Introduction
We are fortunate that several early twentieth century photographers took photographs of our village. Robert H Clarke from Royston and Bell’s Photo Company of Westcliff-on-Sea are two such companies and on this page, I have attempted to catalogue and date the Meldreth postcards produced by Bell’s.
Bell’s took photographs not only of the Church and the village’s quaint thatched cottages, but also of the school, the railway station and the newly built council houses, so creating an invaluable picture of the village.
Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to find a catalogue of Bell’s postcards.
Each of their postcards of Meldreth has a six digit number, starting with “1023..”. So far, we have identified a sequence of 71 numbers and from that sequence, have found and scanned all but three of the postcards (numbers 102330, 102383 and 102391). We would be particularly grateful to receive scans of any of these.
The images below are shown in numerical order of reference number. Where evidence of the date of the postcard exists, this has been noted below each photograph’s caption. All the evidence so far points to all of these photographs having been taken in the 1920s.
How you can help
Please add a comment to the bottom of this page or email us if you can help with the following:
- If you know of a catalogue of Bell’s postcards
- If you can date any of these images
- If you are a postcard collector and have additional images of Meldreth, we would be very grateful for copies of those.
- If you own any Bell’s postcards that have been postally used, then it would be a great help to us to know the date of posting.
Thank you.
Comments about this page
Hi, I would date these cards as 1925. I have hundreds of Bell’s cards on my web site harwichanddovercourt.com
Many thanks adding a comment, Gail. A William Flitton was a miller at Sheene Mill from at least 1858 until 1869. An auction of his goods and “live and dead farming stock” was held at the mill in September 1869 because he was “quitting”. He is listed in several of the trade directories which we have transcribed on this site. Members of his family later lived in the Mill House in Shepreth (a neighbouring village). Ralph Henry Flitton was listed as a miller in 1888, and was almost certainly at Sheene Mill. By the time of the 1891 census, he was a “fruit grower” living in North End, Meldreth.
I have a photo postcard of Meldreth Brewery, not numbered but “Pub by Robert H Clark” is printed in the bottom right corner. It is postmarked Royston May 4 05 and was received by my great grandmother Mrs Ralph Henry Flitton in Vancouver on May 8 1905. I can scan it for you if you are interested. I also have postcards 102389 and 102394 and on the back of the latter someone has written “still Miss Mortlocks they look older” which may help with dating. Sadly no postmark. I believe my great grandfather was a miller in Meldreth – possibly Sheene Mill – until 1892 when he encountered “financial difficulties”. I would be grateful if anyone could verify this for me. Many thanks.
I am involved with the Barton Turf History Project. I have images of a number of postcards of Barton Turf and Barton Broad which I believe are Bell’s. Number 84960 shows Barton Turf Church with two lines of lime saplings which were planted in 1922 when the Lychgate War Memorial was completed, so this photograph was probably taken soon after. Number 84962 shows the Lychgate itself and was obviously taken at the same time. I also have a postcard of Barton Broad that was posted in 1935. It is numbered 157925. That puts your Meldreth sequence somewhere between 1922 and 1935. I hope this helps.
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