THE guest speaker at the June monthly meeting was Stan Brotherton, author of Evesham Through Time. For those unfamiliar with the publication, it is mainly a collection of photographs of Evesham, half of which are old and the other half up-to-date, which illustrate how the town has changed over time. Mr Brotherton’s focus on this particular occasion was the problems he faced in putting the work together. Access to old photographs was the first obstacle in that, whereas images of Evesham’s famous Bell Tower are plentiful, photographs of the old gas works or the original Evesham College are not. The second obstacle, one which potentially put the author under threat, was accessing the exact location from which the older photograph was originally taken. Add to that the problem of a car (with the registration plate clearly visible) being illegally parked, you can understand why that image was unsuitable for publication!

With the book in hand you can trace the route around Evesham comparing the town as it is now with how it was in the past. Some buildings have, over time, been demolished (Swan Lane School, for example) and been replaced with an open space offering a view (in this case towards Broadway Hill) which years ago was obscured.

Having been involved in the restoration of the Bell Tower, the author was able to have access to its top in order to take photos in all directions, imitating similar images taken many years ago. These recent pictures illustrate clearly the major change which has occurred i.e. the replacement of farmland and orchards with housing developments. The audience was given some interesting figures relating to population. In 1104 it is estimated that approximately 300 people lived here. By the time of the Civil War (500 years later) it had grown to about 2000. Two hundred and fifty years after that, the 1901 census put the figure at just over 7000 and a century later the population had trebled again to just over 22,000. It is expected that the next census will indicate further rapid growth.

Evesham Through Time was launched in April 2016 and has sold well. Although he is aware of two errors, Stan is prepared to listen if anyone comes across any others. The book is still available and you can find out more and see many photographs on the Vale of Evesham Historical Society website.

We are grateful to Stan for a very interesting talk and apologise to him for the technical problems which resulted in his having to amend his presentation at short notice.

GRAHAME PERCIVAL