Wood block flooring

The Barbican is the only place I know to have wood block flooring, with vertical rather than horizontal wood blocks, rather like the wooden cobbles I think you can still come across occasionally in older streets in central London. Sometimes with a thin layer of blacktop, applied op top to bring the street in question up to date.

From where I associate to the thought that, while in Paris, when times were hard, the stone cobbles were handy for hurling at policemen, in London, when times were hard, the wooden cobbles were handy for fuel, otherwise unaffordable. But you needed a good chimney, for otherwise you might be overcome by the fumes coming off the tar in which the cobbles had been set.