Picturing England Gallery

Crowsteps OP00758

Crowsteps, Tydehams, Newbury, Berkshire, c 1930. Herbert Felton (c 1887-1968), silver gelatin DOP (developing out paper) print. Designed by Thomass Tait of Sir John Burnet, Tait & Lorne, and built in 1929, Crowsteps is one of the earliest Modernist houses in England. It was clearly inspired by the German architect Peter Behrena's New Ways in Northampton which was built between 1925 and 1926, and Tait was commissioned on the strength of his workers housing for Crittalla's at Silver End in Essex built between 1927 and 1928. Herbert Felton, whose professional reputation owed much to his photography of Modernist architecture, has used a low point of view to take advantage of the reflective qualities of the garden pool to double the mass of the house and fill the portrait-orientated negative. Felton's ability as an architectural photographer was such that he became the first professional photographer to be employed by the National Buildings Record in 1941

© Historic England

Pulls Ferry, Norwich SED01_01_01

Pull'??s Ferry, Norwich, Norfolk, 1854. William Russell Sedgfield (1826-??1902), albumen print. William Russell Sedgfield included this image, produced using the waxed paper process, among his entries at the 1855 Photographic Institution exhibition in London. The 15th-century water gate adjacent to Pull'??s Ferry protected the channel that had been dug to carry building materials from the River Wensum to the site of Norwich Cathedral. Even at the age of 16, Sedgfield was keen to use Fox Talbot'??s new calotype process, and, after training as an engraver, he turned to photography in the early 1850s, adopting the waxed paper, wet collodion and dry collodion processes. He became ??one of the most critically acclaimed photographers of his generation?? and his photographs illustrated a number of books published during his lifetime, including Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain by William and Mary Howitt, which also featured work by Francis Bedford and Roger Fenton

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Trafalgar Square EGP_22657_75

Trafalgar Square, Westminster, London, 22 May 1909.
Dr William James Stewart Lockyer (1868-??1936) silver gelatin glass plate negative. This view, from the balloon Corona at 2, 000ft (610m), was taken by the pioneering balloonist Dr James Lockyer. Like his father, Sir Norman Lockyer, James was an astronomer, but he had always been ??air-minded'??. He made his first balloon ascent in 1907, and served with the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Air Force in the First World War. Lockyer was familiar with photographic technology from his astronomical work, and that probably explains the high quality of this image. The Admiralty Arch, built between 1906 and 1911, can be seen under construction (centre right) between Trafalgar Square and The Mall. From the EGPN Collection held by Historic England Archive

© Historic England