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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Handwriting Deciphering & Recognition => Topic started by: Treetotal on Monday 20 May 19 16:35 BST (UK)
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I would love to know if anyone can identify this landscape! Answers on a postcard please...well I am a collector ;D ;D
Thanks for looking.
Carol
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My immediate thoughts are Vale of Evesham or Somerset Levels
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Thanks for your response Edward, I will check those locations out.
Carol
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Similar skyline to part of the North Somerset Levels.
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01ntr/
Malky
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My first thought was somewhere like the Vale of Evesham.
I'm not so sure about the North Somerset Levels - they were historically wetlands, so I wonder if the fields and hedgerows are quite right for that. Possibly more significantly, many of the villages (in the more southern levels - also in the northern ones??) are on higher land which became islands when the surroundings flooded, and there's no sign of that here.
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Sutton Bank & the Plain of York?
Skoosh.
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Thanks Malky, Arthur and Skoosh for your ideas and suggestions and for taking the time to look....I haven't found a match yet and there are no clues on the back.
I will have a look at the suggestions that you have made so far.
Carol
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Skoosh - you could be correct.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g499612-d5605964-i267987556-Sutton_Bank_National_Park_Centre-Thirsk_North_Yorkshire_England.html
and flick through the pics.
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Not a hill to tackle with a caravan Gadget! ;D
Skoosh.
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That might explain why we haven't seen it on our travels Skoosh, it certainly looks like you have found it! Thanks so much for taking the time to look, it's much appreciated :D
Carol
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I think it looks like a view NW of Brighton on the South Downs, looking west towards Chanctonbury Ring.
Martin
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Hi.
Sorry it all looks upside down to me. {NZ eyes}
Zoomed in at 300% and there are some features to the village, that might help recognition.
It's an autumn photo. Cultivated fields and several of grain crops with the reaped and sheaved cop stooked for final drying before harvesting.
Alan.
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Sutton Bank was the site of the Battle of Old Byland in the Scottish Wars of Independence. The English thought they were secure on the top but Bruce, who of course was half a Yorkshire-man & knew the area well, attacked directly up the bank but sent the Argyll men to scale the cliffs to the right & get behind them. Game, set & match & a general rout. Edward II escaped out of a window at nearby Byland Abbey where he was probably dining on larks-tongues. Happy days! ;D
Skoosh.
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Thank you all for taking the time to look, it's much appreciated. Having looked at other suggestions I believe that Skoosh has found the closest match.
Carol
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Are you sure the image is for a British location? Could it be from elsewhere?
Bellbird Hill lookout, Bells Line of Roads, Kurrajong, NSW, Australia. I am old enough to remember the lookout before it was all done up... back in the 1950s and 1960s ... looks out from a height over the floodplains of the Hawkesbury River, when the district down below was basically the food bowl for all of the Sydney metropolitan area.
I can find the current lookout and carpark on google maps street view. But I also remember the view from what is now referred to as Old Bells Line of Roads. It seems its street address is currently 1186 Bells Line of Road, Kurrajong Heights, New South Wales 2758, Australia.
this link https://www.kurrajonghistory.org.au/trove.php?Ref=oai:kurrajonghistory.org.au:083110 may take you to an image from 1990.
JM
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I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but I can't see anywhere near Sutton Bank with both a church spire and a road with houses parallel to the line of the hill. In fact there are precious few places with just one of those features. I've been looking at OS maps backed up with image searches.
An alternative approach, which occurred to me: would anyone be able to identify any of the flowers in the foreground, and might they point to a particular type of soil?
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I used to go up and down Sutton Bank once a week and, although it's very similar, I don't think this is it. The hills are not quite the same, and I can't see either the village of Sutton-under-Whitestonecliff or the town of Thirsk, which I would expect to see in that view. The village with the church spire is in a location where I wouldn't expect to see a village from Sutton Bank.
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Not a hill to tackle with a caravan Gadget! ;D
Skoosh.
Definitely not. I've boiled my radiator on that hill more than once, in old cars, and I've also been stuck behind vehicles that gave up half way!
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I don't know Sutton Bank, but in the modern photo there is a hill which is missing from the old image. I'd be surprised if the landscape could change that dramatically with a few decades. ;)
Zoomed in at 300% and there are some features to the village, that might help recognition.
I did that, too. The big, angular houses are a bit conspicuous. I've been trying to see what is between them - it is very pale. It doesn't really look like a road.
Funny thing is, the first thing I thought of when I saw them was an old airfield. A lot of smaller, old airfields here in Germany have similar buildings. But it doesn't look like a runway, either!
Amazing what you can "see" sometimes! ;D
Best regards,
Karen
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There's another bit which I keep looking at. Is it just lines in an old photo, or is it e.g. ridiculously huge poplar trees(!) or perhaps chimneys..?
(https://up.picr.de/35804728by.png)
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Airfield ....
My thoughts on the NSW Australia locality .... Bellbird Hill ... it looks over the Richmond RAAF ...
I have phoned my older rellies to see if they think it could be NSW.
It is near half past ten in the evening so it will be tomorrow before I hear from them.
JM
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Lombardy poplars ... planted in avenues throughout NSW as windbreaks.
JM
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Hi there, how about the Severn valley from Coaley Peak ?
Just going on the lie of the land, and a gentler slope than Sutton Bank. You can get the same view from Google Earth and some on Trip Adviser, but I'm not sure that I can use the images.
The fields and trees have changed of course. That is assuming it is the same place !
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Not sure about it being abroad, but am open minded, if it's any help it was with others from Yorkshire but that could lead down a blind alley. I will do a scan of the dense area to see if it helps. I have done a google match and come up empty.
I really appreciate everyone's interest and the input especially having spent so much time searching myself.
Carol
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I still think that Skoosh is correct.
Here's a pic of Vale of York
http://www.northyorks.com/View2.jpg
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Here is a close up.
Carol
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There's another bit which I keep looking at. Is it just lines in an old photo, or is it e.g. ridiculously huge poplar trees(!) or perhaps chimneys..?
(https://up.picr.de/35804728by.png)
I think you are correct as shown by the above image posted.
Carol
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If it is in the Coaley area, the best match I can see for the church is Stinchcombe, but I'm not sure whether the immediate surrounds are quite right.
Otherwise the wider surrounds are certainly similar.
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I still think that Skoosh is correct.
Here's a pic of Vale of York
http://www.northyorks.com/View2.jpg
I still don't think so, but do see the similarity. The hill on the left of your view is Hood Hill, which is immediately west of the cliff itself, and only a mile away from the viewpoint. The similar hill in the old photo is much further away, with a lot of agricultural fields and hedgerows between it and the viewpoint.
The information that it was found within a collection of Yorkshire photos is troublesome though, I have to admit!
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This is an old photo and agricultural landscapes do change over time. I remember going back a while ago to a rural area that I knew well in the 50s and the 'soft' landscape had changed significantly. Also, as you know, the perspective and view point alter the image.
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This is an old photo and agricultural landscapes do change over time. I remember going back a while ago to a rural area that I knew well in the 50s and the 'soft' landscape had changed significantly. Also, as you know, the perspective and view point alter the image.
All true, yes, and I'd be happy to be proved wrong. That spire on the church is another reason why I don't think it is Sutton Bank though - Sutton Under Whitestonecliff has no such church.
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Very interesting comments here...I did mention Yorkshire but also believe that could be a red herring so don't take that too literally. I wonder whether the "Church" could actually be a monument or War memorial as it does look rather narrow.
I am grateful for all the responses so far, and the time that you have all taken to help to solve this mystery image. There is WX written on the back but don't take that too seriously :D
Carol
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Doesn’t look like Sutton Bank to me - it’s not high enough and, anyway, the airfield is on the top of Sutton Bank and not at the bottom. Have a look at the middle ground and yiu can see the runway.
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These supposed poplar trees are a variant of Populus Niger & subject to disease, short lived thus.
Skoosh.
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Well we have just been to the Hay Festival in Hay on Wye and stayed at the Black Mountain View Caravan site in Clyro and the view from our caravan was very close to this photo!!!
Carol
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Did you take a photo of the view, Carol?
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Oh did on his phone! This is from mine but not the full view....and it was taken from the awning window so not very clear.
Carol
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Could it be Helsby from Frodsham across the Cheshire Plain?
Regards
Roger
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I've tried sharpening the image as below,with a necessary reduction in image size due to file size restrictions.I was hoping that zooming in might show detail of a church spire or similar,but I don't think there is sufficient clarity.
Regards
Roger
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Thanks for taking the time to do that Roger, very helpful, there are so many similar views but I still think Skoosh has the right location. I almost convinced myself that the small town or village was Hay on Wye ::)
Carol