Can this picture be dated

[ikcdab]

Hi all, i am looking to roughly date the attached picture. This is Blue Anchor on the Minehead branch.

There is a pre-Worboys level crossing sign - i think these were standardised in 1934 but had been around before then.

The prairie tank appears to have GWR on the tank sides, though it is very indistinct and i might be seeing a new BR logo.

There are no camping coaches in the siding - they were withdrawn in 1939 and didn't resume here until 1952. They had been first located there in 1934, so the period 1934 to 1939 and post 1952 are ruled out.

The number of cars suggests that this isn't during war-time petrol rationing.

During the war, a pillbox was built on the sea front which i believe would have been visible in this picture, so that suggests pre-war. The beach huts appeared in 1927.

The leading and rear coaches are clerestories.

All this is conflicting. If its pre-war, then it has to be between 1927 and 1934.

If its post war, then its between 1945 and 1952.

I know nothing about old cars, there may be some evidence there.

All detective comments welcomed!

Ian

[Miss Prism]

Identifcation of the cars is the clue to the date.

 

 

[Paul H Vigor]

20 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

Identifcation of the cars is the clue to the date.

 

 

1930s cars tended to be quite long lived. Later 1940s??

[ikcdab]

15 minutes ago, Paul H Vigor said:

1930s cars tended to be quite long lived. Later 1940s??

The problem with that is the lack of the pillbox. If you google "Blue Anchor beach pillbox" you will see some images of it. whilst the outcrop on the RH side of the image i posted superficially resembles the pillbox, it isnt one, it really is just an outcrop of rock omn which the pillbox was built.

[petethemole]

I only see two cars with the slightly rounded body style that came in c1934, from very few makers, so I would suggest 1934-5, obviously summer.  Is it possible the prewar location of the camping coaches is obscured by the train? 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

A very similar photograph on the Francis Frith website is dated c. 1939:

https://www.francisfrith.com/blue-anchor/blue-anchor-the-promenade-c1939_b124005

 

There are several other photographs on the site almost certainly taken at the same time: https://www.francisfrith.com/blue-anchor/photos

[Welchester]

I agree with the OP that the locomotive appears to have 'GWR' on the tank sides. This would date the photograph to after 1942 1942 or after.

 

Miss Prism's excellent site.

Edited February 21 by Welchester
Corrected date.

[Steamport Southport]

Is the photo a mashup/composite made to sell to the "Wish you were here?" picture postcard market?

 

The part where the train is doesn't seem to match the foreground.....

 

 

Jason

[ikcdab]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

Is the photo a mashup/composite made to sell to the "Wish you were here?" picture postcard market?

 

The part where the train is doesn't seem to match the foreground.....

 

 

Jason

I dont think so. I know this area very well indeed and it looks genuine to me.

[ikcdab]

1 hour ago, petethemole said:

I only see two cars with the slightly rounded body style that came in c1934, from very few makers, so I would suggest 1934-5, obviously summer.  Is it possible the prewar location of the camping coaches is obscured by the train? 

no because the running line goes behind the camping coaches

[ikcdab]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

A very similar photograph on the Francis Frith website is dated c. 1939:

https://www.francisfrith.com/blue-anchor/blue-anchor-the-promenade-c1939_b124005

 

There are several other photographs on the site almost certainly taken at the same time: https://www.francisfrith.com/blue-anchor/photos

Thanks thats well spotted. I think i can see a camping coach just about in the first Frith picture which is not evident in my picture. I agree that the coastal formation is very similar, which suggests that my picture is also pre-war.

 

The pillbox is visible here: https://www.francisfrith.com/blue-anchor/blue-anchor-the-bay-c1955_b124023 which is an entirely different shape. Obviously that was built in 1940.

 

If so, then my pic has to be around 1934, based on the car evidence of @petethemole

[MartinRS]

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

Identifcation of the cars is the clue to the date.

I'm out of my comfort zone when it comes to dating cars but here goes! The two ribs (or painted lines) on the bumper of the car behind the foreground vehicle (with the partially visible number-plate) suggest it is a 1936 Ford V8, if it is in fact a Ford. The single rib on the car behind that one suggest it is a 1934 Ford V8, if that too is a Ford. The next car beyond also has two ribs on the bumper. Lots of ifs there though I would suggest post 1935.

[Wickham Green too]

3 hours ago, ikcdab said:

... The number of cars suggests that this isn't during war-time petrol rationing. ...

... and when headlights would have been partially obscured !

[MartinRS]

BTW I would take care when relying on information about dates and locations of photographs in the Frith Collection. I have found errors in the descriptions of three pictures so far (with another I have yet to inform them about). I each case they agreed that I had found a mistake and amended the photos' descriptions to indicate the actual locations.

[Steamport Southport]

34 minutes ago, ikcdab said:

Thanks thats well spotted. I think i can see a camping coach just about in the first Frith picture which is not evident in my picture. I agree that the coastal formation is very similar, which suggests that my picture is also pre-war.

 

The pillbox is visible here: https://www.francisfrith.com/blue-anchor/blue-anchor-the-bay-c1955_b124023 which is an entirely different shape. Obviously that was built in 1940.

 

If so, then my pic has to be around 1934, based on the car evidence of @petethemole

 

Train doesn't look like though. To me it looks more late 1940s. And if you blow it up that is almost certainly G W R on the tank sides and is probably green which would date it as Post War.

 

 

 

Hence my view that it's two pictures superimposed onto each other as the foreground looks earlier.

 

Could it even be a photo of one of the preserved locomotives as that first carriage looks familiar....

 

https://www.wsrht.co.uk/the-heritage-carriages-project/

 

 

Jason

Edited February 21 by Steamport Southport

[ikcdab]

1 hour ago, Steamport Southport said:

 

Train doesn't look like though. To me it looks more late 1940s. And if you blow it up that is almost certainly G W R on the tank sides and is probably green which would date it as Post War.

 

 

 

Hence my view that it's two pictures superimposed onto each other as the foreground looks earlier.

 

Could it even be a photo of one of the preserved locomotives as that first carriage looks familiar....

 

https://www.wsrht.co.uk/the-heritage-carriages-project/

 

 

Jason

Hi Jason, so you can see my conumdrum.

It definatley is not our sleeping car. I have had this picture for many years, certainly before we finished restoring 9038! and there are two clerestories and several other GWR coaches which we don't own!

I really can't believe its a faked picture. I've had it far too long - my ownership predates photoshop and it would be a very clever photoartist who could manipulate that manually!

so it remains a conumdrum.  I am pretty certain its pre-war because of the lack of the pillbox.

I don't know what time of year the camping coaches were despatched from Swindon to their locations, so maybe its (say) 1935 May bank holiday and the coaches have not yet arrived for the season!

 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

23 minutes ago, ikcdab said:

so maybe its (say) 1935 May bank holiday

Easter was very late in 1935, so Whitsun wasn't until 9th June. I am pretty sure that the bank holiday wasn't moved to the last Monday in May till long after the Second World War (1971 I read in one place). Of course, the early May bank holiday didn't come till a lot later.

[4069]

Everything about that picture- rolling stock liveries, clothes, cars, signage- screams pre-war.

 

I think that's a roundel and a smudge on the loco tank sides.

[Reorte]

Just out of curiosity, since I don't know the area, I've been trying to match it up with Streetview. Has the road been skewed differently since the photo was taken? And whilst every other building might've changed from the angle of the OP's picture I'd have thought the signal box would be visible, although I might well be getting caught out by the exact direction we're looking in due to the change of road.

 

edit: Looking at the old maps, no, just a trick of the camera angles.

Edited February 21 by Reorte

[jim.snowdon]

2 hours ago, ikcdab said:

no because the running line goes behind the camping coaches

From a check on the OS 25" map for c.1928*, the only siding, and therefore lodging for any camping coaches, is on the landward side of the running line. Thus, they would, in this picture, be hiding behind the train.

The absence of the pillbox that was built around the outcrop seen in the picture would also date the photograph to pre-1939.

The same map also shows nothing in regard to the tea rooms that are in the background, so all that can be said, in my view, is that the picture was taken some time between 1928 and 1939.

 

* https://maps.nls.uk/view/106020710

[ikcdab]

29 minutes ago, jim.snowdon said:

From a check on the OS 25" map for c.1928*, the only siding, and therefore lodging for any camping coaches, is on the landward side of the running line. Thus, they would, in this picture, be hiding behind the train.

The absence of the pillbox that was built around the outcrop seen in the picture would also date the photograph to pre-1939.

The same map also shows nothing in regard to the tea rooms that are in the background, so all that can be said, in my view, is that the picture was taken some time between 1928 and 1939.

 

* https://maps.nls.uk/view/106020710

Yes your right. I'm not sure why I put what I did, I know the area so well, perhaps too well.

[doilum]

47 minutes ago, Jeremy Cumberland said:

Easter was very late in 1935, so Whitsun wasn't until 9th June. I am pretty sure that the bank holiday wasn't moved to the last Monday in May till long after the Second World War (1971 I read in one place). Of course, the early May bank holiday didn't come till a lot later.

Spring bank holiday was introduced to “fix” the holiday previously known as Whitsuntide. In some parts of the country this was the time when all the factories in a town took their annual fortnight shut down. As a religious feast it moved around with Easter. 1971 sounds about right.

The early May bank holiday may have had something to do with our friends in Europe.......

[The Johnster]

I'm going to throw my hat in for the post-war team and suggest around 1946-7.  Most private cars at that time were pre-war hangovers, many of which lasted until the introduction of MOT testing (1959?), which wiped them out if a very short time.  New models were slow to make an impression in the immediate post-war period, once they were available (the companies having to re-tool from war production and the products being prioritised for export to help with the dire balance of payments problem), so the blanket presence of 1920s and 30s cars is not a problem for a post-war date.  I think the train's 3rd and 4th coaches are in 1945-7 lined brown austerity livery, which lasted in traffic until the early 50s though was never the most common livery of it's period.  The loco is too dirty and out of focus to provide any livery information

 

OTOH...

 

...The Level Crossing road sign may be a counter-indication.  Road signs were removed during hostilities to confuse 5th columnists and any invaders, abeit their absence probably caused more problems for people on our side; the military replaced them for thier own purposes anyway*.  I am not sure if this only applied to direction signs or if traffic signs such as the LC one here were retained, but if they were removed there is then the question of how quickly (or slowly) they were reinstated after hostilities ceased.  And the 'brown' coaches may be dirty choc/cream pre-war; the light is afternoon summer from the shadow information and it is not always easy to distinguish brown livery in these conditions where the coach side above the tumblehome is catching sunlight more than the part below it, giving a 'two tone' impression in monochrome images.  And the number of cars about seems counter-intuitive to the idea that petrol rationing was in force, which is was for some time after the war had finished.

 

But on balance I think it's post VE day, possibly even the summer of 1945 (most wartime restrictions such as blacked out headlamps were removed after VE and before VJ), or a few years after that.

 

 

*As were station names, but Blue Anchor clearly has it's running-in boards here.  Again, this was to confuse 5th columnists and enemy aerial reconnisance, but caused much more trouble to our own people.  The object was defeated anyway by porters shouting the station names as trains came to a stand... 

[TheSignalEngineer]

3 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

And if you blow it up that is almost certainly G W R on the tank sides and is probably green which would date it as Post War.

I thought at first it was 'GWR' but when I saw it on a big screen on looked more like a water stain directly below the tank vent in the 'G' position. Could it be in Shirtbutton livery? That would tie in with the lack of the Pillbox which I understand was built in 1940.

 

Three letters on car reg plates started to come in c1932. 

 

53 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I think the train's 3rd and 4th coaches are in 1945-7 lined brown austerity livery,

Looking at a large version there are two distinct colours on the sides of the third coach. 

53 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

And the number of cars about seems counter-intuitive to the idea that petrol rationing was in force, which is was for some time after the war had finished.

When the petrol ration was restored in 1945 it was only for enough to do about 90 miles per month. It was stopped again for a short while after a dock strike (1947 -or 48?) and raised to about 180 miles per month until being abolished in 1950.

 

All things considered I would say that it is Summer 1939, the latest date it could have been. It may even have been the Bank Holiday, 7th August 1939, when most people had accepted war was inevitable and people were trying to make the most of their last few days of normality.

 

 

 

[LBRJ]

Having had a look at it in zoomed in on big screen I am going to suggest that it is  pretty immediately post war, say up to about  1946/47.

That is nothing to do with trains or cars or rationing or whatever, it is just that the overall look of the people says late 40s to me - It is certainly not the early 30s, if that is the other likely option.

Edited February 21 by LBRJ