Something I get a lot of is “how do I get an old photo of my
house?” Of course back in the day people took photos of people, marvellous
views, famous buildings, the seafront, but not normally your house.
Sometimes putting say, Southeastern Road Ramsgate or, South
Eastern Road Ramsgate may help, going onto the image tab and clicking on,
search tools, then on the Color tab selecting, Black and White can help too.
The picture of Southeastern Road comes up under some of
these circumstances because I have used South Eastern Road in a post heading,
if I hadn’t the most likely, although the picture is on the internet, you would
never be able to find it.
With very local history, like your house, the first thing to
understand is you put a lot of time and effort in and usually very little or
nothing comes out.
One of the things you can do is to come into my bookshop and
look at the old maps and street directories, perhaps there will be something or
someone that would have been photographed where your house will appear in the
photo. Having residents either of your house or your neighbours with an unusual
surname could just do the trick.
Today in my bookshop I have mostly been drifting around in local history, helping people with theirs and following the leads.
Managed to find some text about this picture off the web
“These two homeward bound East Indiamen were put ashore at
Palmer (now Palm) Bay after damage in a suddenly northerly gale there in the
small hours of Sunday/Monday 21-22 November 1840, as a means of securing her
cargoes.
A third ship, carrying hardwoods, was driven onto rocks in
Kingsgate Bay but the crews of all three were safely taken off by local boats.
Another was reported sunk with all hands and a Spanish ship also put ashore
behind Margate pier to prevent it sinking.
The 'Westminster' (left, Captain Mollison) inward bound from
China and Singapore with 900 tons of tea grounded further out than 'Claudine'
(Captain Brewer) from Madras, which was came in nearer the cliffs carrying
cotton, indigo, rice, silks and wine: both began discharging cargo the
following day.
The 'Westminster' loaded 6000 chests of tea into two
steamers which delivered it to the East India Docks and was refloated on 7
December. 'Claudine' unloaded into 200 carts from the day after stranding and
was refloated on a spring tide a little later than 7 December: both ships were
repaired and put back into the trade.
J.M.W. Turner, who was at Margate at the time, was among
artists to make (slight) sketches of them ashore there.”
looking down King Street from the bookshop
found the answer to this one on my own blog.
"Frederic Standen and his family moved from Eastry to Ramsgate in about 1910. Standen and his eldest son Stephen started business with premises at 15 Plains of Waterloo. Very soon, they moved to 75 King Street (bottom of Plains of Waterloo).
All business ceased when Stephen died in 1959.
By 1964/65, 75 King Street was demolished.
At the height of their business, the Standens had large premises at the end of Turner Street & Belmont Street. Here Standen garaged his bull-nosed Morris-Crowley, and Stephen had space for major work on horse collars and saddles. The shop at 75 King Street was widely known for quality sports wear/leather goods, suitcases. Above the entrance, you can see in the photograph a carefully painted advertisement, showing two elephants bouncing off suitcases – below the caption – “Our Trunks Last A Lifetime.” The white wall next to 72 King Street was the side of a widely known sea food shop – particularly haddock and kippers. If that shop was Number 70 – then 68 would have been Skitts the Chemist.
Thinking again about Ramsgate in the late thirties, I think Midgets had a show in the Merry England Covered building, immediately below Wellington Crescent.
A propos sights which must be on photographs somewhere are –
a. the howitzer at Wellington Crescent, which was cut up by oxyacetylene torch in 1938
b. the shop front on Albion Hill which exhibited remnants of an unexploded bomb
c. record of artistic flint work (pavement and walling) at the seafront end of Augusta Road, skirting Truro Court."
Many thanks to Mr and Mrs Yates who came in the shop while on holiday here from Buckinghamshire. They said when the got home they would post me copies of two pictures of King Street above the accompanying letter.
And then again on my own website would you believe
and this elsewhere on the web
Then the Land Train
So having written bits of this post during the day, as stuff
came up and knowing that a lot of people will actually read it, even find it
interesting I am now considering both pressing the publish button and somehow
putting all or part of it on some of the local Facebook groups.
Obviously this sort of kidney, if you do it at all, is
best suited to a blog or possibly best left alone all the pictures, some of the
text, just a link, oh well who knows.
As the day progressed in my bookshop a lot of it was me
endeavouring to sort out people’s questions about our local history, I looked
up stuff in the books on the shelves and on the internet and put some of the
stuff I found interesting on my blog
just added another picture as a result of a Facebook comment I think roughly Merrie England Olympia before the war just Merrie England after the war and Pleasurama after the mid 60s
