Lost England – photographs from 1870 to 1930

The Guardian has a rather excellent selection of images from the past.

Images of 19th- and 20th-century England show reality of rotting houses and poverty as well as grand old buildings. Philip Davies, an architectural historian, spent seven years trawling through the photographs, compiling the best 1,500 into a 558-page book entitled Lost England.

Photos of historical England ‘challenge Downton Abbey myth’

Lost England/Rex/Shutterstock

The flooded Lake Street in New Hinksey, Oxfordshire in 1890.

Children in a country lane in Dinton, Buckinghamshire in 1904.

Ironmongers of Maidenhead, Berkshire, 1900.

J Plater’s Cart, Van & Carriage Works, Haddenham, Buckinghamshire, in 1903. The firm employed apprentices as young as 12.

see all of the images here