Images Dated 2015 June

Dudley blast furnaces OP02658

Blast furnace, Russell'??s Hall, Dudley, West Midlands, 1859. Mr Mills, dilute albumen print. Mr Mills, otherwise unknown as a photographer, recorded the blast furnaces at Russell'??s Hall, west of Dudley, when the industry was producing a vast number of iron products, including nails, boilers, vices and chains. Coal mining around Dudley had been recorded in the early 13th century and the area was famous for the manufacture of iron nails in the early 16th century. By the late 18th century Dudley was at the centre of England'??s iron industry, and the region was dubbed the '??Black Country'?? because of the blackening of the landscape by the coal and iron industries. Russell'??s Hall itself was pockmarked by clay pits and coal shafts, and significant urban development only took place after the Second World War

© Historic England Archive

Holiday Home at Shoreham AL2397_012_01

Converted railway carriage holiday home, possibly at Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex. Silver gelatin DOP (developing out paper) print by an unknown photographer, 1920s. Holidaymakers pose on the verandah of their converted railway carriage holiday home. Between the wars, the freedom offered by the motor car and ambiguous planning regulations stimulated the creation of plotland developments in remote or undeveloped stretches of coastline and countryside. Shoreham Beach in West Sussex was one such development, and these photographs may have been taken there. Railway carriages, cheap to build shacks and bungalows were built or converted to be both holiday homes and more permanent dwellings. Plotland developments principally catered for the urban working class, but they also attracted artistic and bohemian folk, eager to find places free from conventional restrictions where open skies and dramatic changes in the weather could stimulate artistic creativity

© Historic England Archive

Lichfield Cathedral OP08956

Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Chad, Lichfield, Staffordshire, c 1860. Francis Bedford (1816-??94), albumen print. Francis Bedford'??s photograph, published by Thompson & Co, shows the west front of Lichfield Cathedral. General views of cathedrals and photographs of their architectural details had been popular subjects for pioneer photographers, and they continued to attract attention as the mass market in photography developed. Lichfield Cathedral, one of the smallest in England, had been severely damaged during the Civil War. Significant restoration had been undertaken in the 17th and 18th centuries, and Bedford'??s view was taken before the west window (between the towers) was remodelled in the late 1860s during Sir George Gilbert Scott'??s restoration of 1856-??78

© Historic England