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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.

Weston-Super-Mare 1946
Wedding of Joyce Lock and Frank Flew, Buckingham Chapel 1948
“Art and Nora’s wedding June 8th 1949”
Do you have any information about these photographs?

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Found it!

Sea Mills Square – Sat 9th July 2022 – 10am – 2pm

Have you ever found objects in your home, perhaps in the attic or under the floor boards left by previous occupants? Have you stripped wallpaper and found endless layers underneath or even a scribbled message? 

Sea Mills 100 who run the mini-museum in the phone box in Sea Mills Square have teamed up with the Bristol and Avon Archaeological Society, Bristol Museums and Bristol Archives and they want to see your found objects.

“Every object has a story, and found objects can often tell you something about the history of your home and its previous occupants” says Sea Mills 100 co-ordinator Mary Milton, “we hope to reveal some of these hidden stories by putting local people together with experts from Bristol Museums and Archives and the local archaeological society,” she adds.

Sea Mills 100 are asking people to bring their small found objects to their “Found it!” event on at the Cafe on the Square, Sea Mills. For objects that are too large or not moveable they suggest people bring a photograph instead.

Mary is hoping for an interesting haul, “It will be great to see what people bring along. I expect we will see a lot of smaller items like cigarette cards or tickets which can be really interesting, hopefully we will be able to date them. We might also see some larger items or objects left from businesses that were run here in years gone by.”

Bristol Museums will also be bringing some of their handling collection for the public to see, along with some images of the local area.

Found it! Takes place at the Café on the Square BS9 2DY on Saturday 9th July 10am – 2pm

In the event of poor weather this event will take place in Sea Mills Methodist Church – also on the Square.

If you are coming along, why not let us know on our facebook event page