Not a collection of ancient churches nestled in a valley, no. Tissington Spires are a series of rock formations in Dovedale, Derbyshire. We are imagining Martin Crosby’s best friend, or his cousin or marra, on a walking holiday, wearing warm tweeds, Fair Isle knitwear and carrying Nordic poles. Here‘s some more information about the…
Photochrom: brand name with hints of either colour photography, maybe autochromes, or hand tinted. ‘Publishers to the World’. Chatsworth House is 150 miles south of Fern Street, in the Derbyshire Peak District. You could probably have taken a train door to door.
“Dear Martin, Having a nice time here – weather mainly decent with the exception of last Friday. Busy harvesting of course plenty rabbits to kill & so don’t know wether I shall reach Edin this year or not. Cheeri O W” Coldstream, again near Berwick. Could this ‘Wh’ or possibly ‘Dh’…
Precarious position for the photographer, wobbling about in rough northern seas in what may have been a small boat. Quite a risky job. Bass Rock is an island of the coast of Scotland, according to Wikipedia now owned by one Sir Hew Fleetwood Hamilton-Dalrymple. Berwick is a pretty town in itself to visit for a…
It’s a Frith! The Frances Frith Collection. Beautiful Art Nouveau lettering on the blank side, and the Frith code number on the front right hand corner. We might be able to track how old this is, but the styles gives us possibly the 1910s-30s.
“Dear Martin, A line saying that I am now in Waterloo Station 4 -pm. Letter will follow. Alf.” Half penny stamp. Not cheap, then. And the picture on the front is a coloured print of St Paul’s Cathedral’s ‘choir & reredos’. Who was Alf? Did you know him? Was he a cousin, maybe even your…
Gotthardstrasse (road to the Gotthard Pass), Andermatt. Another long stretch of miles from Trimdon Street, Andermatt is a picturesque ski resort in the Swiss Alps. Someone who knew Martin, a member of his family, a work colleague, maybe Martin himself, went to Switzerland. Maybe even skied. Now – that would be a thing.
Annie & John are in Corbridge. They write: “Dear Martin, This is a lovely country place. Fine walks (but) no clicks, so it is no use.” Clicks? Dicks? Ducks? Clucks? “Be good to Fluffy. I suppose she will have missed me by now. Will let you know later when we are to arrive.” Who are…
One of the few upright postcards in the collection, unusually, Au Col de Jaman is a black and white photograph and shows the silhouetted figure of a skier or snow walker at a time when an annual winter sports holiday destination like this would have been out of the question for the working classes of…
One of the bonnier pictorials in this collection – it’s a hand coloured photograph or a watercolour painting, and yes there’s a pronounced green tint on front and the printing on the back is in the same green. So somebody went to the Isle of Wight, perhaps on holiday. Or one of the…
THE GREAT FERN STREET POSTCARD MYSTERY 