CAVENDISH AERIAL PIC FROM 1945

[Duncan Cheslett]

For years myself and others including our architect Jonathan Gaunt have been trying to track down an aerial pic of Cavendish from the 1945 RAF survey of the entire country. We knew it must exist but all enquiries to Historic England proved fruitless. Their being closed during the pandemic didn't help.


Suddenly however, Historic England have released an online resource allowing us to search their archive via an interactive map.


https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/



And there it was!

IMG_7069 by Duncan

The online version was rather blurry, but a little magic from Tommy Nac has sharpened it up no end.

A comparison with a recent pic can easily be made.

IMG_7070 by Duncan Cheslett, on Flickr





 

[James Boon]

Thanks Duncan,

Squinting at blurry black and white aerial photos is just as tricky as squinting at old newspaper extracts that archivists often drag up, the main difference being I've more experience of the aerial photographs so perhaps find it a bit easier, but only just!

A few things stand out on a first view. Firstly the width of the fairways in a few places is very wide and great to see. Second there look to be less bunkers (maybe they arent as clear, but I was expecting to see bright white sand?    ) and lastly, is that the bunker short left of the par 3 13th looks pretty big? I always thought it might have been from the scale of the grassy hollow there, but from that picture it looks pretty big?

I'm sure others will spot other points of interest!?

Cheers,

James

[James Reader]

There’s another photo from a slightly different angle which shows that bunker (or what certainly looks like a bunker to me) more clearly, James.


https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/record/RAF_CPE_UK_2598_RP_3119