Can you help identify people in a mystery photo album?

Our recent Found it! event was a great success, with a plethora of interesting items being brought along for our experts from Bristol Museums, Bristol Archives and the Bristol and Avon Archaeological Society to look at.

Local residents brought along found documents, bottles, pieces of pottery, some apothecary jars left in the old doctors surgery, two dentists signs and even an old Spillers of Avonmouth sack which had been found lagging a water tank.

One of the most intriguing items was a photo album, found in a loft in Sylvan Way which included a large amount of unlabelled photographs. Thanks to some detective work done by Sea Mills 100 and Bristol Archives this has now been returned to one of the families featured in the album. We are still keen however to identify some of the other people in the photographs and possible work out how it came to be left in Sea Mills, in a house which has no obvious connection to the people pictured.

The featured image above is the wedding of Betty Sweet to Cecil Bradford at Buckingham Chapel in 1945. At least one other wedding at the chapel features in the album, that of Joyce Locke and Frank Flew in 1948. Click on the images below to see bigger versions of some of the other photographs.

Upcoming events in 2022

Community Voice magazine

If you have seen the latest edition of The Community Voice for Sea Mills and Coombe Dingle you may already know that we have some exciting events happening this year.

Your Stories – from late April to July we will be giving people the opportunity to come to Sea Mills Library and record stories from their lives. This could be anything from one event or anecdote you want to tell us or a chat through your life experience. You can do this by yourself or with a friend or family member. A volunteer from Sea Mills 100 will be on hand to prompt and ask questions and will actually make the recording. All ages are welcome, but those under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Sessions will be on Saturday afternoons and must be pre-booked. Book here now

The final recordings will be archived by Bristol Libraries and may be available for the public to listen to in the library, online and used in the Sea Mills 100 project. Participants will be asked to sign a form to allow this to happen, but only after they have completed their recording and are happy with it.

Bristol Walkfest – 15th May – 2pm An easy paced, short heritage walk around Sea Mills. This walk will be led by local residents and explore the oldest part of the area, taking in the Square, the first houses and the area around Sea Mills Farm. Booking is essential and is now available online. The walk is free but there will be an opportunity to make a donation to Sea Mills 100 at the end of the walk. This walk is part of Bristol Walkfest.

Found it! – 9th July – 10am – 2pm at the Cafe on the Square. Found it! is our accidental finds event. We want to see objects people have found in their houses left by previous occupants. Every object tells a tale and we will have experts on hand from Bristol Museums and Archives to help us identify the objects and unlock their stories. No booking is necessary for this event, just turn up with your found object or if it’s too big or fixed, bring a photograph.