Tristan Appleby
Grove Farm Dairy, 29 High Street, Wanstead
Not one of my shots, but I printed this from an old glass negative. The negative was even larger than the 10 x 8 inch paper I was using but this captures most of the fascinating scene which looks very low-tech compared to today's sterilised stainless steel plants. There are various bits of apparatus here including machinery obviously for filling bottles, along with some more mysterious items, perhaps used for pasteurising the milk or separating the cream. I would guess from the appearance of the gentlemen in the photograph and the gas lighting that this dates from about 1920 or perhaps a little earlier.
This was one of a set of glass plate negatives kept by my English / photography teacher, who told me that he had happened to be passing a former photographer's studio (in Wanstead, I think) which had long since closed and was being refurbished. The entire negative archive was being chucked in a skip by the builders, and this was one of just a few images that he managed to rescue.
Grove Farm Dairy, 29 High Street, Wanstead
Not one of my shots, but I printed this from an old glass negative. The negative was even larger than the 10 x 8 inch paper I was using but this captures most of the fascinating scene which looks very low-tech compared to today's sterilised stainless steel plants. There are various bits of apparatus here including machinery obviously for filling bottles, along with some more mysterious items, perhaps used for pasteurising the milk or separating the cream. I would guess from the appearance of the gentlemen in the photograph and the gas lighting that this dates from about 1920 or perhaps a little earlier.
This was one of a set of glass plate negatives kept by my English / photography teacher, who told me that he had happened to be passing a former photographer's studio (in Wanstead, I think) which had long since closed and was being refurbished. The entire negative archive was being chucked in a skip by the builders, and this was one of just a few images that he managed to rescue.