Thursday, April 06, 2006

Presentation of Images of England

Adrian Shaw, an amateur photographer, described to us the Images of England project and showed us his collection of photos, 115 of which have been adopted by the project and put on display on the Internet.

Below is one of Adrian's photo's, of a building close to our heart - Staircase House.




All images are taken on 35mm film provided by English Heritage. The photographer is given a list of buildings to snap. He or she then has the challenge of locating the building and finding a position on publicly accessible land to capture a clear picture of the whole building if at all possible. This is complicated by the need to avoid inclusion of children or children's toys or car registration plates, to protect the owners security. The film is returned, undeveloped, to English Heritage, so there is no opportunity for tampering with the photo.

The project started in 1999, but with:
7,484 parish churches;
424 castles;
3245 country houses;
55 garden sheds;
35 fishponds;
1 racing pigeon loft;
2,778 milestones;
7 army camps;
11 skating rinks;
2,284 telephone boxes;
516 pigsties;
291 lavatories;
198 post boxes; and
1,098 lamp posts
listed in England, there are lot still to do. To get involved, contact: Images of England, English Heritage, NMRC, Kemble Drive, Swindon SN2 2GZ. Tel: 01793 414779. Email: ioeenquiry@english-heritage.org.uk.
www.imagesofengland.org.uk

As well as admiring Adrian's photos, Paula Rand brought along a collection of Stockport photos taken by a Stockport policeman (sorry I have got his name I will add this when I know) between 1996 to 1998.

The Rev Ken Kenrick told us that now that scaffolding is up around St Thomas, Potts the famous clock repair company, point out this is the perfect time to attend to St Thomas's clock. The plan is logical, but the problem is where to find the money? St Thomas has already received £102,000 for the current work and put thousands of pounds of its own limited funds into the repair of the tower and that is only enough to attend to the most pressing repairs. [For photo's click here for the previous post and click here for a photo of the clock mechanism.]

No news yet of the findings of the inspection of St Mary's tower. [For previous postings click here and here.]