leaving a mark

Albert Street, which connects the town hall and the bus station, is a quiet thoroughfare despite being close to the centre of Penrith. One reason for this is the restricted access, as seen in the following photo:

This photo was taken from the bus station end. Although the street is now entirely residential, the first building on the right used to be a foundry operated by Thomas Altham & Son, while the building on the left was probably a warehouse. Both have since been converted.

And this is what the street looks like from the opposite end (it’s the one on the left of the white house):

Notice that there is a footpath only on the left. This would once have been constructed from cobbles, but whether the cobbles were removed or simply covered in tarmac I cannot say. However, the kerbs appear to be original sandstone, given the degree of weathering that they show—modern kerbs are invariably concrete.

I mention this because I happened to notice recently that there are initials carved into three of the stones:

It seems likely that these are initials of men who laid the kerbs, and if my conjecture that the kerbs are original is correct, it would mean that the initials were carved sometime in the mid-nineteenth century. I reach this conclusion because it is reasonable to assume that the street was named after Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who died in 1861. There are no twentieth-century buildings on Albert Street.

Incidentally, the diagonal line across the third photo is probably a thin vein of silica with quite a high content of ferric oxide, hence the dark red colour. If you look closely, you can see other silica veins in the block that forms the gutter (bottom of the photo).

Not many old sandstone kerbs remain in Penrith, but the discovery of these initials here immediately reminded me of the stonemasons of the Middle Ages, who frequently left their marks on the buildings—notably churches and cathedrals—that they constructed. I know of only one such mark in Penrith, and it is probably from a much later date:

Mediæval masons’ marks usually reflected the tools they used, and this mark appears to represent a compass. I should add that I suspect the block of stone bearing this mark was originally part of another building, because it is now in an inconsequential boundary wall. I also think the mark is upside down.

A final point: I’ve written this to remind readers that the more you look around as you walk around, rather than stare at the screen of a smartphone, the more you are likely to see. Of course, you probably wouldn’t be bothered if you missed the marks that I’ve been discussing here, but next time you might miss something important.