Old photographs give a real insight into the past of a building and luckily in Herefordshire we had several notable early photographers who did an excellent job of documenting the historic buildings of the county such as Alfred Watkins and WH Bustin and Son. Given that it was a time where large glass plates were used for negatives, we get surprisingly sharp and detailed images which have such useful detail when unpicking the changes which have happened in the last 100 or so years.
The Hereford Archive has done an excellent job recently of uploading a huge amount of these photographs to the Hereford History website for all to see and use. These photographs were recently uploaded from the collection of WH Bustin and Son during a
who had accumulated some 7,000 or so images across their business lifetime spanning a century.
You can click on the photographs to open them on the Hereford History page for greater detail.
The image above shows remnants of the barn to the right of the building which was partly demolished some time in the mid/late 20th century.
The image above shows the use of an old cart wheel modified into a window. We have not quite pin pointed the framing location, but believe that this was taken as standing in the entrance door of the sun room. This wall was demolished as part of the sun room extension which was added in around 2012.
The fragile glass plate negatives, comprising by some estimates only a tenth of the original output, are safely housed in the Herefordshire Record Office.
Thanks to the efforts of the Record Office’s Friends organisation, this wonderful source of social and local history is available to be explored. Over a number of years, the negatives were carefully processed into photographic prints that gradually revealed a literal snapshot of life in Herefordshire in the early 20th century. Scanning of these prints by Herefordshire History volunteers began in October 2014, to making this selection available online for the first time.
To view the whole archive, follow the link here where you can search for your local building or village https://herefordshirehistory.org.uk/archive/herefordshire-images/people-and-portraits/bustin-image-collection