Brighouse Lives On

 

What better way to start the new year than with a puzzle? I acquired this old picture postcard of Brighouse recently, and set about trying to identify where the original photograph must have been taken from. Some prominent landmarks such as the river and canal are hidden from the view, whilst others - such as Sugden's Flour Mill - had yet to be built. I often find that the best way to identify such viewpoints is to use Google Earth and then play around with the angles and perspectives until you get the beginnings of a match. So if you line up the houses in the foreground (Gooder Lane), the glimpse of the railway line, the somewhat prominent building, centre-left in the photograph (the current Cliffe Hall Club on Cliffe Road) and the views of the Central Methodist Church, Brighouse Sixth Form College, and St Martins, in the distance; you finish up in Victoria Street. Here is the approximate current Google Earth view of the same scene.

Comparing the two images; mills have gone and trees have come, and what were once main roads are now just byways. The same railway line, however, skirts many of the same houses today, and as we enter a new year - Brighouse lives on.