As part of my Boundaries within Boundaries project, I have been collecting pictures of Boundary Marker Studs. These strange metal studs are popping up everywhere, especially around new buildings, in the City of London. You may have noticed them yourself and wondered what they are for. They divide areas of ownership of land. So for instance, when these studs appear around the front of a building, the owner of the building also owns the land up to the stud boundary. A piece of land may be in private ownership but it forms part of a public right of way. So certain laws or rules may be different on either side of the boundary.
As I gathered these pictures, I received some strange looks, kneeling down on the ground in order to take them. They started to take on an abstract form and reminded me of the dot and line exercise we did at college. So I played around with them and here are the results. If you find any, yourself, that look interesting, then please send them to me. I have heard from one of the manufacturers of these studs, that some are made with logos stamped on them, but I have yet to find any.
I came across this quote about boundary marker studs from the book ‘Stuart, A Life Backwards’, by Alexander Masters.
In London, the pavement isn’t all public: some of it belongs to them and some of it belongs to us. The brass bits is little bits put in outside all the government buildings in London, what lets you know the difference – there’s brass bits all over London.
If we sleep on the bit what belongs to them, they do us ..... and .... if we sleep on the bit that belongs to us, they still do us, only it’s not the same.
If we sleep on the bit what belongs to them, they do us ..... and .... if we sleep on the bit that belongs to us, they still do us, only it’s not the same.
Great stuff Tim. Really nice compositions that feed into the visual language and grammar project as well as this one. Yes I'm afraid going out into the environment gets some strange glances. I'm currently trying to lure seagulls into being filmed. I put a flip cam on the ground then through some bread up. At easter I was photographing wooden walls at Whitstable Harbor and I heard a kid go 'dad, what's that man doing?'. You are picking ups some good quotes and observations for the project.
ReplyDeleteI experienced something of a Eureka! moment earlier this week when it suddenly occurred to me what was the purpose of the occasional brass stud on my local high street pavement. Now this morning looking into the topic in a bit more depth I've come across this web page and am delighted to see that someone's elevated a simple stud into an art form. Well done Tim!
ReplyDeleteOne of these photos doesn't show boundary studs... I believe the one with 8 studs on it may be marking a crossing or dropped kerb for blind pedestrians.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your input. You are properly right.
DeleteHere in Cambridge there are a number of brass studs inlaid into the path, where Bridge street meets St John's street, which are decorated with patterns of flowers. They can be seen on streetview, but not too clearly
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.2084823,0.1184272,3a,60y,265.25h,54.87t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sUSmFP1QMRmAjNB7IS3w3vQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
Although, their haphazard placement seems to show they're not property markers, but in fact public art:
http://www.michaelfairfax.co.uk/cambridgeflowers.html
That looks brilliant. We have a similar project here in Oxford on Cowley Road with the Pavement jewellery, but these are larger discs rather than stud sized. http://liamcurtin.co.uk/projects-archive/pavement-jewellery/
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