Second Apley Archives Exhibition, Wed 28 May

The Second Apley Archives Exhibition will be launched on Wed 28 May in The Creamery at Apley Farm Shop, 6-7.30pm. All are welcome.

If you have any Apley / Norton relevant photos, documents, newspaper articles & other materials which you’re happy for us to scan & share, we can scan them in during the evening.

I’ve kept the ‘chapters’ of the exhibition similar to the last one, but this time have included some First World War photos (2014 being the 100th anniversary), Apley Walled Garden archive photos, River Severn, Apley Bridge & High Rock photos & a few of the Foster family portraits.

Here’s one of AW Foster’s photo of trenches in the snow in Nov 1914 near Klein-Zillebeke.  I didn’t know that soldiers were allowed to take cameras to the front up until 1915 after which they were banned, so these 1914 photos we have in the Foster photo albums are rare.

As we know, AW Foster of Apley Park had inherited significant wealth, so for him to have the latest gadget was expected. Cameras really only came into use after 1890, only 24 years before the First World War broke out. Very few could afford them & technological advances were not super rapid as they have been in the past 3 decades for us.