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The marks a person walks past without reading: a benchmark cut into a church wall, a coloured line sprayed before a dig, a numbered plate beside a hydrant, a device stamped on the back of a spoon. What holds the group together is that each is an assertion made in the physical world for a specific later reader and is unreadable to anyone else — a benchmark means nothing without its levelling network, a hallmark nothing without the office that struck it, a mason's mark nothing without the pay ledger it was counted into. Several members outlived their purpose and survive as street furniture, which is its own kind of information.
A horizontal bar above a broad arrow, chiselled into stone.
A cast metal plate with a serial number, set into a wall.
A cast iron post bearing the City of London arms.
A yellow plate marked H with two numbers.
Notches and holes cut in a pattern into an animal's ears.
A numbered metal band on a bird's leg.
A struck device registered on a guild touchplate.
A painted or impressed device on the underside of a piece.
A maker's name impressed into a brick's recess.