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The Roundels of Spitalfields

 

While on a food walking tour in London's East End a few months ago, our guide made it a point to stop at a number of places and point out to us the decorative round plates in the sidewalk in the Spitalfields area.

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He told us they were 19th-century coal-hole covers, with chutes below them for delivery of fuel to homes along the street, and that each bore symbols indicating, for illiterate deliverers, who lived and worked at each house.

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To be honest, I was a bit suspicious, not least in part because I have a coal hole at my house, and it's much larger, and because they were not in front of every house, and mostly because it seemed a bit elaborate, when a number would have served the purpose. But, it was quaint, picturable, and possibly plausible.

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It was only later, when looking online to see if I could find more of them and more about them, that I discovered the truth: They are not coal holes, and they are not from the 19th century, and they don't identify specific houses. But they do refer to the trades and people of Spitalsfield over the centuries.

In fact, they were a 1995 public art project, commissioned by the Bethnal Green City Challenge from sculptor Keith Bowler, who designed 25 of them and prepared them for casting—a story as interesting in itself as the one the guides still tell, even though they've often been connected. For the whole story, here's a link to Spitalfields Life.

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The best part of every trip is realizing that it has upset your expectations

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