For scraping the sole

Finding myself in Oxford where every street is  memory lane, I noticed the iron boot scrapers outside each house and remembered that I'd long planned to make a photographic collection of them. These examples date from the first half of the 19th century when the roads were full of muck and mud and it was essential to remove the ordure from one's footwear before entering indoors. In France and Belgium there are known as decrottoirs  which could be translated I suppose as 'de-crudders'. 

Most of these are made of cast iron but the older and more interesting ones were hand wrought by blacksmiths. I think that here maybe only the first and last are individually fashioned.. 
If you're interested, there's more about boot scrapers here,  here,,  here,and lots pictured  here.

 You could say boot scrapers do furnish a street.