Scraping by

 It must have been a familiar sound in the working class streets of British cities;

 the scraping of a workman's boots on the cast iron fender nestled into the front of his house.

This will have been part of an audio-symphony associated with the return home of a traditional patriarchal breadwinner- perhaps a  cough at the end of the road to clear out the grime and dust from manual processes, a groan as an arthritic leg is drawn over the crossbar of a trusted pedal cycle and the creak of stiff and cold limbs as there is a straightening up in readiness of a welcome at the door from loved ones.

Below is a selection of the fronts of just one terraced street in York in the North of England. 

The city had a range of thriving heavy industries as well as the well known association with chocolates as in Terry's and Rowntrees.

The terraced houses front directly to the pavement. There are quite a few different ways of dealing with the hole in the wall as the boot scraper has become obsolete with changes in working practices and the industrial base of the country generally

    Mortar and brick fill  - Neater shaped brick  - Cricket wicket style

                Combined airbrick and infill                            Friday afternoon botch-up                                                          

Neglected and wet                                         Neatest effort

The only two surviving boot scrapers in a street of 100 houses