Remember the workers (From Basingstoke Gazette)
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Remember the workers
10:15am Friday 3rd August 2012 in Romsey
Market Place receiving its first-ever coat of tarmac around 1910
Images of Romsey people at work form the basis of an exhibition being staged by the Friends of Botley Road Cemetery.
The Friends are breaking with tradition and putting on their display in the Town Hall. The exhibition will be open to visitors next Friday (August 10) and the following from 10am to 4pm.
It draws on photographs in the LTVAS Group collection and from the extensive range of photos taken by Pat Sillence, many of whose pictures appeared in the Romsey Advertiser.
The Friends are hoping that local people will come and help put names to faces .
The display will consist of nine boards, each dedicated to a particular theme.
On the industrial side, Strong’s Brewery, Wills Nursery and the jam factory are featured.
Retail is represented by two boards showing shops, banks and a rare picture of the Post Office staff in the former sorting office at the rear of the building that is now NatWest Bank. In this group are pictures of the town’s markets, including the cattle market in the Market Place, the retail market in the Dolphin Yard and a single picture of the Women’s Institute market.
Garages have a place of their own, with pictures of Mitchell’s in Middlebridge Street, and Wrynams, in Winchester Road. The building industry is represented by pictures of buildings being constructed, repaired and demolished and the final board is devoted to road maintenance.
In addition, there will be further pictures shown on a screen and these include some of the long-gone Berthon boatyard.
The Friends will have their extensive list of burials available to people who want to find graves in Botley Road and there will be a stall of local history books.
