The Camera Returns

This month we feature 2 seemingly unrelated photos but they are related!

The first is taken on the Ledbury Town football ground at the 'bottom' of New Street and shows members of 5th Battalion Herefordshire Home Guard on parade on the 16 May 1943 - the third anniversary of their formation. Lord Somers, Lord-Lieutenant was the reviewing officer. The other officers include: Colonel Frisby, Major Hatfield, Captains Dougherty and Chapman and Lieutenants Haggard and Slatford. The football ground is still in the same location and the modern photo clearly shows the stone wall separating the football ground from the cemetery.

The second shows the burial of an Italian prisoner of war in Ledbury cemetery. The PoW camp was located in the Southend and is now the site of the John Masefield High School. The photographer was stood on the stone wall. The tree growth in the cemetery makes the modern photo comparison challenging. No trace of a headstone for the PoW could be located.

This month’s photographs are of the Friars St Drill Hall in Hereford.

The Barracks were the home of The HQ and Hereford Companies of The Herefordshire Rifle Volunteer Corps and after the formation of the Territorial Force in 1908 it became the location of a Rifle Coy of the new Herefordshire Regiment. The HQ of the new Regiment was in the old Militia Barracks in Harold St.

The Barracks ‘closed’ after the Second World War – the corrugated iron Drill Hall became a bus garage and the only link to the military was (and still is) the Military Club on the site. The club is still there and the site is now a sheltered housing development – ‘Williams’ Grange’ names after a permanent Staff Instructor who served at the Barracks for many years – William Pullinger.

It is difficult to get the exact perspective of the then and now due to new buildings but the church spire of All Saints and the tower of St Nicholas are excellent reference points.

This month's feature shows a photograph of C (Ledbury) Company of The Herefordshire Regiment mobilising on August 5th 1914. The company had formed up at the Drill Hall in New Street and marched to the station led by a Boy Scout band. They then entrained and joined with the rest of the Battalion at Hereford before travelling on to their war station at Pembroke Dock.

The 1914 photo is taken looking towards Hereford, the rails to the branch line to Gloucester (a Beeching loss!) can clearly be seen. In the current photo all of the station buildings have gone as has the roof of the bridge.