Our history is literally under our feet...

It's sad I know, but I get really excited when I find little gems like this...

It's a locally made and branded manhole cover!

Regular readers will know that we have sort of been here before
http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/10/its-under-your-feet.html

But when I think of Holly Hill, which I know pretty well, the idea of visualising a foundry making manhole covers is pretty unlikely.

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2009/05/1828-and-still-going-strong.html

Now it's a very pleasant, prosperous residential area with Junior boys School and is the main access to The Holly Bush Pub and Fenton House.

http://474towin.blogspot.com/2008/04/fenton-house-front-and-back.html

So finding this just in the street, is West Hampstead was really nice - the case for carrying my camera around is pretty compelling - if you like this sort of thing!

It's under your feet...

Well, it's not the most obvious topic but here in north west London it's underfoot down virtually every single street.

COAL HOLES!

Yep, I have noticed them for a while and just how closed, sealed and secure they look - the very idea that they were used most weeks/days seems so add as to be almost peverse...

Yet I was struck by two things really. The first was the nature of the cast 'manhole' - many of which are made localy in Camden and second was the whopping piece of york (?) stone into which they are set.

The other observation is the sheer physical effort involved in going into the basement to get your coal etc - the nature of victorian and edwardian life and just how quickly that whole notion has disappeared from our lives.

These ones are pictures largely from Hampstead - the by-election (which Linda won!) meant I walked these streets a little more frequently than I might otherwise have done... and so these pictures seemed a real treat and so easy to get.

The fascination with the stuff of everyday life here in the patch just continues to grow.