Interwar Great Dunmow from the air
In 1928, an aeroplane flying above the skies of East Anglia, took these incredible aerial photographs of Great Dunmow
St Mary’s Church, Churchend, Great Dunmow. The churchyard is in the top left of the photo; the vicarage is opposite the entrance to the church. Bottom right is the cluster of houses in Church Street.
The junction of Market Street and High Street, Great Dunmow. The building at the top of the photograph (facing towards the camera) is the Starr Inn. The Tudor Town Hall (dating from the 16th Century) is the large building (with 3 windows facing the camera) on the right just after the junction .
Hasler and Company Corn and Seed Merchants, Great Dunmow. The tracks of the Bishops Stortford to Braintree branch line visible at the front of Hasler’s building. Chelmsford Road is the line of houses running horizontally across the photograph – with the fields & trees of Dunmow Park immediately behind the road. Great Dunmow Park is the far edge of the site of the original medieval manor of Great Dunmow. This manor was dower land given to Katherine of Aragon by Henry VIII when he married her in 1509.
Hasler and Company Corn and Seed Merchants, Great Dunmow. The railway line was closed to passengers in 1952, and freight in 1971. Great Dunmow’s bypass (the B1256) now follows the route of the railway line and the Flitch Way Country Park runs alongside.
All photos on this page appear by kind courtesy of English Heritage’s Britain from Above project. Click each photo to be taken directly to the Britain from Above website.
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You may also be interested in the following
(These posts have early 20th Century real photograph postcards of the areas covered in this page’s aerial photographs)
– Queen Elizabeth’s Visit to Great Dunmow
– Postcard home from the front
– Medieval Wills and Religious Bequests
– The Willet Family of Great Dunmow
– Tudor Administration within Great Dunmow
Comment (4)
Barbara Monajem| 12th August 2013
What fascinating photos. Whenever I get the chance to read your blog, I enjoy it very much. Thanks!
Andrew D Jones| 12th August 2013
I love looking at old images like this; it’s all the more interesting if you can compare them to what’s there today. If you don’t know an area, and I don’t know Great Dunmow at all, the satellite view on Google Maps can give a very good idea once you manage to get the orientation right.
the narrator| 12th August 2013
Doh! I hadn’t thought of using Google. I’ve been sat here wondering how to get modern-day comparison photos!
I found it amazing that the original medieval layout of a market town is very evident from the 2nd photograph (it’s still the same shape today).
Also, in the 3rd photo – there is the line of modern houses running horizontally across the landscape, but behind them, the fields and trees are still showing signs of a medieval park.
In the first photo, the church is absolutely massive compared to the buildings directly around it. It must have been an incredible awe-inspiring sight to our medieval ancestors.
Peter John Lawrence| 3rd November 2019
Good photos. Thank you.
I lived in Gr Dunmow from about 1943-4 until 1958 when I married there in St Mary’s and moved to Chelmsford to complete an appreeeticesipp then to London U. at Imperial college and then to Canada..