Mystery location of ca 1900s canal photograph

[Timleech]

Bridge does look like it is intended to pass boats.

 

Agreed, but it doesn't show evidence of damage from boat strikes, so probably very little traffic.

 

Tim

[RLWP]

Agreed, but it doesn't show evidence of damage from boat strikes, so probably very little traffic.

 

Tim

 

Or, more likely, no hire boat base nearby

 

Richard

[Laurence Hogg]

Is it the Sussex Ouse?

[matty40s]

It could well be a river bridge next to a canal bridge. The river bridges were often rebuilt at the same time as the canal bridges were built, and using the same techniques (but no towpath), so the road level was raised over the two adjacent watercourses.

[antarmike]

I am actually looking at the height of the River?? bank, and staining on the lower part of the bridge and I am starting to wonder if this isn't a stretch of river or water that varies considerably in depth. Could it be high summer and low water, and in winter time or heavy rain, the water is normally a lot higher than this, almost to the top of the bank. In which case there would not be a vast headroom under that bridge, and maybe it is not designed to allow boat traffic, but designed to allow the easy flow of water when the River/ Stream/ drain is handling a lot more water than we see here in this photograph.

 

That would explain apparent staining on the brick work of the bridge, staining that reaches a height similar as the top of the banks.

 

Also looking along the line of the right hand bank, presumably this picture was taken with a normal focal length and there is no foreshortening due to telephoto lens but the line of the bank is far from straight. The "Wobbly" nature of the bank says to me natural river, not man dug ditch....

 

Is the photo mounted, and if taken from mounting does the foreground or the blanked off "corners" offer any more clues, or show any possible tow-path detail?

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[Heartland]

There seems to be an issue over the decision of the name of a boat. That it is at Brentford apperas to have been established, but when this particular image was taken remains a matter of discussion. Laurence has spent a considerable time and effort to resolve it from what has been supplied to this website, but what of the original image, can modern techniques assist once a high resolution scan has been applied to it. Also was this image a postcard or print?

 

Ray Shill

[photosofthepast]

Ray, just last night I had the same idea - in all this deliberation no-one had thought about getting more detail from the original. Firstly I'll have to find it, then I'll see what I can do in terms of re-scanning it. And to answer your final question, it's a glass lantern slide.

[antarmike]

There seems to be an issue over the decision of the name of a boat. That it is at Brentford apperas to have been established, but when this particular image was taken remains a matter of discussion. Laurence has spent a considerable time and effort to resolve it from what has been supplied to this website, but what of the original image, can modern techniques assist once a high resolution scan has been applied to it. Also was this image a postcard or print?

 

Ray Shill

 

Agreed. No amount of post processing the website image can create extra pixels. If the starting point of determining the boat name is the image on this website then I cannot see how anything meaningful can be gleaned. A digital image cannot be made into anything more than it is. Four pixels can be reduced to one that is the average of them all but a single pixel can only be split into four that will all be the same colour. The only hope of gaining a better reading of the name is to process the original analogue image and until this is made available to someone with the right equipment I still think Bow Locks rather than Brentford if you know what I mean. (but remember the original "analogue" plate is actually an emulsion of small light reactive particles, and the size of those elements that forms the image dictates the maximum detail and resolution than can be achieved by re-scanning.)

 

Nothing I have seen so far even convinces me that the first letter of the name is a "T". yet alone what follows that, Sorry.

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[johnthebridge]

Well you could also try this one, at least to confirm if you think it's a canal or not? The height of the bridge makes me think it is navigable but I'm not going to fall into the trap of making any claims

 

What about the main line of the canal being the other side of the bridge, running transversely across the photograph, and the water you see in the foreground being just a side cut, rather like those north of Hillmorton? That would then make more sense of the wall running up to the bridge, the casual rower and the lack of towpath in the bridge hole. It might also explain the presence of the geezer standing outside his hut on what, if I'm right, would be the towpath? You have to say that the bridge does have an "engineered" look to it, built to accommodate boats-otherwise, why give it an embanked approach and a tall arch?

Have I explained that clearly? Maybe not.

Edited December 19, 2012 by johnthebridge

[alan_fincher]

Also was this image a postcard or print?

Neither I think - it has been identified as a "lantern slide", about which I have no great knowledge, but the scan that was put back on Flicr actually seems to show a crack in the black border, confirming that it is on glass.

 

I guess this is less surprising now we seem to be placing it in the 19th century rather than the 20th, as some of us at first assumed.

 

I would be amazed if it is not on record somewhere the (apparently pre 1903) date on which those unusual lock gates were installed at Brentford.

 

That has to get us further on dating the picture than we have so far, because it must then be after the formation of the John Griffiths' fleet, but before those gates went in.

 

I believe there is not a shade of doubt it is Brentford.

 

(but remember the original "analogue" plate is actually an emulsion of small light reactive particles, and the size of those elements that forms the image dictates the maximum detail and resolution than can be achieved by re-scanning.)

From what I have seen images that are on glass can give staggeringly high resolution - far better than from contemporary prints. - although equally, of course, it may not!

 

A different question though is whether it is actually being scanned in a manner that gives as much detail as on the original.

[antarmike]

Well you could also try this one, at least to confirm if you think it's a canal or not? The height of the bridge makes me think it is navigable but I'm not going to fall into the trap of making any claims

 

What about the main line of the canal being the other side of the bridge, running transversely across the photograph, and the water you see in the foreground being just a side cut, rather like those north of Hillmorton? That would then make more sense of the wall running up to the bridge, the casual rower and the lack of towpath in the bridge hole. It might also explain the presence of the geezer standing outside his hut on what, if I'm right, would be the towpath? You have to say that the bridge does have an "engineered" look to it, built to accommodate boats-otherwise, why give it an embanked approach and a tall arch?

Have I explained that clearly? Maybe not.

 

This "cut" seems far too wide to be a side cut of a main line. Why would this width of waterway be needed and what could justify so much digging? Why didn't they dig it straighter? Scaling from the man on the bridge, and where I guess his feet would be, if he is a 6 footer there is 12 - 14 foot clearance under the centre of the arch, and the bridge is 14 - 16 foot wide. This rules out any narrow canal location, and seems a ridiculous and unnecessary height to have under a bridge unless it has to deal with a lot of flood water, and at times the level is considerably higher than we see it here..

 

Why if that is the main line the other side of the bridge does it appear that the bank the other side is just as high above the water line. This would not be a contour canal because it is simply too much digging, the canal line would simply move to follow a contour where little digging was required. If the canal is a "locked" canal, why has the depth of the locks and their not been chosen so as to avoid the vast amount of digging necessary to produce these very high banks? I still think natural watercourse/ river running in its own valley....(unless it is a Summit or a branch off a summit level and it has been dug low in the ground to catch as much water from the water table as possible, but that limits the options for a possible location even further...Summit of a broad canal????there are not that many. )

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[antarmike]

The stand of Lombardy Poplars are suggesting another thought to me. The Lombardy Poplar is not a Native species, Its life expectancy is only about 50 years. Its roots are very damaging to Mole drains / clay pipe drains. If this is fenland and this waterway is a navigable drain, it is the wrong tree to have in land that needs artificial drainage.

 

Photography was very expensive and Photographs were only taken by keen amateurs, or as commissions from the wealthy, or to record important places and events. This is not a famous location as far as we know, There is no great event happening so maybe a commission by someone with money to spare, maybe the guy in the boat. Is it just co-incidence he is slap in the middle of the shot and facing the camera, or did he pay for that privilege?

 

Lombardy poplars would not normally be found on Agricultural ground,(it is unlikely Canal companies would be paying to plant an unnatural foreign tree, though admittedly these poplars were starting to be more widespread by this time, but mainly as an avenue tree) but they would be found in parks and estates. Can I suggest this is located within such an estate, that the land owner has money to spare, he has planted trees, not natural to Britain, and he has built a bigger, better bridge than he needed to to impress the common folk. The bridge has a high arch because it is a statement of wealth. The statement of wealth extends to being able to waste your time boating whilst others toil for you in the fields. Maybe the bridge was built high because he wanted a vista through the arch and for no other reason. The second boat looks remarkably fancy. This is pleasure boating and wasting money to a point of ostentation , not a workaday canal scene. There is no tow-path because the gentry don't want traffic through their park/ estate. There is no demarcation between where a tow-path would be and what is a rich man's playground, because everything we see, the river, the boats belong to an estate. The is no right of navigation through this Squires playground.

 

My powerful image image scanning software tells me the sign reads "Trespassers will be prosecuted"

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[John Holden]

I'd even go as far as to ask if it is an ornamental lake and bridge rather than a waterway.

[ChimneyChain]

This complete thread reminds me of a episode of time team, somebody finds a very small fragment of glass then someone else comes along and tells us it came from an 18th century chandelier.

 

Darren

[antarmike]

This complete thread reminds me of a episode of time team, somebody finds a very small fragment of glass then someone else comes along and tells us it came from an 18th century chandelier.

 

Darren

 

There is another tread like that where someone turns up a brass stamping and its origin is scrutinised for hours on end but it remains an unidentified lump of brass from an unknown manufacturer , for an undetermined end user, made sometime between 1938 and 1960 someone says......but as I said it remains just as unidentified at the end of the process as it was at the start.....Time for more Geo-phys I think

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[David Mack]

Scaling from the man on the bridge, and where I guess his feet would be, if he is a 6 footer there is 12 - 14 foot clearance under the centre of the arch, and the bridge is 14 - 16 foot wide. This rules out any narrow canal location, and seems a ridiculous and unnecessary height to have under a bridge unless it has to deal with a lot of flood water...

What about small sailing barges? The Droitwich Barge Canal was built with high arched bridges for this reason (but I don't think this is the Droitwich).

 

The stand of Lombardy Poplars are suggesting another thought to me. The Lombardy Poplar is not a Native species

Do we know that this location is necessarily in the UK?

[antarmike]

What about small sailing barges? The Droitwich Barge Canal was built with high arched bridges for this reason (but I don't think this is the Droitwich).

 

 

Do we know that this location is necessarily in the UK?

 

anything is possible, my point is we will probably never know but because this a canal forum we are trying to make the image into what we want it to be, a lost forgot navigable waterway, not accepting it for what it is, a rich geezer playing in a boat and having his picture taken. Would you keep that other fancy boat on a barge canal and risk having it crashed into. Who is importing and planting expensive Lombardy poplars right next to a canal in 1860? If you were rich would you choose to go a spend time on a working canal, surely there are better options for pleasure boating with delicate craft than that?

 

Yes it is the UK, my imaging enhancing software definitely shows the sign to be painted with "Trespassers will be prosecuted" edit....Well I have changed my mind now but I am certain at least it starts with a T....

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[carlt]

Who is importing and planting expensive Lombardy poplars right next to a canal?

Somebody did...Clicky

[antarmike]

Somebody did...Clicky

 

Lombardy poplar has life expectancy of sometimes as little as 50 years being very prone to fungal infection. Those where probably planted in 1960, they won't be older. In the 1960's they were being planted everywhere, they were the current craze. Golf Courses public spaces you name it it got a Lombardy poplar or twelve. They were cheap as chips by 1960. If the photo being scrutinised was taken say in 1890-1900 then the mature looking trees where probably planted in 1860 and would have been much more expensive then in real terms than those in your supplied clickey.

 

Lombardy Poplar is an Infertile cross, and they are all male, there is no female form so they can only be produced from cuttings. The Poplars in the photo where deliberately planted, they haven't self seeded. I suggest they were planted when they were an expensive tree.

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[carlt]

Lombardy poplar has life expectancy of 50 years being very prone to fungal infection....

The Lombardy Poplar lines canals throughout France.

 

My post was a response to "Who is importing and planting expensive Lombardy poplars right next to a canal?" and my answer would be...any one of the extremely rich chaps who built canals and enjoyed importing expensive ornamental trees.

[antarmike]

The Lombardy Poplar lines canals throughout France.

 

My post was a response to "Who is importing and planting expensive Lombardy poplars right next to a canal?" and my answer would be...any one of the extremely rich chaps who built canals and enjoyed importing expensive ornamental trees.

 

Where the canals of France lined with Polars in 1900 or is it a new, post 1960's phenomena, in common with the growth in planting in this country at that time? I know little of French canals in the 1900's, How common were Lombardy Poplars then?

 

Moving on, which canal is famous for all its specimen trees then?

 

Answer that and we will know where this is won't we.

 

Wealthy canal builders buying trees on a whim, I thought the trend was a struggle to raise funds, involving shareholders, repeated shares issues to cover spiralling costs.

 

So was this tree planting money being squandered by a super rich canal builder, assuming there where such animals in great enough quantity hat we can chose a candidate from many, or was it a case of shareholders scrutinising every penny spent and did the shareholders readily agree to having their investment in the company used in this way?

 

Surely there is something in the minutes about mass ornamental tree planting schemes on at least one of the canals.

 

But we are getting side tracked since the trees are too far from the "canal" to be planted by the canal company unless this is a branch, and there is a main line running across the bridge which forms a side branch. (most canal companies own at most six feet beyond the bank or edge of towpath) These trees are probably 20 or 30 feet from the likely boundary of canal property. Most influential landowners got canals moved off their land or had concessions from the canal owners, unless they had a vested interest in moving their own goods by that method.

 

Since it is pure conjecture that the main line runs parallel to, and the other side of, this bridge, we are left with the strong possibility that the land where the trees are planted is part of an estate or Park. If this is a park or an estate, then the waterway may be decorative/ for pleasure only.

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[carlt]

Where the canals of France lined with Polars in 1900 or is it a new, post 1960's phenomena, in common with the growth in planting in this country at that time?

 

I assume these trees were mature...

 

Some of us who soldiered in France during World War I remember highways and canals lined on both sides, for miles, with tall trees so straight and narrow that they resembled Grecian columns-- columns such as those which now surround the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. They were called "Lombardy Poplars".

[jeannette smith harrison]

Photosofthepast

Sorry a bit late in joining this thread.

In post 15 you mention that Wakfields where the photographers

does your glass slide say Wakfields of Brentford or Wakfields of Chiswick this would help on dates

as the Brentford office was opened @ the rear of 137 High st Brentford no. 138 being demolished in 1889 making 137 next to the vicarage for St Lawrences church.Wakfields of Brentford where based here between 1905/1920.

Their back entrance had a path leading to the hams & the wharfs . Frank Wakfield liked & took many photos of the Boatpeople.

The Brentford Boatgirl Ann e Stokes & her Husband Robert Harrison where among many of the boatpeople who trusted him & allowed him to take their photos (see canal arts & crafts by Avril Landsdell) i also have several copies from the original slides.

[antarmike]

The French Canal builders are dafter than I thought, Lombardy Polar roots spread far and wide and are very destructive, just what you want next to a canal you want to hold water, But we digress, the poplars I refer to are to far from the known course of the river or canal to have been planted by the Canal Company. I refer to them as a feature of adjoining land and what that land is likely to be.

 

Surely it would be positive to spend a bit of time looking at the totality of the evidence I put forward to support two different possibilities, instead off wandering of towards the Somme and what happens in France.

 

I suggest again this could be

i) a river prone to heavy flooding with a large tall bridge to carry flood water easily away.

Supporting this I cite:-

very high banks, wobbly line of a river, staining high on the brickwork of the bridge, no visible tow-path of method of separating the draught horse from beasties in the field. Considerable effort in digging a waterway wider than it needs to be, and possibly even a bridge built far bigger than any craft likely to pass through it.

 

ii) A water feature within an Estate or park on which there is no commercial freight traffic.

 

Supporting this I cite:-

Expensive trees most likely to be found in such a park, a photograph centred on what appears to be the wealthy man who commissioned it, Fragile boats that would not mix well with Commercial traffic, no likely explanation why this gent and these two boats were on a commercial waterway as a pleasurable day out when there would be better places for such activities that did not involve the "Vulgar bargee"

 

Against it being a man made canal...I cite:-

simply too much digging, the banks are too high, the channel is too wide for the craft that would pass the bridge, Not straight enough, the line of the bank is all over the place. The presence of trees of a type unlikely to be planted on agricultural land, If it is private parkland through which a navigable waterway passes, then no fencing to segregate tow path users from the private park, No evidence at all of a towing path. Delicate craft on the waterway that I wouldn't want in the company of Barges and even as suggested sailing barges. If it is a canal, no one has recognised it and many knowledgeable canal types use this site. No evidence of boats having struck the bridge at ant time.

 

Arguments for it being a man made canal, I cite:-

the bridge looks capable of passing a boat. sorry can't think of a second supporting argument...

 

discuss

Edited December 19, 2012 by antarmike

[carlt]

Why don't you spend a bit of time looking at the totality of the evidence I put forward to support two different possibilities I put forward.

I read it but I must be honest, I'm really not that bothered where or when the photo was taken.

 

I joined in the discussion making a light hearted response to something you posted and am not too interested in getting dragged into a deep debate about something which, at the end of the day, will remain just a theory.

 

My personal theory is that it is a watercourse, probably natural, that is running through some rich bod's grounds (hence the ornamental trees) and he has probably had a flat packhorse bridge replaced with something that enables him to navigate without banging his bonce.