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Time Travel, Looking at Images of Castles from the Past

We can get a good idea of what state many of the castles were like in the period 1890 to 1910, as they were photographed and within the Photochrome Collection in the Photo Archive,   there are examples of many of these images. The whole of the UK and Ireland is fully indexed and available for you to see, take locations then Photo Archive on our menu bar on the left to get to these images.

These images are interesting as they are taken before restoration, many ruins are covered in ivy, but also in some cases are more complete and with water still in moats that are dry today.

Below are some photographs taken recently and on the right some of the Photochromes taken around 1900.

Raglan Castle, Monmouthshire

It would be an interesting project at some point to visit some of these castles with prints of the Photochromes and attempt to duplicate the images, showing a current image to match the old one.

In some cases, as in the case of the Chepstow Castle,  images below, quite large and significant changes have occurred, in these pictures a waterway has disappeared.

Chepstow Castle,  Monmouthshire

Click on any of these smaller images to see a larger version

Camera Images have made a collection of these colour prints re-photographed them and edited them so as to produce art images marketed by Cotswold Pictures, and the GBPictures Archive. In total they have over 1500 covering England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland and they can be currently seen online. See An introduction to Photochromes   for more information on this. You may also want to see all the Photochromes in our Photo Archive with many images.

Other prints, mostly black and white, can often be found in local museums, and there are many collections online.

To get back before the camera, we need other resources:-

• Many artists throughout history have featured castles or historic wrecks in their paintings, and while these cannot always be relied upon for accuracy they may offer another view.

• Illustrations produced as engravings can also offer another set of examples.

See Also:

Then and Now Photography

Where to Get Old Prints From

How to Photograph Old Prints

How to Find Locations

Local History

John Constable Painting Locations