Vintage Concrete Blocks?

I cannot say that I've spent a lot of time, or any, thinking about concrete blocks and their place in history.  Frankly, if pressed before tonight, I would have said that concrete blocks were a fairly "modern" building material.  I would have been wrong - cement has been used as a building material since ancient times, and the first concrete block was molded in 1882, according to the Pennington Block Company's online history of the concrete block.  Who knew?  And, it turns out that the "wall" separating the yard of Glenlochan from the sidewalk is made of vintage concrete blocks. 

I never really thought much of the wall - not only is it overgrown and in need of a lot of care, but concrete blocks are, well, not really the decorative wall of choice.  However, Rob stumbled across an article in the local newspaper from 2008 that had the following picture of a vintage block maker and a short mention of Glenlochan at the end of the article:

The full article is available in the Southside Sentinel.  Turns out that the blocks in front of Glenlochan were actually made by the above vintage block maker which was owned by H.S. Chowning Sr.  Chowning owned and ran a block business in the area from 1915 to 1930, and our blocks were produce by the business, as were many others located around the town of Urbanna.  Here's a few close up shots of the blocks - you can see that although they are very different from today's concrete block, they certainly bear a strong family resemblance.

  

Modern concrete block next to our vintage ones:

Although concrete blocks are strong and versatile and have many other tremendous qualities, no sources claim that they are aesthetically pleasing.  Because they aren't!  And, they were never meant to be.  Knowing the history of these particular blocks and verifying their vintage authenticity makes them way cool, but that doesn't mean they are going to frame the entrance to the front yard.  It does mean that we'll have to find a place for them somewhere and that I appreciate that they, like the house, have a rich and interesting history that should be appreciated and remembered.