At one of our recent events, Jim Rippin, a local resident, showed us some photos he’d taken as a young boy in the 1950s of the Rowley Hills. The site has changed so much that it is hard to imagine it was the same area that we see today. He has kindly given his permission for us to reproduce a couple of them here, alongside another image from a book cover, taken in the 1980s. Our Vice Chair Mike Poulton took photos of the same areas from approximately the same vantage point to illustrate how much has changed.
We’ve also added these photos to our History page to build upon our record of the history of the Rowley Hills. If you have any old photos of the area, from any time, we would love to hear from you! We can easily scan or photograph images so don’t need to keep original photos, just loan them temporarily; we can also touch up scratches etc. if required so don’t worry if your photos are a bit battered! Potentially, we would like to put on an exhibition in the future of historic photos like these, depending on how many we are able to source, so please get in touch with us today if you have any old photos you’d be happy to show us. Thank you!
- Edale from Bury Hill Park, 1956 (image © Jim Rippin).
- Edale from Bury Hill Park, 2015 (image © Mike Poulton).
- Rounds Green from Bury Hill Park, 1951 (image © Jim Rippin).
- Rounds Green from Bury Hill Park, 2015 (image © Mike Poulton).
- The photograph on the cover of this book was taken in the early 1980s from the Rowley Hills (© Heather Angel).
- The same view as on the cover of ‘In Search of the Wild Asparagus’, taken in 2015 (image © Mike Poulton).