Then and Now… Stogursey through the years

I have recently spent some time scanning old photographs of Stogursey and the local area for this website. Two things strike me, in looking through this collection of photographs - one is how much things have changed and the other is how little has changed!

Stogursey High Street, from an old postcard

Take, for example, the image of High Street, above. It is instantly recognisable and the immediate reaction is that, with the exception of tobacco advertising, not much has changed - sure, there are a few more cars everywhere but in other ways, it seems much the same.

There is a pattern of changes, though, that passes through all of these old images - road surfaces and pavements become more solid and defined, overhead wires increase and then decrease again, head wear becomes less prevalent.

In other more subtle ways, it becomes a ‘Spot the Difference’ puzzle - for example, can you spot the building in High Street that has since lost an entire floor? Or which buildings in the view of Lime Street, below, have since disappeared?

Perhaps the greatest variation that I have noticed in the old photographs of our village is around the war memorial, the gravel. Over time, railings appear and then disappear, before that, there’s an open grassy area with a road behind and, at one point, large trees.

We are very keen to grow the archive of old photographs of the area so, if you have any images that you would be happy to share with us, please contact us. We will treat them with the utmost respect and we have the resources to use high resolution scanners to digitise old photographs, not only preserving a bit of local history for everyone to share and enjoy but also returning a digital copy for your own use.