Trent and New Wharf Potteries, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, in the 1930s (Image: The Historic England Archive, Historic England)
Incredible aerial images of 1930s Britain showing towns and suburbs before decades of modernisation took hold have been digitised and released for the public.
Arthur William Hobart’s photographs of sports grounds, seaside parades, industrial sites and cathedrals were taken by biplane from the skies before the Luftwaffe bombings and technological advances altered the landscape irrevocably.
The archive of 242 black and white images has been organised and released by Historic England and reveals pastoral scenes with horse-drawn vehicles and river boats teeming with deliveries. Other shots include historic buildings still in the making such as Battersea Power Station in south London.
The selection, including the cone-shaped kilns of Staffordshire’s Trent and New Wharf Potteries, surrounded by terrace houses and Burslem Branch Canal offer an architectural contrast to the gleaming tower blocks of recent industrialization.
Twickenham Bridge, Salisbury Cathedral and Tower Bridge feature in the archive called the Air Pictures Portleven Collection.
Meanwhile, once spectacular sites now consigned to history include the magnificent old Crystal Palace in south London and the Dell, the former ground of Southampton F.C.
Similarly, the Formby power station position along the Liverpool to Southport railway line shows an industry in action with fumes emitting skywards. It was shut in 1946 and today the towers are gone while the central building stands derelict.
Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said: “Flicking through these photos lets you take flight over 1930s England, to see the changing face of the country in the interwar period.”
Hobart was commissioned by businesses, municipal authorities and the media to take his images, which span England and extend to sites in Scotland and Wales.
Born in Lambeth, London, in 1882, he worked as a journeyman baker, commercial traveller and draper’s clerk before taking up photography during the interwar period. He is believed to have started taking his images around 1920, leaning out of his flying plane as he took them.
His connections to London and Cornwall, where he ended his life, are why the collection is predominantly concerned with London and south-east England.
Gary Winter, the engagement and content officer at Historic England, said he particularly liked the shots of football grounds that Hobart took.
“There’s a really good one of the Dell. Streets, houses and a church surround the stadium. The football ground is part of the community,” he said.
Although the Blitz bombings of the Second World War drastically altered many of London’s landmarks, some grandiose buildings were spared including the Royal Albert Hall, which was used by German pilots as a landmark rather than a target, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Elsewhere, the cityscape has altered through modernisation. Tower Bridge, which is pictured sky-high above low buildings, now sits alongside glass skyscrapers rivalling it as the only standout architectural gem in that area of central London.
