Burges from Cross Cheaping

This 1892 shot looking back from Cross Cheaping down the Burges towards Bishop Street is not quite so recognisable. Most of the shops at this top end of the road on the right hand side were demolished to clear the way for the original Owen Owen as part of the 1937 Trinity Street project and in my opinion have never been replaced with anything of architectural merit. Rolling your mouse over this 1892 photo will reveal a shot from around 1940 showing the then new store on the right shortly before it burnt out in the blitz.

Rolling your mouse over the lower 2003 image will show a magnified section of the 1892 photo above. The amazing detail visible is testament to the superb quality attainable in Victorian times. People can clearly be seen walking up Bishop Street in the distance, and the shop sign "Comley's Furniture" can be read further down at number 1 & 2 the Burges, next to Well Street.

The photo that I took is actually standing further forward toward the Burges than in the first shot. To take the picture from the same place today would mean standing inside the Primark store, formerly Allders, and before that, Owen Owen, which sits across the route of the original Cross Cheaping. The modern buildings nearest to us on the right would have been behind the site of the ill-fated 1937 Owen Owen store, which would have been exactly to the right of the photographer.
The distant large red-brick construction in the centre of the photo is the Royal Mail sorting office in Bishop Street.

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