Manhole Covers

I've been collecting pictures of manhole covers around cities in UK and Germany, because it seemed like the natural extension to my survey marker collection (which now contains spots from four different countries!). Short of waiting for a construction crew to come in, the manhole and its cover provides the most obvious gateway to the world underneath the streets of a city!



Thumbnails of Manhole Covers in Germany



Thumbnails of Manhole Covers in London

Every single place I've been to lately seems to be undergoing constant construction work. Driving from central London to Stoke Newington, I seemed to encounter huge road diversions at every single turn due to the replacement of ancient victorian water mains or other major excavation and construction work, causing me to take a three-hour detour off into the nether regions of Maida Vale by mistake. And only with a miniature copy of the London A-Z on hand to find my way back...

A few brief observations: most of Germany's manhole covers are based on the same circular pattern with some variations. They also tend to be fairly spaced out. As for the manhole covers of London, they come in a great variety of shapes and sizes, and are scattered all over the street, sometimes with numerous clusters of them scattered haphazardly within a few metres, perhaps in testament to London's denser arrangement. I like to think drains are built because people need to look at what's inside, but also in a way maybe its also because things want to escape out from beneath. If i think of Berlin being characterised by its walls (berlin wall, brandmauers, gespenstermauers), then maybe it could be said that I think of London being characterised by things underfoot... London Underground... the tube, the sewers, basement flats...