Peter Francis – his home and shop

Peter Francis almost became our village photographer by accident – or perhaps that should say by illness. He had been destined to be a part of the family butchery business but ill health found him u...

The Photographer’s Shop

Market Lavington no longer has a photographer’s shop – something it had for 100 years or so in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We are pleased that a fairly recent photo of Peter Franc...

You Dirty Boys!

Today we have one of our more delightful photos. It shows Mrs Marion Burgess and two of her sons, Alan and Charlie. The photo was taken by Marion’s husband, Alf Burgess in around 1900. Alf earned hi...

Who are they?

Today we look at another photo which has just been given to the museum. It is a fabulous studio portrait by Alf Burgess. The photo was recently sold on an internet auction site. Sadly, we do not k...

Photographer’s Negative Wallet

The little wallet which came back from the photographer or chemist – the one that held our holiday snaps – has all but vanished. The absolute deluge of photos taken these days are virtually all st...

Another photo of the Burgess Brothers

Yes, we have seen photos of Burgess brothers before – and no wonder. Their father, Alfred, was the village photographer. But here we have a delightful photo which was both decorative and served a fu...

Mrs Burgess and a baby

The Burgess family feature quite often in these pages. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of photos since two generations of the family were the professional photographers in the village. Here we see ...

Believe it or not?

Can we believe the written word? Often we can, but certainly not always. Today’s blog is a case in point. We were looking through some old CDVs we had. CDV stands for Carte de Visite and they were ...

Mr Burgess gets a delivery

As a photographer, Alf Burgess would have been in frequent need of supplies. He’d have needed, in particular, the chemicals for developing and fixing film and prints. This label tells us that he got...

Robin and Queenie Burgess

Robin Burgess was one of the sons of Alf the photographer. He was born in the spring of 1888 and actually given the names Robert William. But he always seems to have been known as Robin. When his dad...