I’ve always been attracted to old photographs that I find in thrift and antique shops. The places and people fascinate me and I can easily imagine an alternate history for the images I find. Having the ability to stand in the same place and shoot a location that another photographer recorded over 150 years earlier, as I did yesterday, helps me feel even more connected to my UK life.

I’m not sure who took this photograph or even when it was taken, but I snapped this framed image in our local pub the other day. It shows a part of our village as it looked before the pub burned down in the mid-nineteenth century. (click to enlarge)

It’s still standing in the photo above so it must have been taken before then. If you look, you can just see its thatched roof through the trees. Disease took all the trees in the 1970s and a group of people from the village later planted the ones that shade the village green today.

Cornish Village 2011

I took this photograph yesterday to show you how little our landscape has changed. The pub was rebuilt in the same place and the small square looking building that was originally a Methodist chapel is still there although the windows and its use have changed a few times.

This is the photo above as it looked before the black and white conversion. We’ve had loads of the sunshine Cornwall is famous for and I wanted you to see how our village green is greening up for spring. Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you a close up of the pub before it burned over 150 years ago and what it looks like now.

I may even have a surprise for you then.