During the summer of 2021, Gorgon Stone Conservation was employed to perform what they thought to be a simple paint stripping job on a Georgian building in the centre of the town, only to discover three different layers of old signage underneath. The company carefully removed the paint to reveal a wonderful glimpse at some of the former lives of this unusual curved property, situated at 1 Market Place (formally 25 Bath Street) in Frome, Somerset. I was intrigued to know what I could find out about the businesses on the old signage, uncovering over 200 years of history, stretching all the way along from 24 Bath Street to 1-3 Market Place.
I have had in my possession a splendid pile of Victorian family photographs since 1993, originally discovered in the basement of the ground floor flat at 29 Logan Road, Bishopston, Bristol in the early 1970s by my parents. The flat was rented from one of two spinster sisters called LEE, one of which had been a Botanist. Only two of the photographs had names on and I wondered if I could discover any more.
This page contains all the photographs found in the Lee Sisters family album, organised by decade taken (to the best of my ability). Do you recognise anyone?
There were nine different photographers amongst the Lee sisters Cartes de Vista taken in various places around Somerset. Can you help identify anyone?
A “little” bit of detective work caught my eye on the Bristol & Avon Family History Society’s Facebook page in mid-Jan, regarding a Captain JOSEPH CHARLES NEWTON, possibly of Bristol, who died in Epping, Victoria, Australia in 1903. I wondered what I could find out.
A new bit of detective work caught my eye during October with a request from Maureen Humphries for help identifying James GULLIVER who died in Bath, Somerset in 1915, and his daughter Mary (Maureen’s great-grandmother) who was born in Bristol in 1879. Could I track them down in census records?
Using census and electoral records I have been able to trace the occupants of 7 Tennyson Road from 1899 (two years after it was built) to 1939 (three years before it sustained serious war damage and was rebuilt), so more or less covering its existence in its original form.
