An American Railroad in Birkenhead

An American Railroad in Birkenhead

The first railway under the River Mersey between Liverpool and the Wirral was operated by steam trains. The smoke and dirt from the engines could not be adequately removed from the tunnels by ventilation, so passengers preferred to use the ferries. As a result, the...
An Edwardian Motel

An Edwardian Motel

The hotel business has always been competitive and owners still look for ways to make theirs more attractive than the next. In Victorian times, temperance hotels sprang up for those wanting an alcohol-free stay then, as cycling became a huge craze, some hotels offered...
Shetland Crofters

Shetland Crofters

Crofting has provided a subsistence living for the inhabitants of Scotland’s islands for thousands of years. It involves farming a small piece of land to raise animals and grow crops, to provide enough food to stay alive. For most, there was nothing romantic...
The Artist, Whitby

The Artist, Whitby

Whitby, on the Yorkshire coast, with its fishing boats, bustling quayside and quaint back-alleys, has attracted artists for hundreds of years. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, photographers followed in their footsteps, the most famous being Frank...
The Cookery Class

The Cookery Class

This photograph, taken in the early 1900s, shows a school cookery class. The societal view at the time determined that cooking and sewing were for girls, woodwork and metalwork for boys and their purpose was to enable the children to make a living, not as a hobby. The...
The Aircraft Carrier

The Aircraft Carrier

The original photograph, on which this photo-art is based, was probably taken in the 1930s. Biplanes were first used by the Royal Navy during the First World War, mostly for aerial reconnaissance. Launching them from ships that didn’t have purpose-made flight...
Euston Station

Euston Station

It’s Euston Station but not as we know it. Where are the crowds, the shops, the cafes? We like the composition of this photograph with its clean lines (no litter, sorry about the pun) and roof supports sweeping away into the distance, echoing the journeys made...
The Towpath, Elland

The Towpath, Elland

We’re used to strolling or cycling along picturesque canal towpaths but that wasn’t their original purpose and they are called that for a reason. In this romatic study of a canal barge, taken in the early 1900s, we see the horse in the distance, pulling...