 |
| An entry to Sepia Saturday. "Using old images as prompts for new reflections" | | |
|
|
This week's prompt is a posed event but on my postcard the policeman is on his beat and his attention is taken by
 |
| Looking up Market Street from Horseshoe Corner, Lancaster c1905 |
our photographer as indeed is the boy to his right who also looks to be on an errand with his wicker basket. I'm wondering what the boy on the ladder is about to hang up. There is still a hairdresser on the street but not the one of the sign advertising "specialists hair-work". That sounds if it could be elaborate. Looking past the horse and cart the building with the pillars just beyond was the Town Hall, today it is the City Museum. I've spent many a happy hour in there as a child when visiting Lancaster. Whether my companion was as enamoured of endless visits I'm not too sure. We always travelled there by train, our ultimate destination my Grandmothers, I always wanted to go to the museum, my mother wanted to go to the shops. Thinking about it now I suspect my father may have grasp the opportunity of an escape as we headed towards the museum and my mother went shopping. Sometimes if money allowed we took a tour of Lancaster Castle which also was full of artefacts both gruesome (spiked torture) and attractive (heraldry shields) and, for the connection to this week's Sepia Saturday theme, dark and dank
cells.
When the city council moved from this building to its new, and present, location the police station including the cells was in the basement and a handy Magistrates Court was on the ground floor with a connecting staircase to the police cells. I seem to think they are now in a nondescript building someone else in the town but the original Lancaster Police Force was formed in 1824 (one of the first places to set up a police force outside London) when their uniforms may have looked something like this
 |
| Glamorgan, South Wales Police |
Those white summer trousers don't look too practical but the tails of the coat had a practical purpose for they carried the truncheon for those occasional altercations.
10 comments:
That's a great postcard - there is so much detail of what's going on.
Liked the top hats of those early policemen.
Is that a museum display in the bottom photo? I am fearful of wax figures. This goes all the way back to my childhood. Not a gang dolls either.
The postcard shot is inadvertently brilliant; had the copper and boy NOT looked at the camera, it wouldn't be as interesting.
I can't believe the white pants! Was somebody NOT thinking here? Great shot: lots of top hats, whiskers and bravado!
There is a lot of interesting detail in the first picture.
When ever I see those big top hats, especially the way they stand and are dressed in the last photo, good old Abe comes to mind! Great posts, my hats off to you! Thanks!
That postcard of Market Street is absolutely magnificent! The lack of automobiles creates a fantastic view. And the bobby looks the way he should: inquisitive.
That's a great postcard with so much detail!
And wow! Policemen in top hats! Quite the interesting photo indeed!
I love street shots. There is so much to take in. Oddly, I rarely think of taking such a shot. There is a real art to making the candid photo work.
I'm impressed with your segue from postcard to museum exhibit. Clever.
I do like street scenes where there is so much going on. I'm not so sure about the little lad on the stepladder though. These days you'd have to have done 'working at height' training - and be an adult! My husband is from Lancaster so I will point him, and other family members, to this very interesting post.
Post a Comment