If you have roots in England then you should check out the Historic England Archive. This archive holds 12 million photographs, drawings, reports and publications from the 1850s to the present day. There are over a million free historical images of England that can be viewed for free on this site.
Historic England is a public body that looks after the country’s historic environment. There is a short video here that gives a flavor of what they do. Historic England’s homepage will also give you an introduction to their work.
To look for historic photographs go to their Find Photos page. On this page, there are three main sections containing images; Aerial Photos, Historic England Archive and England’s Places:
Aerial Photos
Click on the Aerial Photos link and it will take you to the Britain from Above website. This collection is the archive of one of the pioneers of aerial photography, Aerofilms Ltd which is now publicly owned and contains more than a million images. The online collection focuses on the oldest and most valuable images dating from 1919-1953. Most of the images are from Britain, but there are some from other countries.
To search for an image, type in a place and the site will return thumbnails for the photos available. Clicking on a thumbnail will give you a small image. If you want to see a larger image you will have to set up a free account and log in. You can download a low resolution image like this:
This picture is of the Blackhorse Road area of Walthamstow (NE London), taken in 1952.
You can also buy a high resolution image to download.
Historic England Archive
In this section here you can search over 1 million catalog entries of photographs, plans and drawings of England’s historic sites and buildings. The collection consists of images of domestic and industrial buildings from the earliest days of photography to the present day.
Use the search function to find images of places or streets. Check the box underneath the search bar to see online images only. Copies of images can be ordered.
England’s Places Collection
The England’s Places Collection has it’s origins in 1941 when the then National Buildings Record started the Architectural Red Box Collection to document buildings threatened by German bombing during the Second World War. The collection dates from the 1850s up to the early 1990s, it consists of photographs mounted on cards (often annotated) and stored in red boxes arranged by place. These cards have been scanned and are held in “virtual red boxes” which can be searched by place.
If you have any interest in England, these collections are well worth a good look round.
Here are a couple of associated books you may also be interested in:
Aerofilms: A History of Britain from Above
This book tells the fascinating history of Aerofilms Ltd and is lavishly illustrated. Click here to see it on Amazon.
Picturing England: The Photographic Collections of Historic England
A collection of 300 striking images from the Historic England archive as well as informative essays and captions. Click here to see it on Amazon
Finally, here is a lovely short video from Historic England called From England, With Love. Poet Bridget Minamore’s poem celebrates love and historic places.
Please pin a pin to Pinterest:
Leave A Comment