Frozen in Time
This exhibition shows photographs of North Hertfordshire towns and villages dating from the 1850s to the 1950s. Some views look almost the same today, but others show buildings and landscapes that have changed beyond recognition.
Click the photos to scroll through the full size images and find out more information.
Wilbury Hill in Letchworth Garden City, 1906
An unusual house, Hitchin, 1930
Barley Supply Stores, about 1910
Station Road, Letchworth Garden City, about 1910
Hermitage Road, Hitchin, 1930
F R (Fred) Carling (1870-1935), 1905
A teetotal cycling club, about 1890
Hitchin Station, July 1881
Milk delivery, Pirton, 1923
Traditional crafts at Breachwood Green, 1890s
The staff of Lucas Brewery, Bridge Street, Hitchin, early 1920s
Postal delivery in Hexton between 1939 and 1945
Straw plaiting in Pirton, about 1910
Titmore Green, about 1898
Russell & Featherstone’s Yard, Bancroft, Hitchin, about 1880
Fred Morgan, Charlton, 1944
The Luton-Hitchin-Letchworth bus, 1917
The Bird in Hand pub, Gosmore, 1898
Delivery lorries, Hitchin, 1920s
Market Place, Hitchin, 1902
Hitchin Cattle Market, 1894
GNR Locomotive No 70, 1887 or 1897
Russell’s Tannery workers, Bancroft, Hitchin, 1890s
Land Girls at Hexton, 1941
Whitehorse Street, Baldock, 1880s
The static water tank in Market Place, Hitchin, between 1939 and 1945
Butts Close, Hitchin, 18 May 1943
Great Offley windmill, about 1900
Queen Street, Hitchin, 1930
Hexton, September 1938
The Shambles, Hitchin, 1854
A Nicholls, High Class Fruiterer and Florist, Hitchin, about 1900
Barley High Street on Pretoria Day, 5 June 1900
The Sowerby Arms Hotel, Lilley, between 1880 and 1910
Charlton Mill, perhaps in the 1870s
Steam threshing in Charlton, 1942
Manor House, Rectory Farm, Pirton, about 1927
Doodlebug casing, Pirton, 1944
The west end of Hollow Lane, Hitchin, about 1905
Investigating a burnt-out building, Royston, 1909
The Picturedrome, Ickleford Road, Hitchin, 1911
Bringing electricity to Hitchin, 1906
William B Moss’s grocers, 13 High Street, Hitchin, late 1890s
Celebrations in Market Place, Hitchin, 1887
Hitchin Post Office, 2 Market Place, 1891
Maypole Grocery Co, Market Place between 1920 and 1923
Royston Market in 1916 or 1919
Ashwell Post Office, about 1896
Harvest time in Lilley, about 1900
Many of the Hitchin photographs were taken by local photographer Thomas Benwell Latchmore (1832 -1908) and his son Thomas William Latchmore (1882 -1946). The Latchmores were a Quaker family, with a grocery business in High Street. Thomas Benwell Latchmore’s first studio in the 1860s was on Bancroft, but in 1870 he purchased the business of an earlier photographer, George Avery, in Old Town Hall Yard, opposite this museum. He later moved to more spacious premises at 11 Brand Street, where he had a studio on the roof. This museum is fortunate to have over two thousand Latchmore photographs of Victorian and Edwardian Hitchin.
Other local photographers represented in our collections include H. G. Moulden, A. E. Lupton and W. J. Wilshere (all Hitchin), and A. Clutterbuck in Letchworth Garden City
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