Mark Tooze
master brummie
I've been exploring the Historic England website (www.historicengland.org.uk) - for those who have not been on it before it is full of many photos I have not seen before - a search on "Birmingham" brings back nearly 7700 for a start and whilst many are recent and some are duplicated there are hundreds and hundreds of brilliant old photos on there - and some (as Drew Prichard would say) are "absolute belters"! Even better - once you have opened the photo in high resolution by clicking the "+" symbol you can zoom in - and the zoom displays the close up in even higher resolution in most cases.
An example - this is Moat Lane (by the Bull Ring - St Martins Church in the distance) in 1902:-
The zoom function then allows you to see this level of detail:-
So far I have looked at sets of photos covering such diverse topics such as the Bull Ring demolition / construction from 1959-1966, Curzon St Station before it closed as a goods yard in the mid 1960s, a set covering the Theatre Royal in New St in 1901, the Grand Hotel in 1891, Queens Hotel just before it was demolished in 1966, a study of St Pauls Square in 1941, Ansells Brewery expansion in the late 1960s and a lot showing bomb damage during 1941-42. Also lots of city centre photos from the late 1800's / early 1900's- this is where the zoom function comes into its own
I have also found some of High St Sutton in 1942 - tonight I walked the dogs to the same locations to do a "then and now". Firstly numbers 20-24 - full view and zoomed - the sign on the lamppost dates the scene perfectly:-
And the same scene earlier this evening - only the frontages have changed:-
Then - just to the left we have numbers 38-42:-
I was surprised to see a bakers called "W.Bromwich" - but my wife's uncle said they were the Greggs of the day, and apparently had a large bakery behind the shop, accessed through the archway on the right:-
Present day - again only the shop fronts and a chimney stack have changed:-
An example - this is Moat Lane (by the Bull Ring - St Martins Church in the distance) in 1902:-
The zoom function then allows you to see this level of detail:-
So far I have looked at sets of photos covering such diverse topics such as the Bull Ring demolition / construction from 1959-1966, Curzon St Station before it closed as a goods yard in the mid 1960s, a set covering the Theatre Royal in New St in 1901, the Grand Hotel in 1891, Queens Hotel just before it was demolished in 1966, a study of St Pauls Square in 1941, Ansells Brewery expansion in the late 1960s and a lot showing bomb damage during 1941-42. Also lots of city centre photos from the late 1800's / early 1900's- this is where the zoom function comes into its own
I have also found some of High St Sutton in 1942 - tonight I walked the dogs to the same locations to do a "then and now". Firstly numbers 20-24 - full view and zoomed - the sign on the lamppost dates the scene perfectly:-
And the same scene earlier this evening - only the frontages have changed:-
Then - just to the left we have numbers 38-42:-
I was surprised to see a bakers called "W.Bromwich" - but my wife's uncle said they were the Greggs of the day, and apparently had a large bakery behind the shop, accessed through the archway on the right:-
Present day - again only the shop fronts and a chimney stack have changed:-
