Blast from the Past: The old aerial photo of our property was a cherished 'artwork'
These were a common sight in rural communities, a picture of your house, hung up on a wall (usually the hall), so that those coming into your home could survey your estate with a bird’s eye view (and, with any luck, turn green with envy!)
These photos were a way of saying (without actually saying) to visitors, ‘this is my home and my castle….and I am the proud owner of all these out houses and fields and hedges and livestock that look like dots in my sprawling acreage….haven’t I done well for myself!’
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdBasically someone went up in a helicopter or light aircraft and took photos of properties in the area – like this one, taken in the 1960s. They then went door-to-door selling prints, which were framed and hung as proudly as a great Renaissance master.
The only issue was that you never knew when the photographer was going to take to the skies, so the garden could have been a mess, the hedges could have done with a trim and perhaps there were a couple of broken down Ladas behind the turf shed and a heap of rusting farm machinery near the byre. Nevertheless, these photos were a way of immortalising the places we lived and loved.