A very touching piece of street art that can be found set into the pavement in Marchmont Street near to Russell Square underground station in Bloomsbury.
The street is near to the former site of the Foundling Hospital in Corams Fields. Mothers unable to care for their babies would bring them to the hospital. In the majority of cases the mothers were illiterate and unable to write their names, some in the vain hope of being in a position to return to collect their infant in the future left a small memento or token to identify the child. Sadly the record keeping was lacklustre and records and token were rarely stored together making it difficult to identify an individual, and in the main most children were never collected by their parents. This installation created by artist John Aldus and is a very short trail using replica tokens leading visitors from the Brunswick shopping centre to the entrance of the Foundling Hospital museum.
A LONDON MISCELLANY 
What heartfelt and heart-breaking art!
janet
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Yes it is, when I first saw it I followed the trail to the Foundling Hospital Museum which was quite a sobering visit.
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Much like visiting Omaha Beach or a concentration camp was for me, I imagine.
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Interesting and very touchy, because every piece has own story behind…
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Yes, when you stand and look down at the pieces, you can’t help but feel that every piece was left in hope and what the circumstances were that brought the mother to have to bring their child to the gates of the Hospital.
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Heartbreaking!
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Oh how sad
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Very sad but what a great way to pass on the history to everyone. I’m be never noticed it so I’ll be checking it out next time I walk down that way.
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