Hayward Bros

I've walked past this cast iron grille, in a wall on the Old Road, countless times without really noticing it, but this afternoon the light was fading with little time left for photos, and I turned back to look at it and liked the contrasting textures above and below it.

I've now done a quick search to find out about Hayward Bros of Union Street. They were a London firm of glass manufacturers established in 1783 who later also bought a cast iron business. They seem to be particularly well remembered for their coal hole covers, cast iron lids like drain covers in pavements, providing access for deliveries into the cellars where coal was kept. An online search reveals that plenty of these still exist, particularly in London but also much further afield. They also made spiral staircases, and became particularly well known for pavement lights, iron framed grids with small, thick glass squares, often alternating with iron grilles, which were a source of what must have been very dim light into the cellars below. I've not found any reference to or photos of grilles like this one, but it's certainly the work of the same firm. They ceased trading sometime in the 1970s. 

The only other photo I might have shared today is a breakfast poached egg. I've not poached an egg for years: my small egg poacher, a little pan in which to put boiling water and over which a lid held little round cups in which to cook perfectly round poached eggs, is made from aluminium which does not work on my induction hob. I saved it from my aunt's kitchen before her house was cleared after her death, remembering how I loved the eggs she poached for me when I occasionally stayed with her as a little girl in the 1960s. I've never had much success poaching eggs in pans of simmering water, so when a list of kitchen tips in the village newsletter told me I could poach eggs in the microwave, I resolved to try. I half-filled a small dessert bowl with boiling water, carefully broke an egg into it, and microwaved it for about thirty seconds. My first attempt was overcooked, but I timed subsequent ones more carefully and managed perfect, runny yolks and firm whites. J really liked them.