The hidden in plain sight messages you’ll find on houses in London

All houses have their unique quirks, whether it’s the pattern of the brickwork, the design of the windows or the charm of the period they were built in.

But what about the hidden in plain sight messages you’ll find in houses across London?

One viral post pondered over the various shapes (including circles and almost heart shapes) adorning the terraced houses in their South London area. They’d long puzzled over what they were, and what they meant.

Posting in the r/London Subreddit, @8thTimeLukcy asked: ‘I’ve always wondered what these symbols on these houses are near Lewisham. They’re not on every house, and some of them are the same.’

They added: ‘I used to live between Hilly Fields and Lewisham and always walked past these.’

‘I’ve wondered this since I was a child! My nan used to live along that street,’ @throwaway9910191423 penned, while @CaptainPerhaps joked that they represented ‘illuminati membership tiers.’

‘Inventor of Venn diagrams born here?’ @Front-Confection4667 laughed, while @ThatAdamsGuy suggested that it was a mere ‘reminder that buying houses as a millennial is priceless.’

‘Some of the Olympic rings. Put them together to get [the] full set,’ @silversurfer63 added in jest.

So, what’s the truth? As architectural investigator at Historic England Matthew Whitfield explains, they’re ‘purely decorative.’

‘They formed part of ‘modernisation’ projects for brick-built Victorian terraced houses. Most likely completed during the 1960s and 1970s, it appears that local building firms at the time were very successful in selling new pebbledash finishes to homeowners,’ Matthew, the co-author of England’s Suburbs: 1820-2020, tells Metro.

‘There were a range of geometric decorative shapes available to choose that could be set into the pebbledash, and neighbours could either match with or differentiate from each other.

‘They’re an example of how the historic environment of suburbs has changed over time, not least because of the shifting tastes of suburban residents.’

Meanwhile, house historian Ian Friel supposes that these symbols may have had a ‘particular meaning’ to the builders behind the projects.

However, he broadly believes they were intended to ‘add a bit of individuality to a row of terraces’ – or even to ‘signify that they were the work of a particular building firm.’

‘On some houses, you find patterns worked in brick to make diamonds or other shapes. Features like this gave added interest to facades, and they also showed off the skill of the bricklayers and others who made them,’ Ian tells Metro.

‘Decorative marks of this type are commonly found across the country on both older terraces and individual buildings.’

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