Old Photographs: Music, dancing and Drama
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Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Eddie Purnell’s Band performing at a dance at the Assembly Hall of the works of the Royal Enfield company at Westwood during or just after the Second World War. Enfield moved...
Read MoreOld photographs: Work
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The staff of William Dotesio’s printing works outside the building in Silver Street in the 1920s. The firm was first Dotesio & Todd, in the 1890s as printers and account book manufacturers of Bradford and of Lowestoft in Norfolk. In the later 20th century, after William’s death in 1947, it...
Read MoreOld photographs: Market Street
Look at Market Street today
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Looking up Market Street from outside the Swan Hotel in about 1900. The traffic consists of a horse-drawn wagon, perhaps laden with sacks of wool, accompanied by two pedestrians. The Town Hall (left) has a nice gas light, but the stonework...
Read MoreOld Photographs: Sport and Recreation
Groups of people with a common interest tend to have photographs taken regularly, often each year, so pictures of groups like sports teams and choirs are relatively common. Frequently the Museum does not know the identity of all the members in the pictures -can anybody...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Photography
One of the main activities of a chemist shop was the supply of films and chemicals and the processing of films for members of the public. Richard Christopher was himself a keen photographer.
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One of Richard Christopher’s own cameras was this Goertz stereoscopic camera (left). It...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Prescription books
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The Christopher chemist shop
Bradford on Avon Museum, Wiltshire
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The Museum possesses a complete run of prescription books for its chemist shop, from the day it opened in 1863 until the day it closed in 1986.
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The Museum Collection: Health
A large part of the Museum’s collection is concerned with health, in the form of the Christopher pharmacy collection, but there are other items as well.
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The dentist’s sign carved from a slab of Carrara marble records that Thomas Joseph Head’s dental surgery was open...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Recreation and sport
Look at >old photographs of sports and recreation
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The Cyclists’ Touring Club sign came from the outside wall of the former New Bear Hotel in Silver Street, Bradford. In the late 19th century cycling opened up a new world of travelling for people who...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Farming and horticulture
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Bradford on Avon Museum, Wiltshire
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There were once scores of farms of all sizes in the area around Bradford. Each one would have possessed numerous hand implements and machines relating to particular activities- digging and ploughing, keeping up ditches, hedges and dry-stone walls, animal...
Read MoreOld photographs: Winsley
Winsley, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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The centre of Winsley village around the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. The roof of part of the row of houses known as Church Cottages has been changed from thatch to pantiles, although that next to the church seems to have been newly re-thatched.
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Read MoreThe Museum Collection: Brewing
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Brewing beer went from the small-scale of brewhouses at the back of the pub to a large industry in Bradford in the 19th century. Three common brewers -those supplying a number of pubs- were operating here at one time.
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Read MoreOld photographs: Monkton Farleigh
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Monkton Farleigh, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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.Rose Cottage, a house near the church, seen in a photograph on a postcard that was published by the Phoebus photographic studio in Bradford on Avon.
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Old photographs of Bradford: general views
Views over the town in the early 20th century.
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A view from the fields west of Barton Farm, looking northwards towards the Wine Street and Budbury area of the town. Just right of the centre is the Wilkins Brothers’ brewery with a smoking chimney. Above the brewery are cottages in Tory Place that...
Read MoreThe Museum Collection: quarrying and stone-masons
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire .
Bradford on Avon Museum is building up a collection of the specialised tools that were used in quarrying stone, usually under the ground, or shaping the stone blocks in the workshop of a banker mason at the quarry and by a builder mason on site.
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The Museum Collection: Plumbers
A ceramic handle and chain for a high-level toilet cistern (left). It bears the name of the plumbers Beaven & Son. Ebenezer Beaven was listed as a decorator and glazier as well as a plumber in local directories from 1848; he was joined by his son from 1867 and they were based in Mason’s Lane until at least 1911.
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The Museum Collection: Iron & brass foundry
Bradford on Avon Museum has a collection of cast iron objects that were made by the three iron foundries that worked in the town. Mostly these are items of street furniture: gully gratings, manhole covers and stop valve covers. Although the Museum is fortunate to have them, they are better displayed in situ in Bradford’s streets. However, they are quickly being...
Read MoreMuseum Collection: World War 1
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Blackout measures against the risk of night bombing is something that is associated more with the second war than the first. This air-raid precautions poster was sent to the Spencer Moulton rubber works in Bradford in 1915 and gives detailed instructions for cutting down on light under the authority of the...
Read MoreMuseum Collection: World War 2
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Bradford on Avon Museum, Wiltshire
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This hand-painted poster was produced in the offices of Bradford’s Spencer Moulton rubber company. It was part of the...
Read MoreGlass bottles: syrup rounds
The syrup bottles in Bradford on Avon Museum’s pharmacy are of mouth-blown blue (cobalt) glass with flared necks to give easy pouring and loose-fitting stoppers that can be opened even if the syrup has stuck them to the opening. Each has a label with the contents in abbreviated Latin. Most of these mixtures were to be used in treating coughs or were ingredients of...
Read MoreGlass bottles: powder rounds
. The Christopher Pharmacy at Bradford on Avon Museum, Wiltshire .
Powder rounds are cylindrical bottles which have a wide mouth so that a spoon could be used to scoop out amounts of the contents. The bottles are usually mouth-blown, so have the pontil mark on the base where a rod was fixed so that the...
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