It's only fitting that, as this year marks the 150th-year anniversary of English Heritage's blue plaque scheme, a debate on whether Camden should get a new adornment is taking place.
This month The Guardian published a feature on the residency of French symbolist poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, who lodged in Royal College Street, Camden Town, during 1873.
Never one to shy away from a cultural conversation, Camden has been internally wrestling with commemorating the poets' time in Camden since the 1990s, in discussions that have even involved TV personality Stephen Fry and actor Simon Callow.
The property was spot listed by English Heritage and has fallen into private hands as part of a rescue bid to stop it being demolished. Now, funds are being raised to turn the dwelling into a “poetry house”, seeking to promote Anglo-French cultural exchange with residencies, events and educational programmes.
If you'd like to see a list of the 163 existing blue plaques in the borough of Camden, you can search on the English Heritage website.
With the announcement that the homes of Oscar Wilde, Benjamin Britten and Anne Lister are to be relisted by Historic England (Report, 23 September), one hopes that the house where the French symbolist poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud lodged in Royal College Street, Camden Town, North London, for some months in 1873 will not be forgotten.
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