Church Street, Morley And The Postcard Pecking Order

During that first decade of the twentieth century - the decade of the picture postcard - the frenzied desire for postcards to send here, there and everywhere soon used up all available stocks of scenes of pretty woodland and sterling castles. And as postcard albums got their fill of views of Edinburgh's Royal Mile or Harrogate's Regal Baths, local photographers became more adventurous in their selection of views to temp their customers with.

I don't have anything against Morley (on the outskirts of Leeds), but it must be said that this view of Church Street must be well down the postcard pecking order. Even the obligatory waifs and strays who stare back at every Edwardian photographer, seem to look in wonderment about the choice of subject.

As far as I can make out, that is St Peter's Church in the background and in front of it are ... some houses. If you were take the same photograph today you would see sign boards advertising "Shake, Latte And Roll", the "Image Hair Studios" and a nail bar called "Nail'd It". It would be a little brighter and a little more lively. But alas, it would be too late - picture postcards have had their day.

Sepia Saturday 340 : Time Travel To The Trouville

Our Sepia Saturday theme image this week features a promotional postcard from the Hotel Imperial, Ostend, Belgium. I can match it with another hotel promotional card - this one from the Trouville Hotel, Long Beach, New York. The Trouville was one of many such fine hotels built on Long Beach, Long Island at the height of the resort's fame and fortune at the beginning of the twentieth century. The hotel stood until the 1960s and I can be fairly certain about the date of the drawing which forms the image on the card because of a pencil-written comment on the reverse of the card. This states:

"Original drawing from which this reproduction was made was set up and coloured in water colours by me. It was about three and a half by two and a half inches. Drawn in 1913. R"

It looks like a splendid place to stay. As soon as time travel is perfected, I'm off there for a short break.

If you want a short break - pop on over to the Sepia Saturday Blog and follow the links.

Postcards From Home : An Edwardian Google Street View

I took delivery of a newly acquired Edwardian picture postcard the other day - a view looking up Manningham Lane in Bradford. There was something rather familiar about the scene, especially the wrought iron canopy on the right of the photograph. After a little digging I discovered I had another old postcard featuring the same canopy and looking the other way - down Manningham Lane towards the city centre.

What I have finished up with, of course, is a kind of Edwardian Google Street View. This gave rise to the thought that if I can ever gather together enough old vintage postcards of West Yorkshire I can somehow stitch them all together to provide a dynamic bridge to the past.

I wrote about the original postcard (the second one displayed here) back in 2009 and the discovery of a second view of essentially the same buildings gives me an excuse to share the short description I first published seven years ago. 

"I recently acquired a new postcard which shows Manningham Lane in Bradford in 1902. On the left of the Francis Frith card are the Royal Standard Hotel, the Theatre Royal, and the Theatre Tavern, all of which are now sadly gone. The grand building in the centre background was the Bradford office of the Yorkshire Penny Bank. The last time I checked - about a year ago - it was occupied by a bar called "Brass" which had, thank goodness, retained a fair amount of the internal decorations.

All the buildings in the foreground were still in existence until the 1980s and 90s when they either burnt down or were demolished to make way for a monstrous new inner ring road. The Royal Standard was originally built as a Turkish Bath which came to have its own licenced refreshment rooms. Eventually the refreshments superseded the bathing and it changed its name to the Royal Standard Hotel. Towards the end of its life the Royal Standard became a bit of a dive (the whole Manningham Lane area had fallen on hard times by then) and it was a regular haunt of Peter Sutcliffe, more famously known as The Yorkshire Ripper."