Forgotten History

On a dull residential street corner sits a monument to a forgotten past. Every city/country has them: old ruins of buildings long abandoned, scraggly trees from old orchards, bits of wall around what must have once been a garden, and tombs stones who's inscription has been worn away. These are the echos of people and places from the past who's names and deeds weren't 'important' enough to put in the history books.

The fountain in the picture to the right has a plaque that is just readable beneath the corrosion. The fountain doesn't work of course, but once it did. It stands as a tribute to a natural spring that watered travellers before/after they crossed the for across the river Thames (Isis) at Port Meadow.  Who knows what happened to the spring? perhaps it ran dry; or perhaps it has been buried and incorporated into the city's sewer system, to be found in the deep annals of city hall.

I do not mourn the history that has been lost. There is only so many books one can justify archiving. Rather I rejoice in the invitation to imagination these site provide. When the truth isn't laid out in a nice, historical narrative, you must make up your own story of what the past might have been like. You have to imagine yourself in their shoes.