about half a mile away from Balcombe Street, by which time I had run out of phone battery and it was getting dark. I will return to it soon and put together another collection.

Lots more coal holes here.

The historic topography of Royal Hill, Greenwich – repurposed railway lines and ghostsigns

I was wandering the lovely back streets of Greenwich last week, past the theatre and the fan museum (both marvellous, and I found myself in Royal Hill. I looked to see if the building that used to be home to a cheese shop run by a lovely guy I met on a plane coming back from Zakynthos in the late 1980s, was still there. The terrace of shops hasn't changed much, In my mind's eye I recalled that his shop was within the terrace, possibly next to the butcher. But when I got home and started doing a bit of research I discovered that The Cheese Board is at No.26 (corner of Circus Street) and Michael is still there, known locally as Mr Cheese! Had the shop been evident and open I'd obviously have popped in and asked if he has any Cornish Blue (yummy!). Perhaps it was early closing day. 

I continued up the street, admiring all the lovely houses, and stopped to look at the fab tiles on the Barley Mow pub at the corner of Point Hill, now a restaurant. 

Barley Mow pub, Royal Hill greengrocer, Royal Circus tea merchant

Realising that I was supposed to be meeting a friend in the Oxford Street in thirty minutes, I started making my way down the hill via Prior Street towards the station. I looked to the right and noticed that there appeared to be quite a wide angular gap between the houses here behind this tree, and I looked back and forth at that and at the twentieth century flats behind me, considering that there must have been a railway line here.

A couple walking their small friendly dog saw my quizzical face and asked if I was lost. I explained my thought process to them. Well, what a delightful interlude it turned out to be. John said yes, that he had wondered that too, but he hadn't been able to find out any info. The conversation progressed and I said I'd look into the things we discussed. I cave him my card and asked him to keep in touch. But I have decided to write it up here. Just shows how one bit of 'perhapsing' can evolve into a half a day of sleuthing! I do hope John is reading this. And I hope I have remembered his name correctly as I tend to forget what you'd call 'normal' names. His wife, who has lovely eyes, is called Della. Nice people. 

Here's the Google view of the area today – I was standing were the word Vina [Launderette] is:

As you can see, there are allotments here which are often a hint at old railway lines or sidings, indeed that's what John thought, that this was sidings. I thought it was more likely to be a connecting line from/to Lewisham, which was confirmed when I found this 1890's OS map available on Layers of London – many of the road names have changed and this isn't exactly the same proportion and crop as the pic above, but it's easy to make the comparison:

I had assumed the railway line then fed into into the eastbound service towards Maze Hill but, no, it ended at 'Greenwich Terminus' on Stockwell Street, site of the Ibis Hotel today. 

John also mentioned that he was intrigued by an old sign near the old Old Barley Mow pub which he wondered might have been a coal merchant. Ooh I thought... lets go and have a look! By this time I realised I was going to be even later for my appointment in central London but, luckily, I was meeting a friend who is as fascinated by these things as I am, so he'd understand! 

I turned to look back past the pub where there is a hand-painted ghostsign on a building that looks to be No.1 Point Hill, but is actually constructed in the back garden of No.1 King George Street. I took a few  photos:

There are multiple layers on this sign. Looking my the phone screen we found it was easy to make out CORN & COAL MERCHANTS through the middle but the names were hard to decipher. For instance, there's a name in a curve at the top that looks to begin 'J. S. PE..' and another name in a straight line over/under that. The last word at bottom right could be RAIL, perhaps making use of the adjacent railway line. 

Having googled, I'm surprised to discover that other ghostsigns fans haven't snapped any photos of this, especially as it has been clearly visible since at least 2008 when I first noticed it myself, although I must admit that I didn't photograph it back then. And I am pretty sure I noticed it back in the '90s when my friend had that cheese shop. All I can find is this listing on eBay. 

A quick look at the old directories leaves me struggling to find a reference to coal. The earliest reference I have to hand is South London Suburbs 1896 which shows Mr Samuel James Perren listed at 1-3 King George Street as a corn merchant. This correlates with the with what we can see here. This street links through to Croom's Hill, the other main road in this area, and it's interesting to read how many other traders and merchants were here in the 1890s, including a baker, an undertaker, a builder, music teacher, a decorator and a few dressmakers.

By 1911 Mr Walter Gibbins is at this address, also trading in corn. But barely anything is listed along the whole street during WW1 or the pre-WW2 years.

Until further information becomes available, I am going to conclude that either a coal merchant was here pre- the 1890s, or that the word we are seeing as 'coal' (middle left on the sign) is actually something else. Though it could simply be that it was usual for a corn merchant to also sell coal back then.

Any further info is most welcome via jane@janeslondon.com

For more of my ghostsigns observations, simply use the search box or click here.

Parliament Square – coal holes and thieves

Have you ever spotted the coal hole cover plates around the edge of Parliament Square?

Dark pics taken on a January evening. 

We take for granted that this open space adjacent to Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster has always been here, but it wasn't created until 1868, as these well-spaced coal hole plates along the southern side of the square clearly indicate – there used to be houses here. 

The new square was designed to improve traffic flow, indeed the first set of traffic lights was installed approximately where Winston Churchill stands today. The revised road layout necessitated the loss of many buildings and a complete change in the topography of the area. 

Here are a couple of maps to show the layout before the parliament buildings, the grass and demonstration space:

Above, Greenwood's map of 1828 shows a labyrinth of little streets – I particularly like the name of the street with the dog leg; Thieving Lane!

The second map is from the 1890s and shows the District Line running under the area and Charles Barrie's parliament buildings.

I am still unclear which exact buildings the coal holes actually served. Any help welcome.

 

Watch where you're putting your feet!

I am always nagging friends to use their powers of observation more; to stop staring at the pavement when they are walking along the road and look up and around themselves.

OK, so they might spot and avoid the dog poo the pavement pizzas, but do they notice all the interesting they walk over on a daily basis? Things such as ironic bits of rubbish, reflections and, of course, coal holes.

I am now thinking that perhaps I could also been taking photos of the splatter patterns of discarded chewing gum at pedestrian crossings (has anyone ever seen anyone in the act throwing chewing gum on the pavement? I surely haven't). And then there are names and paw prints that were impressed into semi-dry cement, the colourful leaves in the autumn, spray painted instructions for Thames Water workmen that look like abstract art, sunlight reflecting off the broken glass from a burgled car... I could go on and on... and I usually do... so please make do with these...

Row 1: Temporary metal floor in Old Broad Street; mosaic man hole cover in Wandsworth Bridge Road; Hayward's coal hole cover designed to allow day light through; Thomas Crapper man hole cover in Knightsbridge; Donovan [Doyle] written into the cement of London Bridge.

Row 2: Thomas Pryor coal hole plate in Islington; mosaic entrance-way to an old shop in Wigmore Street; reflections in a Deptford cobbled street; directions to Tat (ha ha!) in Southwark; another Hayward's coal hole cover, this time with non-slip areas.

Row 3: Litter bag littering the street in Holloway; geometric patterns around the Gherkin; chewing gum art in Crouch End; reflection of the Astoria and Centrepoint; remnants of a tiled doorway entrance in Wandsworth.

Row 4: Square grille in Northumberland Avenue; Durey manhole cover in Stepney; rubbish washed up by the Thames at Battersea; circular grille in Bloomsbury; shadows at Islington Green

Kensington Coal Hole Cover Plates – Farmer, Pearson, Bartle and Bird

I recently wrote about the lovely things to be found along the streets to the east of Gloucester Road and mentioned that I'd spotted quite a lot of attractive coal hole cover plates along the way. Quite a few bore the name Haywards, a company that became one of the largest suppliers of this kind of thing, others plates bore names which provoke further investigation. 

This first of these is Bartle & Co. Two examples shown here cut into into a slabs of York Stone. There are two different patents visible. 

Patent 1:  The example above left is in Cornwall Gardens. The outer ring/casing is made by Hayward Bros of Southwark and includes instructions how to install the fixture:"This ring to be fixed with Portland cement / For Haywards Patent Plate 12" – this indicates that Haywards intended that one of their own lids should be to be dropped into this space., however, with about 98% of cover plates being of the 12" variety, it's fair to say one size [almost] fits all. although whenever I have found these outer rings visible they usually bear the Haywards* name.  But the instructions are not meant to be visible – as per the instructions, the outer recessed lip should be covered by cement to hold it in place, as shown by the pic on the right; a messy example I spotted in nearby Lexham Gardens. 

Patent 2: These two covers advertise James Bartle's Western Ironworks in Notting Hill and are interesting because they also include "Bird's patent self-fastening plate" – something I have seen before but not really thought about or addressed until now. Who was Mr Bird? Perhaps he worked for the Bartle family and had another job making custard?! Having just 'wasted' 20 mins on this in a futile online searches and found nothing but observations, I am going to have to shelve this research for another day – please do let me know if you can shed any light on Mr Bird.

Another Notting Hill company also prevalent within the posh streets of South Kensington is R. H. & J. Pearson Ltd:

Pearsons also implemented circles within their anti-slip designs, varying the amount of circles from five to seven. I believe the one shown above left is the more recent of the two – it advertises the company's 'Patent Automatic Action' – a different way of saying 'self-locking' as seen on other makers' plates – after the coal was poured into the bunker below the plate was dropped back into the hole and it triggered a catch which immediately locked it, negating the need for additional human interaction below.  The pretty plate on the right sports ventilation holes allowing air to circulate within the storage space. 

More circles near Cornwall Gardens. Two very simple designs:

The self-locking plate on the left sports raised dots as additional non-slip device and appears to have travelled all the way from Stockport!  Mikey Ashworth has shared some marvellous info about John Needham & Sons here. The one on the right bears no maker's name but includes glass inserts to allow light into the bunker, as also seen here in another Bartle plate:

I like these two because it shows how one design can be adapted as solid metal or with glass inserts which, I assume, are prisms or cones that spread/reflect the light rather than just direct it straight downwards. 

Finally, these two – an almost smooth plate set within an octagon surround and a plate bearing the name of Farmer, a local comapny. 

I have only ever spotted one other housing with eight sides and it's in Marylebone, near Regents Park. Neither appear to have ever been branded with a maker's name. The Farmer Brothers plate in Drayton Gardens shown above is actually sited a stone's throw from the company's shop – and they are still trading today, but I can't seem to link to their website. I have not discovered any other Farmer Bros plates, but surely there must be, especially in this area of London, this being the local hardware store. 

I now now realise that this last pair of pics makes the one of the left look like a diddy little hexagonal plug point next to a manhole cover! All the pics here are just snaps taken on the day – I haven't shown them in proportion.  FYI, the standard size cover for a cover plate (the central removable bit) = 12"/30cm diameter and I've just recalled that one of them was [unusually] slightly larger than the standard size – I think it was probably the older Pearson one with the ventilation holes. 

There are lots more similar posts about coal holes on his site – please use the search box at top right  on the web version.

*If you are interested in finding out more about Hayward Bros, a fascinating company, why not join me for my Southwark Ghostsigns guided walk.   

A very unusual gate post in Notting Hill and other lovely things in Holland Park Avenue

At the southern end of Clarendon Road, a few minutes' walk from Holland Park station, I happened upon a strange gate post outside number 31. 

The two pics above are screengrabs from Google's streeview facility – I forgot to take any wider shots at the time because I happened to get chatting to a man who was parking outside the property and I felt the need to explain to him why I was so interested in his neighbour's fancy gatepost. As you can see, it is unlike the two rendered brick posts next door. I have never seen the like of it before.

I took a photo of the maker's mark at the base of the post, which also seems to indicate a swing tab cover for a keyhole, and said I'd get back to him if and when I found out more info. 

Yates, Haywood & Co., 95 Upper Thames St, London.

I wondered, being as it is openwork with fancy grilles on all four sides, if it was installed as ventilation for the coal bunker beneath the street. But, why would a coal bunker need to be ventilated?  

Perhaps one of the names mentioned here lived at this address and this was some kind of test piece...? 

This needed further investigation. 

I first looked at Grace's Guide and discovered that YH&Co [sort of] dates back to 1823 as a foundry in Rotherham. They are mostly listed as making stoves grates etc for cooking. Hmm. How bizarre. I'd expected them to be ironmongers, or similar. 

Here's an idea – perhaps this gate post acted as a flue for a stove below ground? The coal bunker might have been used as a boiler room to heat water for the whole house – could this be an early form of central heating...? 

It is odd that the company's London address doesn't get a mention in the Grace's Guide listing until the 1920s. Yet, surely, this gatepost design is late Georgian/early Victorian, as per most of the houses along this part of Clarendon Rd...?  The GG listing also includes a photo of a pair of almost identical gateposts in New South Wales, Australia(!) – if you zoom in on that pic you will see that they bear the same London address panel, but I think they are there merely decorative rather than functional. 

Let's have a look at the old Kelly's directories... The company is clearly listed in 1899: 

The main address is highlighted in pink, with other businesses in nearby streets shown in orange – Abchurch Yard and Laurence Poultney Hill are both a stone's throw from Upper Thames Street. I'm also wondering if the chimney builders in Bow were also part of the Yates family. However, I can't see any similar businesses purely in the name of Haywood. 

Going further back, this is 1882:

In that same year, 1882, we find members of the Yates family at very nice addresses – John Yates at 37 Eardley Crescent, Earls Court (now a hotel) and Charles Francis Yates at 9 Provost St, Chalk Farm (a delightful street of paired Georgian cottages).

But, here is the gold dust – George Harris Haywood at 8 Clarendon Road:

Whoo hoo! This would have been the address of the house in question before the street was renumbered – today's No.15 would have been No.1 making the house with the fancy gate post the eighth house in the street (the slightly houses adjacent to/south of No.1 are set back from the terrace and would have had a different name). 

This, in my mind, corroborates my idea that the gate post is part of a heating innovation installed at George's family home that perhaps was never rolled out for a wider market. 

As to when the gatepost was installed, Kelly's 1952 London directory lists George Haywood (senior) at the Effingham Works (I don't have immediate access to the private addresses for that year) and I am not sure if any of the Yates addresses shown below, specifically George senior in Earls Court and Charles at Argyle St, Kings Cross, are linked to the company. 

Having checked all these residential addresses via streetview (and the others mentioned previously) I cannot see any other similar gateposts so, for the time being, this is where my sleuthing ends. Any further info is most welcome. 

UPDATE: I've since chanced upon more of the same design just short walk away, all along a west-facing terrace in Westbourne Grove between Elgin Crescent and Blenheim Crescent:

Returning to Clarendon Road, the houses that once formed numbers 1-3 have very wide steps (probably to allow for hooped skirts) which are flanked by wonderfully undulating metalwork and pairs of boot scrapers.

I continued my walk southwards towards Holland Park and stopped to take pics of this old shop sign, the history of which I will look into another day:

Then to the junction with Holland Park Avenue, where I admired the exterior of The Castle pub and searched in vain for a Doulton maker's mark.

On the side of the pub there is a remnant of a poster that itself looks like an artwork. It reads, I think, "Come out" in reverse, as if the glue was applied for that very purpose:

I then recalled that there is a fabulous old shop interior along this stretch – Lidgate the butcher. I had never been inside before. Wow. Do check it out if you are passing, or want to purchase quality meat from a well-established butcher with kudos. As I was making my way out a voice said 'hello' – it was the man I had met earlier parking his car in Clarendon Road! 

Which is older – Lidstone or the gatepost?

Finally... the late afternoon sun softly illuminating the northern side of Holland Park Avenue that day was gorgeous. I wasn't the only one admiring and taking photos of the houses along there.

One of the houses sports a fire insurance marker in a design I can't quite make out, the camera on my old iPhone is not good enough to zoom in that far. Let me know if you can identify it as it doesn't look like any of these.

Bedford Square

One of my favourite squares in London is Bedford Square, Bloomsbury. I must admit I prefered it when the road actually ran around the circular garden but, hey, it's still lovely. Ten years ago (and counting) it was a great place to park after 6.30pm; close enough for a five minute walk into the West End and great for a fast getaway back to North London.
The lovely garden at the centre of Bedford Square is enclosed by railings and rarely open to the public (a notable exception would be the annual Chap Olympiad). Bedford square is boxed in on four sides by gorgeous Georgian terraces. Almost every doorway has an architectural detail to catch my eye; an unusual bootscraper, an exquisite fanlight, a lovely brass doorknob or fancy letterbox.
Walking westwards along the north side of the square last week I noticed that there was a row of doorways each with different exterior floor mosaics, so out came the pocket camera and I walked the whole square clockwise looking for more, noticing how the door numbers went anti-clockwise. Why is that?

These particular doorway mosaics must have been a kind of welcome mat to customers, who may have been hotels guests.
(Note to self: find out more)
On the corner of Gower Street sits No.12. A board attached to the railings advertises that there is 4,500 sq ft of office space available for rent inside, and more space available at similar locations in Bayley St and Gower St. I rest my case re new [glass] buildings being built in London yet lots of office space is already available in prime locations.  
But what really interested me about No.12 was the differing panels of vermiculation around the door. Each of the eight sections was distinctly different, and it can't just be put down to the amount of paint layers. See here:

I continued along the east side, where the doorways are larger and more imposing and the brasswork is more showy and the fanlights are larger.
The Square boasts some really unusual examples of boot scrapers and a  selection of them is shown below. I took a few photos of the one shown bottom left which can be found on the south side where the moss has been able to grow in the shadows.

On the south side I spotted two coal hole cover plates that somehow eluded me in the past. How on earth had I never noticed 'Pfeil and Stedall', and 'Boobbyer' before?! What bizarre names!

Clockwise from top left: West Bros, G. Guy, Luxfer, Haywards, J. H. Boobbyer & Sons, Pfeil and Stedall, T. Sampson, J.Jennings.
Turning onto the west side checking the makers names on the coal hole covers, I didn't spot any 'new' ones but I did notice that they were all wider in diameter. Possibly larger businesses/houses/hotels/colleges? So that's something else I need to look up. More of my London coal hole cover plates here.
I think you will agree, it was a rather nice diversional loop to my afternoon.