Normanby Local History Logo And Banner
Normanby Local History Logo And Banner for printing

Old Postcards of Normanby and Eston
. . . . by Dr John Bean   sent 8th April 2016  

I enclose two postcards for your Group to use.

   The Normanby one has very poor printing on the front but it reads 'West Lodge, Normanby'.
   Although it is many years since I was resident in the locality, I am fairly sure that West Lodge is the house which stood almost directly opposite the lane which led up to Normanby Hall cricket ground: maybe the lane is still there?  I think I can just see the entrance at the extreme lower right of the photograph.
   The mode of transport in the centre of the photo is new to me and must be the pre-cursor to the motorbike and sidecar.
   The photograph is probably pre-WW1 from the way that the two girls are dressed.

   The Eston photograph is of interest to me as it contains the house in which I lived from 1932 until 1953.  It is amazing that if one omits the wall and shrubbery on the left (which is where Eston Square now sits) the scene is exactly as I remember it: the shops are in the same sites but with different facades.
   The two boys in front of the right-hand shop are holding on to a water hydrant which was there in my time.  When threshing time came at Richardson's farm the traction-engine would stop at the hydrant to fill with water, as did steam-rollers when they were repairing or re-surfacing the roads.
   The only real differences I can see are that the road looks to be unsurfaced and we had street-lights.
   The post-mark on the reverse is dated August 8th 1911.

 -----Yours sincerely, John Bean (Pickhill, N.Yorkshire)-----

[WebMaster: Thanks John - for providing more of your interesting recollections.
  If anyone has further information or memories of the above
              - - then please Contact us!]