Old photos of house

[MetManMark]

All
We are hoping to reinstate the chimneys that used to be on the gable end of our house. These were taken down completely relatively recently but before that they had been lowered to just above the roof level. We would like to find out the height to which they were originally. I have managed to find some old photos of our house at local village fetes but they don't show the chimneys as they don't extend that high up. I was wondering whether there was a better way of finding old photos of houses (ours is listed and just off the main street of the town). Are there any online archives etc? I have tried searching but thought I'd ask here in case there was something simple that I hadn't come across.
Cheers
Mark

 

[JoceAndChris]

I don't think there are any online resources for old photos, no. Is there much written about the history of your town? We've a local boffin who's written 3 or so books on Grantham, loads of photos in there ( but none of our house). It's certainly worth trawling through the local history in the library. Hope you can find something. You might even come across a painting of the town showing the chimneys.

Linked to this business of research, if you can get a name of early inhabitants it's worth a few hours with Google to see what the searches on the name throw up. Gareth has just found for me that John Hall, who probably ordered the building of BC, and was likely the first occupant, ordered a translation of a religious French poem "Joseph " in the 1820s. There's also a letter to him from a local gentleman asking his opinion of the value of some land locally, a legal document reporting he was assaulted and robbed of his gold watch, the miscreants guilty of this transported to Australia, and his will is available to go and look at the Lincolnshire Archives, which I must do.

The crumbs available online give me a link to his status and personality, which indicate how the house was originally functioning. It's rewarding to find out what you can!

 

[Jellyfire]

They didn't cover us, but maybe worth a look at http://www.francisfrith.com , lots of old pics on there. Also have a look on http://www.picturesofengland.com , found a pic of our house from a few years ago on there. I presume you've done a google image search of your house name/address? If not try that and look through every page. A few pics of ours appeared on there including the one on the site above

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Devon Record Office has a very large collection of illustrations, but rather poorly catalogued with little, as yet, available online
http://www.devon.gov.uk/record_office.htm

 

[worms]

I presume you've done a google image search of your house name/address? If not try that and look through every page. A few pics of ours appeared on there including the one on the site above

I've just tried that and now have cottage envy! So many gorgeous places that have similar names to our place!