Context 152 - November 2017

C O N T E X T 1 5 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 7 19 Floorscape that was particularly heavily visited over the years, or because the iron used for the casting was rather soft. In any particular street there is likely to be a variety of designs and makers. This may be because some of the covers have been replaced over the years after having been stolen or broken, or because the many different builders who built the street over a period of several years chose different suppliers. Some makers of coal-hole covers are well represented in a particular place. Many of the ironfounders were very local, with an address within a couple of miles of where the coal-hole cover was fitted. For example, the builder’s ironmonger and glass-merchant Alfred Syer, which had premises in Pentonville Road from the 1830s to the 1960s, dominated the Islington market. By contrast, coal-hole covers made by Hayward Brothers (whose huge factory, pictured in its advertisements, was in Southwark) are found in many parts of London, and more widely afield. A few manufacturers may be represented by only a single surviving coal-hole cover. In Granville Square, Islington (the model for Riceyman Steps in Arnold Bennett’s eponymous novel) there is one cover (partly obscured by cement) made by the Pantametallurgicon company of Sloane Street, Knightsbridge. No other example of a cover by this company seems to exist. Pantametallurgicon means ‘manufacturer of everything metal’. Imagine the scene. ‘What shall we call the company?’ ‘Pantametallurgicon?’ ‘Perfect!’ That company seems to have been short-lived. It is not known whether the existence of a Pantametallurgicon company in Melbourne, Australia, advertising ‘gasali- ers… these massive and elegant gasfittings’ and ‘No more leaking roofs now the Pantametallurgicon is open: Galvanised Corrugated Iron, best brands only, 3d. Per Foot’ in 1877 was evidence of the company, or just the name, jumping continents. Back in England, an advertisement for Hayward’s Patent Safety Coal-hole Plate in 1868 quotes prices. The smallest (12-inch diameter) costs 2/9 in solid iron; a ‘ventilating plate’ (with holes) costs three shillings in that size; and an ‘illuminating plate’ (with glass) six shillings. The advertisement explains the special qualities of the safety plate. ‘The ordinary coal-hole plate is often the cause of serious injury, from its shifting and turning up when trodden on, after the stone into which it is let has become a little worn; it is easily raised from above, and placed partly on one side, either for mischievous or worse purposes. Both these objections are quite overcome by the flange in the “Safety Plate”, which renders it impossible for the plate to turn on one side until it has been raised in a perpendicular direction for more than two inches, and this cannot take place until released from below, as the play of the chain or hook could never exceed half an inch.’ There is a generic term for coal-hole covers: opercula , borrowed from biological terminology (operculum, Latin for a cover or lid, describes features such as that covering the gill of a fish) by ShephardTaylor.As a medical student in the 1860sTaylor developed a passion for coal-hole cov- ers, making (and later publishing) drawings of hundreds of them, although he left out the lettering. Best known Most coal holes are located in the pavement, for deliveries to the vault accessed from the ‘area’ between the basement and the street.Where there is no vault under the pavement, the coal hole may be located at the bottom of the steps. among modern enthusiasts for coal-hole and utility covers is Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party,who photographs them on his mobile phone. Today some covers still sit in their original paving stone; in some cases that stone has been preserved reset in more modern paving; and in other cases the coal-hole cover itself has been reset in concrete or asphalt paving. Covers Modern decorative plates (not covering coal holes) in London’s Spitalfields, inspired by the area’s historic coal-hole covers, and by its clothing industry and musicians Partly obscured by cement and unusual in using a serif typeface, this may be the last remaining coal-hole cover made by the enticingly named Pantametallurgicon. The gaps in the raised discs allow rainwater to run off.