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So, who wants to know where the chitter was coming from?
Instinct, instinct, instinct.
Always go with it.
Unless you have form for being wrong. :P
It wasn't the main hinge, but it was the mating surfaces of the hinge in the bars / stem.
I applied a little grease to both and the chittering was slightly reduced.
I subsequently applied a MkI section of inner tube, thusly:
and it is totally silent.
Like a nun's fart.
Not yet sure what I am going to do as a long term solution which is maintenance minimum, or preferably, free - but at least it appears that I have identified the source of the chittering.
JurekB
I may have had something similar, on my Brompton, with both the original 1992 main frame and the replacement frame I've had since 2012.
On both frames a little bit of grease on front hinge mating surfaces helped (btw it's not the hinge that failed on the first frame). I never tried grease on the actual V-shaped aluminum hinge restraining part as I've always assumed an aluminum/steel contact wouldn't make that specific noise (one being softer than the other), but I'll try...
Nothing here you haven't already tried so far but recently as the noise came back a little I noticed that tightening the wing nut too much (I tend to tight the hinges like a brute) was actually promoting the "dry metal" noise, and to my surprise tightening less (more like a normal person would I suppose) made the noise disappear.
It was never very pronounced anyhow, just a little dry "click" noise as I pedal harder, seems that in your case it's worth, so I can't tell if it's the same phenomena. (I'm using the original Brompton parts btw)