High St / Rob Lane c1910

[Steven Dowd]

This is a view from opposite Rob Lane, and from the roadside, on the St Peters side of the Golborne Street / High Street corner.



Its a view of the old Labour Club, and on the left side, its possible in the larger view, to see a group of horse and carts all parked in the roadway outside what was the Hand and Banner Pub.



This is provided to give an idea of the photographers position, unfortunatly, again, this one looks to be taken from a position actually on the road, so don't try to get yourself killed attempting to get the same spot as the postcard

The viewpoint of this photo looks to be quite low down, probably not much more than waist height judging that the camera seems level with the top of the hedge around the labour club building.

If you have a camera and are able to grab a photo of this, maybe you could print the page with above image and map, visit this corer, and send in the result, either by email to me, and I will post it here for you, or upload it via the reply button below, and upload the image into your reply

Regards

Steven Dowd

[Steven Dowd]

Sheila just sent this photo


19th March 2008


c1910

[Steven Dowd]

She,

This photo you have taken is like your other almost the same view. I did think as I said originally that the view might be from the middle of the road

What I think having seen your photo, is that the Postcard is taken using a lens thats a bit wider angle than the one used by yourself, and that the viewpoint is probably slightly closer to the house, but not much closer

The reason for saying this is that if you walked much closer you wouldn't see onto the top of the roof at the high street side, and wouldn't see the small amount of gable end of the attached house, but at the same time, by moving close, and using a wider angled lens, you would get the buildings disappearing down the high street in the same manor that the Postcard displays

This recent photo is great, for one thing, I imagined, without having actualy checked, that the three story house beside the Pied Bull Carpark, was the three story house on the old Photos, this photo shows that infact its the house on the other side of that, which I believe is now the Dentists which is the older three story house, Which means the Hand and Banner Pub, building from other photos must infact be the current Estate Agents.

I think She, you got the angle to the buildings from your viewpoint really well, I think you just needed a slightly wider angle lens, and to be risking life and limb a little more by being nearer the zig zag..

How you managed to get the shot, while controlling the dog, i don't know

Steven Dowd

[Steven Dowd]

She,

I have tried to show what I think would need to be done to get the photo, if the lens on your camera will not get a wider angle than the photo you have taken.

(This picture is really large, so I hope people will wait for it to download.)



I have tried to show that to get the width in the photo, and to get the closer position, so that your looking slightly down Rob Lane, not across the yellow lines on its corner, that you would have to walk forwards a little, to approx the position of the yellow spot.

The problem is that at that position, you wouldn't probably have the width in the angle of view, though this isnt a problem if you take photos, that overlap, which can later be stitched back together, to get the image that the postcard shows

Steven Dowd

[bob]

by heck! thats a bit flashy isn't it, so what your saying is take a shed load of pics from different angles and you will stitch them together to get the exact shot you want yes!
bob

[Steven Dowd]

If the viewing point is correct, and as long as people can take photos keeping the lens in the same position, so that they swing their view around the lens, rather than swinging the lens around their feet, then this would allow anyone to take multi shots of a view, and then stitch them together to get a photo with whatever required angle of view was needed, and they would be able to reproduce photos not otherwise achievable with their fixed lens.

The stitching of multiple photo together isn't actually that hard, there are a number of good free programs available that stitch multiple photos to a single image

One software for doing this that I would recommend would be Hugin from which runs on Windows, Linux or MAC systems, the website has quite an in depth tutorials page, this example shows well how you can stitch two or more photos together, and even then adjust the perspectives to make the view more architecturally square, shows the power of the Hugin program

I actually use a different program, I use PTgui but this isn't free.

Successful stitching of images will depend on the person taking the different photos, by turning photo to photo around the lens axis/position.

And you have to find the correct position to take the photo from in the first place, which is probably the hardest part of reproducing the postcards


Steven Dowd

[She]

By heck- I am impressed as well Steven.
I will see what I can do with a differing challange....maybe a Willow Lake shot? The one thing I like about street shots is that by comparing old and new you can see what buildings are still around or missing. So are you saying that from these 2 photos, you believe the Hand and Banner pub is now the present day state agents on the same side of the High Street as the underground arch/petrol station site?????

If that is the case, there may be a cellar below the estate agents as well. I may just call in and ask them. I think my camera does in fact have a wide angle option...now I know I should be using this.

[Steven Dowd]

Hi She

Yes the estate agents is the old Hand & Banner pub

This is a section from the old photo postcard.


This shows the horse and carts left in the roadway, outside the Hand & Banner, with the pub sign visible hanging on the wall over the horses


This is a section of your photo, what I have done is to colour roughly the separate buildings edges with red lines, and have marked the entrance way between them in Purple Lines


This is the older photo with the same building edges marked, and the entrance way position marked, the Pub sign which I have marked in Blue seems to be attached to the building directly to the left side of the entrance, which is the Estate Agents. So it seems that the Estate Agents is the old Hand & Banner pub

Previously I had always thought it was the dentists, which is beside the other three story building, I had never really checked the older photos against the current buildings heights, and so had mistakenly thought that the dentists was the pub.

As for cellars, while I was at the Liverpool Library last week, I came across photographs taken in 1990 which showed a vaulted brick built cellar in Jollies the Chemists, what was also interesting is that it had photos showing tthat half the cellar walls were sand stone cut, directly into the bedrock then brick lined in places to straighten the walls, and that the rest of Jollies is built partly upon a foundation ring of massive sand stone blocks, The steps down into the cellar looked to be Sand Stone cut, with an arched roof, and the Cellar itself had an arched brick lined roof, which looked identical to the arch uncovered in the Petrol Station development

I requested and paid for photo copies of the photos at the library, I was told they will be posted to me in a few weeks.

I called into Jollies to ask if I could take a photo in the cellar, but was told no, that it wasn't owned by Mr Jollie any longer, and that the holding company wouldn't allow photos to be taken on the premises.

When the library copies arrive, I will post them so you can see.

Steven Dowd

[She]

I think what you have uncovered about the history of the High Street is fascinating Steven. This 'then & now' photo idea seemed to start off as a bit of fun and curiousity- but in reality you are identifying the past of former buildings and uncovering the true id of High Street buildings.
It is such a shame that Jollies wouldn't let you into the cellar to take photos. Maybe we should find out who the owner is and write to them?

I once looked around a Goth house for sale that had a similar cellar....cut directly into the rock. It was in Pennington. It was a very odd sight. Do you think more houses on the High Street have cellars that are part cave? Would be really fascinating to find some subterranean caves under the High St.

Back to the old 'Hand & Banner' photo - to the left of it and mostly covered by trees appears to be the building over the former petrol station- so maybe these were the buildings the recently revealed cellars belonged to?

Also to the right of this, appear to be building which I presume were demolished to make way for the car park into the Pied Bull? Great shame that ye older Newtonians seemed to destroy a lot of the old original buildings on this road. The Pied Bull is a heck of a big building- so I presume that several rows of houses may have been pulled down to make space for it. Any thoughts about this?

Here is a more recent photo of the Pied Bull- I think the last house on the left of the carpark (below) is just about visible on the old postcard? Not sure.....



I will try to take a photo of the BACK of these buildings on the High Street if I can- as this may reveal more !

[Steven Dowd]

She

This postcard shows some of the buildings that were demolished to build the Petrol Station



The large house on the left side is the one beside the newsagents, with the phone box outside of it, the men standing on the road on the left are standing in the entrance to Walmsley Street, which leads through to Mercer Street from the High Street.

The arch found in the Petrol Station development looks like it may have been associated with a cellared out-house behind one of the ivy covered houses on the right

Steven Dowd

[She]

I took another walk down the High Street (cold bank holiday....bored), and decided to take a closer look at what is now believed to be the Hand and Banner pub. I may be wrong- but the metal structure on the upper wall looks like it could have held a pub sign -



So I took a walk down the cobbled path down the side -




So I guess this is probably a fairly good view of the former pub,,,,,,

[Steven Dowd]

It seems that some of the original features of the Hand and Banner pub still existed within the building, I was recently sent these photos by one of Newtons residents, (thanks Peter) which show that some building work recently completed at the rear of these buildings, has re-used some of the old Hand and Banner glasswork and doors











Steven Dowd

[ps68060]

Wasn't that building used as a sort of home brew / curiosity shop in the late 70's ?

[Steven Dowd]

I seem to remember that it was the dentists that was the home brew shop

seem to remember it being a thin, quite deep shop, not double fronted, I think at the time, the double fronted shop, which was the old Pub was 'The Bowd' which sold posh frocks and wedding dress's

Steven Dowd

[ps68060]

Yes it was a very narrow shop. I vaguely recalled it being on the end of a row but maybe it wasn't. I am not sure where the dentists is.