Horses on Beech Road on a summers day sometime around 1900

It is a picture that regularly crops up in the collections and dates from around 1900.

Now this I know because the Travellers Rest on the left of the picture was still selling beer as it had been since the 1830s but its days were numbered and it would be gone by 1909.

We are on Beech Road and the man in the apron is Mr Neale the butcher, but the identity of the lad on the horse has been lost.

It would be fascinating to know who he was and what he was doing. I guess he might be the son of one of our farmers which is a good enough way to include the picture in the occasional series on the contribution of horses to the life of the township.

 There were still enough farms around the village to remind the casual visitor that were still a rural community, and as if he needed any further reminder, just a little further back up Beech Road he could have seen Mr Clarke the blacksmith going about his business of heating and hammering.

Location; Beech Road

 Picture; from the collection of Tony Walker, circa 1900