Greenwich Paving Stones

I like the way that these stones were laid. Their concentric-intersecting pattern reminds me of ripples on a pond after successive pebbles were thrown into the water, where newer ripples erase older ones as they all continue to arc outwards from their different origins. I can imagine some child, standing on the bank and hurling rocks that send water striders skittering from one tsunami to the next. An imaginary scene that is frozen in time, but captured by these stone’s layout.

Some might call these cobble stones, but Harry, my Father-in-Law would be quick to correct their error. These are cut stones. Their rectangular shape shows that they have been worked. A cobblestone is a rounded unworked stone, such as one plucked out of a stream bed. ‘Paving stone’ ambiguously covers both.

These stones cover a courtyard at the Greenwich observatory, where a metal bar is inlaid that signifies the Prime meridian. I was standing on that bar when I took this picture, so you can think of these ripples of stone as emanating out from it. Looking at this pattern, within that context, the phrase, a ripple in time, comes to mind.  I wonder it that was the artisan’s intent?