A mysteriously shaped oval feature in a brick wall has caused a Twitter sensation, after one curious passer-by appealed for information about a “cauldron-shaped brickwork” above a small garden door in Well Street Common, Hackney.
Paul Fulford, a food and wine critic from Birmingham, posted a photo of the unusual pattern in the brick on social media.
Theories soon came flooding in, with one person suggesting the adjacent ace and spade pattern in the brick may be a reference to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, saying “the suit of card symbols suggest some sort of Alice in Wonderland reference by the bricklayer, plus the small door…maybe a gift to a younger member of the family who used to live there?”
Another commenter said “I wondered if it might be something like a milk churn gate. The location doesn’t make sense for coal”.
Lee Kemp, a filmmaker, commented saying “an incredibly niche response here, but any chance it was designed by Sir Isaac Newton?”
Connie Nolan, a Labour city councillor in Canterbury, said “boring response maybe but small doors like that were usually for the dustbins. The oval is intriguing, possibly the wall was a lower height and was built up first by the neighbour who wanted a bigger door. Then the wall was infilled?”
But one person seems to have provided a solution to the mystery. Replying to the request for information, one commenter noted the wall’s likeness to the nursery rhyme character Humpty Dumpty.
The wall has already inspired locals to take to social media seeking explanations. Posting in October 2021, Lee Jackson queried whether the wall had once served a practical purpose.
But the Hackney Post has learnt that bricklayer and artist Kim Meredrew built the wall as a present to the daughter of the house’s former resident, Mark Julian, in the 1990s.
“It’s good people are still seeing my Humpty Dumpty,” said Kim. Speaking about his work, now more than three decades old, he revealed the brick character was incomplete.
“We didn’t finish it. We wanted to put a round top on, at the moment it’s got a flat top”.
Kim trained as a bricklayer with English Heritage and has completed a range of projects in London, including the figure of Christ at Southwark Cathedral and a miniature of North Finchley Library outside its main building.
The Humpty Dumpty at Wells Park Common was one of his first projects, which he remembers fondly. “It’s one of those nice things isn’t it? That kids can stop and look at.”
