Festival fun for all

Market Lavington still has a flower and produce show, run in conjunction with that of the Lavington Gardening Club. The village show is open to all and you don’t need to be a green fingered gardener...

The photographer’s shop

There was a photographer’s shop in Market Lavington for about 100 years. Originally Alf Burgess and then his sons had premises almost next to the co-op. When Peter and Bessie Francis set up their bu...

Sergeant’s Mess

This post is really about Market Lavington photographer, Alf Burgess. Alf was not only a photographer, he was very much a business man and he always had thoughts on what would make money. The summer ...

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...

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...

For Mrs Elisha’s Photo Album

Back in the summer of 2010 we looked at some photographic negatives we had at Market Lavington Museum. We are returning to these negatives today – they might have been – probably were – used to ...

Building the Viaduct – a photo by Alf Burgess.

The Market Lavington railway line was a late bit of railway building – being completed in 1900 and opened for passenger trains on 1st October of that year. We have already seen that local photograph...

Hold it! Flash, bang wallop!

What a picture! What a photograph! Our picture today was taken by modern digital technology. If more light was needed, the camera would have made that decision and fired off its electronic flash autom...

Peter Francis’s Letter Scales

When the Burgess family ceased trading as professional photographers in Market Lavington, Peter Francis took up the challenge of being ‘the’ photographer in the village. In these post Second World...

Alf Burgess – Photographer

Market Lavington has been really lucky to have a resident professional photographer since the 1880s. Our first was Mr Alf Burgess who set up his premises on The High Street in 1886. The caption on ...