Cowley St London SW1 and Chelsea

Apologies for my absence for a few months. I've not seen any 'new' coalhole covers, until last week that is.

This Luxfer cover bearing the address, 16 Hill St, London EC is round the back of Westminster School. The (almost) square panels are filled with concrete but I think they may have originally been glass.

Visiting Stamford Bridge the other week to see the very sad defeat of the Fulham Under 18s team in the final of the FA Youth Cup, I saw some 'never seen before' coalhole covers on Finborough Road. Unfortunately, I was in such a rush to get to the station to get out of the hellhole that is home to C*****a FC. I've tried to identify them on Google Streetview but can't zoom in enough. You can see what I mean here.

I'm now tweeting as @theplanorak and will post pictures on there as well, so please 'follow' me and tweet me your pictures as well.

Regent Foundry, Brighton

A visit to the most excellent Foundry pub in Foundry Street, Brighton last night prompted me to find out more about the Regent Foundry. It was located on the spot now occupied by the Royal Mail sorting office.

The North Laine Community Association website has this potted history:

The area behind the western side of [Foundry] street, where the post office now stands, was once dominated by the Regent Iron Foundry, the town's largest employer for much of the 19th century. The foundry opened in Regent Street and moved to Foundry Street in 1823, possibly for the larger premises it needed, for it was then making much of the ironwork needed by the Chain Pier, being built at the time. The foundry continued to make cast iron products for the town until it eventually closed in 1912. The building was demolished in 1921 and the Post Office was built on the site in the mid 1930s.

and an interesting account of an early tour of the Foundry.

At the time, the North Laine was the industrial heartland of Brighton. The Regent Foundry made the iron for the Chain Pier, the predecessor to the Palace Pier, as well as lots of other products like coal hole covers, although for some reason they weren't stamped with the 'Regent' name. According to the NLCA, Palmer covers were made there.

Rubbings are go

Montage

Star Foundry from TW Porter

J Every from Lewes

C+J Reed from Brighton

Flower

Another Every and Newman

Large Haywards

Modern stars

At last, I've located and photoed my coal hole cover rubbings from 2002 or 2003. There's a fine selection of foundries, styles and even sizes. All rubbings are from the North Laine and Old Steine in Brighton. The rubbings were done on a large A3 pad of artist's paper with black rubbing crayon from the now-disappeared artist supply shop on the corner of Richmond Parade.

Coming soon...

...my coal hole cover rubbings.

Venturing to the back of the loft to retrieve the Winterval decorations, I opened a random cardboard box and there they were, not so neatly rolled up. Christmas does have some use, after all.

Once I've descrunched them they'll be on this website and those poseurs from North London can read and weep.

Grim up North

North London, that is. The Private Eye cartoon strip by Knife and Packer charts the progress of 2 urban hipsters as they navigate their way through the lentil-strewn streets of Islington and Hoxton.

The current story sees them doing some manhole cover rubbing in the grounds of a medieval church. Berets off to them is what I say - although being the two most right on people in Britain, I'm sure they should have asked to do some 'inspection cover' rubbing.

I must admit, whenever I read this cartoon it reminds me of many of my Brighton friends!

Thanks to Hugo for prompting me to post this. It reminds me that I must look for my coal hole cover rubbings when I'm up in the loft getting the Christmas decorations out.

Pavilion Buildings, Brighton

This fine, large coal hole cover is outside the Nat West bank on Pavilion Buildings near Brighton's Royal Pavilion.

I noticed it while queuing for the cashpoint and considering the footfall in this street it is in remarkably good condition. I was also pleased to note that the Council had obviously repaved the street with small setts and had resisted the temptation to remove the coal hole cover. Although I suspect that there were once many other covers in this street which failed to survive.

Kemptown glories

I've been told that Kemptown has many good coal holes, and so it should - being stuffed with fine Regency and Victorian homes needing copious amounts of coal. I had half an hour to kill the other evening and did a quick circuit of the streets to the south of the County Hospital.

I encountered a fine mix of people - skinny dodgy-looking yoofs with big scary dogs, large shaven-headed middle-aged men with small yappy dogs, ladies of leisure drinking red wine on their doorsteps and smooth couples in matching dressing gowns on their Regency balconies.

I also encountered a fine mix of coal hole covers, including some larger-than-normal ones and some from manufacturers not encountered further west.  Feast your eyes on this lot.

First up, in Sudeley Terrace - a trio of Haywards covers in nice iron surrounds.

Moving on down to the seafront, on Chichester Terrace we find these great ones - some supersize like this Haywards with 19 glazed hexagonal panels.

And this nice chevron flower design.

And this very pleasing 'bullseye' Woodrow design.

this beautiful Clare, Hunt design from Shoreditch...

this unnamed design with slots in, and

a larger version of a fairly common design.

Round the corner, in Chichester Place there is this Haywards self-locking patent design 'D' model.