It’s not terribly unusual to see letters carved into paving: every patch of wet concrete is at risk of commemorating something, whether it’s a kid’s boredom or just the glee in writing ‘fuck’ on something permanently. I quite like it, the traces of people marking territory.
This ‘S’ (on the southwest strip of Earlsfort Terrace, metres from the junction with Hatch Street) seems different, though. For one, it’s carved into granite. It’s also carefully placed and it appears to have serifs. It strikes me that this is one of those elements of the city where spotting one suddenly unlocks your ability to see lots more – like coal holes, a kind of Baader-Meinhof detail – but I’ve yet to spot more. There must be an explanation, if not a purpose?
