As it seems a few of us have found a common interest in our local history, would it be worthwhile to create a new section in the forum?
Just a thought
Town History?
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Illuminance
- Posts: 84
- Joined: 14 Mar 2005 16:49
- Location: Tunbridge Wells
Town History?
Admin
As it seems a few of us have found a common interest in our local history, would it be worthwhile to create a new section in the forum?
Just a thought
As it seems a few of us have found a common interest in our local history, would it be worthwhile to create a new section in the forum?
Just a thought
Hi - I've just moved a lot of history stuff from Town Hall to Town Cafe - currently the place for history and nostalgia.
Firstly I would like to move a vote of thanks to Falkor for his great work so far and the many pictures he has made available here. I think a proper online history of Sydenham would be a great thing. I'm not sure the best place is in the Forum. A Forum is a 'push-down' sort of place where today's conversation supercedes yesterday's - which is not how history works.
I would be delighted if we could start a history project - either to be housed on the ST website, SydSoc or on Falkor's own site (or any combination of the three). I spoke with the SydSoc webmaster today and he shares my enthusiam. Should we start with, say, Wells Park Road?
Watchafink Falkor? Anybody else up for it?
Admin
Firstly I would like to move a vote of thanks to Falkor for his great work so far and the many pictures he has made available here. I think a proper online history of Sydenham would be a great thing. I'm not sure the best place is in the Forum. A Forum is a 'push-down' sort of place where today's conversation supercedes yesterday's - which is not how history works.
I would be delighted if we could start a history project - either to be housed on the ST website, SydSoc or on Falkor's own site (or any combination of the three). I spoke with the SydSoc webmaster today and he shares my enthusiam. Should we start with, say, Wells Park Road?
Watchafink Falkor? Anybody else up for it?
Admin
Sounds good... If we were to work together on a history project, here's some ideas/opinions on what I personally believe would result in the perfect website.
Graphics
My artistic skills are shite, so the Admin could design the basic blue colour scheme to fit in with the rest of the Sydenham Town website.
Photos / Illustrations
There needs to be a huge collection of photos showcasing as many different parts of a road or place, and if possible, from different times (ie. before and after). The photos need to be decent quality and should pop up in fullscreen size (average desktop resolution = 800 x 600). I could ask the LMA if we could use their photos, providing we credit them. Sydenham Society could ask permission from Steve Grindlay, John Seaman/Coulter and Lewisham Local Studies Centre for other views.
Database
Each photo should be assigned a year (and circa if it applies) or rough period/decade. One or many place names can then be assigned to each photo, ie. Wells Park Road, Springfield Rise, Duke of Edinburgh. The user can then click on Springfield Rise to bring up a page of photos associated with that road in chronological order, including alternative road names underneath the heading, ie. Springfield Road. Each place page should have an introduction/preface and each photo should have a caption (Steve Grindlay/Pat would be excellent candidates for this job).
Maps
Underneath the introducton text, each place page could have several maps showing how the road evolved over time. Below are some examples of maps I'm aware of--mainly thanks to Steve Grindlay.
1812 Enclosure map
1843 Tithe map
1849 Drainage map
1862 Standford map
1865 OS map
1871 OS map
1878 Standford map
1894 OS map
1914 OS map
Post WWII maps as well?
What other ones are there?
Each photo should also have a single relevant map showing which part of the road and which direction it was taken (see my Rosamond Street thread).
With help and permission from you guys, I could get this system up and running in no time, and we could build on it over time. Let me know what you think... more ideas as I think of them...
Graphics
My artistic skills are shite, so the Admin could design the basic blue colour scheme to fit in with the rest of the Sydenham Town website.
Photos / Illustrations
There needs to be a huge collection of photos showcasing as many different parts of a road or place, and if possible, from different times (ie. before and after). The photos need to be decent quality and should pop up in fullscreen size (average desktop resolution = 800 x 600). I could ask the LMA if we could use their photos, providing we credit them. Sydenham Society could ask permission from Steve Grindlay, John Seaman/Coulter and Lewisham Local Studies Centre for other views.
Database
Each photo should be assigned a year (and circa if it applies) or rough period/decade. One or many place names can then be assigned to each photo, ie. Wells Park Road, Springfield Rise, Duke of Edinburgh. The user can then click on Springfield Rise to bring up a page of photos associated with that road in chronological order, including alternative road names underneath the heading, ie. Springfield Road. Each place page should have an introduction/preface and each photo should have a caption (Steve Grindlay/Pat would be excellent candidates for this job).
Maps
Underneath the introducton text, each place page could have several maps showing how the road evolved over time. Below are some examples of maps I'm aware of--mainly thanks to Steve Grindlay.
1812 Enclosure map
1843 Tithe map
1849 Drainage map
1862 Standford map
1865 OS map
1871 OS map
1878 Standford map
1894 OS map
1914 OS map
Post WWII maps as well?
What other ones are there?
Each photo should also have a single relevant map showing which part of the road and which direction it was taken (see my Rosamond Street thread).
With help and permission from you guys, I could get this system up and running in no time, and we could build on it over time. Let me know what you think... more ideas as I think of them...
Last edited by Falkor on 10 Oct 2006 20:15, edited 1 time in total.
To be honest, without Steve Grindlay's help I don't think it's even worth attempting this project... so please see what Steve thinks first before we meet up and kick it off... Again, this proposed project/website is something that could be built on over time. If Steve could help contribute some text/information every fortnight or so during his free time then I think it would be worth it. Before we do anything, we need to first check with the LMA, as they have all the best photos. To reiterate... If we can secure help from Sydenham Society, and most importantly, permission, from the other parties I mentioned then that would put all the complications aside for us to begin. Otherwise, it's not worth my effort...Howsabout we meet up and kick it off? (anybody interested is also invited). My place? (Lawrie Park) lunchtime or evening?
Steve's view (and I'm sure he will be along later to correct if neccessary) was that LMA were unlikely to licence reproduction on the web for nowt. That is awkward but not insuperable. You might recall that Lewisham have sponsored other local historical sites based on photos.
Which is why we might need to put our thinking caps on and see what can be done quickly and legally. If we can get a proto-site up & going we can then try and get more old photos either directly or sponsored by other folks.
Take heart. Is lunchtime or evening best for you. Any days you can't do?
Admin
Which is why we might need to put our thinking caps on and see what can be done quickly and legally. If we can get a proto-site up & going we can then try and get more old photos either directly or sponsored by other folks.
Take heart. Is lunchtime or evening best for you. Any days you can't do?
Admin
BTW, I know a website that currently displays one or more LMA photos; they were given permission on the one condition that LMA be credited (the exact details I do not know). Of course, LMA are not obliged to give every website the same permission. As Greg says "If you don't ask you don't get". Perhaps, we could devise a letter asking them for permission. We already have the copies, just not the rights, so it would be no grief on their part to grant us this favour. We could offer to credit them with a link to their website in every caption, so see what they say... If all else fails, I'm sure Steve would know a few contacts he could rely on to supply some nice photos for this proposed online project of ours. Plus, there's that nice shot of Acacia Road from the Sydenham Society's own collection etc.
Using 3 photos, I'll design a prototype--with no graphics--of the sort of website and ideas I have in mind. I should have something to show you in the next 48 hours.
Using 3 photos, I'll design a prototype--with no graphics--of the sort of website and ideas I have in mind. I should have something to show you in the next 48 hours.
Okay, what about something like this?
http://www11.asphost4free.com/falkor/test
Any feedback on the system? Graphics could do with some major tweaking to appear more like this website (that's where the admin would come into it). So just concentrating on the technical side and user interaction, please let me know your opinions... still need to implement the display of maps.
http://www11.asphost4free.com/falkor/test
Any feedback on the system? Graphics could do with some major tweaking to appear more like this website (that's where the admin would come into it). So just concentrating on the technical side and user interaction, please let me know your opinions... still need to implement the display of maps.
Yep - I see this as a three-way interaction:
* The infrastructure (ie hosting, finding & navigating content)
* Pix, Maps & other graphics - ie visual content
* Commentary, questions & comment - ie text content
Plays to the different strengths of us all? The key is connecting all this but make the development independent/autonomous. So you can stick pix on as you get them, commentary and questions can be added by others at a later time.
What would be really great if it was succesful enough to encourage our old Sydenham dispora who do revisit us to dig in their albums and add more content that would otherwise have been dispersed and lost.
I'm caught between a rock & a hard place on this. Like you it would be great to get something/anything up pdq but I'm leaving tonight till the 24th. I will, if Steve is willing, get a meet that week. Meanwhile, if I have time I might start playing around with the photos you have already posted on the basis of your suggestion above. I'll keep the links to your site. I'll PM you if I get anywhere and see what you think.
Admin
* The infrastructure (ie hosting, finding & navigating content)
* Pix, Maps & other graphics - ie visual content
* Commentary, questions & comment - ie text content
Plays to the different strengths of us all? The key is connecting all this but make the development independent/autonomous. So you can stick pix on as you get them, commentary and questions can be added by others at a later time.
What would be really great if it was succesful enough to encourage our old Sydenham dispora who do revisit us to dig in their albums and add more content that would otherwise have been dispersed and lost.
I'm caught between a rock & a hard place on this. Like you it would be great to get something/anything up pdq but I'm leaving tonight till the 24th. I will, if Steve is willing, get a meet that week. Meanwhile, if I have time I might start playing around with the photos you have already posted on the basis of your suggestion above. I'll keep the links to your site. I'll PM you if I get anywhere and see what you think.
Admin
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Steve Grindlay
- Posts: 606
- Joined: 4 Oct 2004 05:07
- Location: Upper Sydenham
This is all looking rather interesting and you can certainly count me in.
I have a some hundreds of postcards and other images of my own that can be used without copyright problems so that would be something to start with. As regards maps, I have a number of originals (such as the Stanford map) and I also have a fair amount of photocopied material. Ordnance Survey is not generally concerned with people using maps that are over 50 years old so that means any pre-war maps should be OK (although I'm not sure how it works with the commercial Godfrey Edition reproductions).
We do need to sit round a table and talk about it, and sometime during the week of the 24th would be fine. Just give me a time and place.
Steve
I have a some hundreds of postcards and other images of my own that can be used without copyright problems so that would be something to start with. As regards maps, I have a number of originals (such as the Stanford map) and I also have a fair amount of photocopied material. Ordnance Survey is not generally concerned with people using maps that are over 50 years old so that means any pre-war maps should be OK (although I'm not sure how it works with the commercial Godfrey Edition reproductions).
We do need to sit round a table and talk about it, and sometime during the week of the 24th would be fine. Just give me a time and place.
Steve
Nice one, Steve! If we contact LMA, we could mention the possibility of using their photos alongside many others being contributed from the Sydenham Society's collection etc.
http://www.sydenham.org.uk/history
Finding: A search function needs to be installed, and all pages of the historical section--and maybe other sections of the main site--indexed.
Navigating: Browse Place names, as shown at my test site, seems efficient?
My test site is driven from a database. We could arrange it so that you could send me any text/images, and I can enter that into the Db then generate the HTML pages with all the hyperlinks correlated, as well as resize the images in a batch conversion (fullscreen width = 800 pixels; 530 for thumbnails). Updating the site manually would mean updating several pages whenever a new image is added, so I think it's more convenient to carry on working via a database. I can always send you my software and scripts I used to build the test site.
Some other ideas to consider:
Graphics/Presentation
I see this website is designed by bizz, so Stuart, would you be able to develop a graphical template of what would be a typical Place page of, say, Wells Park Road, using the blue colour scheme within all the tables and borders to make it look as professional as the rest of your site? You could perhaps just tweak one of the example pages from my test site, before sending it to me along with any GIFs or style sheets used, and I can incorperate this into all the pages to be automatically generated from the database and script. Otherwise, I can continue to reverse-engineer this Sydenham Town website, until I get all the cosmetics looking identical throughout (I've already got the gradient table headings looking the same and matched some of the text/background colours).
Maps
Thinking about this more carefully, I think the site would look quite messy with maps; therefore, I suggest, for each photo, to only have the associated map pop-up via a hyperlink. I don't think it would be a good idea to have maps displayed automatically above or below each photo. Each of these maps should be cropped to show only the local group of streets, the building in question, and the direction of the photo.
I think the multiple Standford/OS/Tithe/Drainage maps should not be on every page, but rather, should have their own section with complete global coverage of Sydenham.
Database
The photographic database could be extended to include purely information about buildings; for example, within the caption of a Duke of Edinburgh photo, mention of the Beehive pub--previously stood just to the right--could be hyperlinked to a page containing purely text with no photos, as I don't believe any photos/illustrations are known to exist of this public house? Obviously, we're not writing a book here, but there would still be relevent sections to include as much text/information as Steve Grindlay would like to contribute; previously written articles could be copied and pasted into the database. Each place could have certain fixed date attributes, such as:
*First built
*Rebuilt/Altered
*Demolished
Photos
I don't know how Steve feels about sharing his postcard images on the internet, but a watermark could be superimposed to indicate copyright belonging to Steve Grindlay (as well as in the caption), thereby protecting the image. I actually prefer watermarks as opposed to images that are so small one cannot even make out much of the detail. Not even a scanner at it's lowest setting would result in the typical quarter-screen sized images seen on most websites.
Of course, we can talk about this in more detail when we meet up...
Hosting: I don't think hosting would be a problem; if you have enough webspace we can use yours, otherwise I can allocate part of my webspace to your domain. This proposed historical sub-section of your site could be uploaded to a sub-directory of your site, and re-uploaded whenever updated...The infrastructure (ie hosting, finding & navigating content)
http://www.sydenham.org.uk/history
Finding: A search function needs to be installed, and all pages of the historical section--and maybe other sections of the main site--indexed.
Navigating: Browse Place names, as shown at my test site, seems efficient?
My test site is driven from a database. We could arrange it so that you could send me any text/images, and I can enter that into the Db then generate the HTML pages with all the hyperlinks correlated, as well as resize the images in a batch conversion (fullscreen width = 800 pixels; 530 for thumbnails). Updating the site manually would mean updating several pages whenever a new image is added, so I think it's more convenient to carry on working via a database. I can always send you my software and scripts I used to build the test site.
Some other ideas to consider:
Graphics/Presentation
I see this website is designed by bizz, so Stuart, would you be able to develop a graphical template of what would be a typical Place page of, say, Wells Park Road, using the blue colour scheme within all the tables and borders to make it look as professional as the rest of your site? You could perhaps just tweak one of the example pages from my test site, before sending it to me along with any GIFs or style sheets used, and I can incorperate this into all the pages to be automatically generated from the database and script. Otherwise, I can continue to reverse-engineer this Sydenham Town website, until I get all the cosmetics looking identical throughout (I've already got the gradient table headings looking the same and matched some of the text/background colours).
Maps
Thinking about this more carefully, I think the site would look quite messy with maps; therefore, I suggest, for each photo, to only have the associated map pop-up via a hyperlink. I don't think it would be a good idea to have maps displayed automatically above or below each photo. Each of these maps should be cropped to show only the local group of streets, the building in question, and the direction of the photo.
I think the multiple Standford/OS/Tithe/Drainage maps should not be on every page, but rather, should have their own section with complete global coverage of Sydenham.
Database
The photographic database could be extended to include purely information about buildings; for example, within the caption of a Duke of Edinburgh photo, mention of the Beehive pub--previously stood just to the right--could be hyperlinked to a page containing purely text with no photos, as I don't believe any photos/illustrations are known to exist of this public house? Obviously, we're not writing a book here, but there would still be relevent sections to include as much text/information as Steve Grindlay would like to contribute; previously written articles could be copied and pasted into the database. Each place could have certain fixed date attributes, such as:
*First built
*Rebuilt/Altered
*Demolished
Photos
I don't know how Steve feels about sharing his postcard images on the internet, but a watermark could be superimposed to indicate copyright belonging to Steve Grindlay (as well as in the caption), thereby protecting the image. I actually prefer watermarks as opposed to images that are so small one cannot even make out much of the detail. Not even a scanner at it's lowest setting would result in the typical quarter-screen sized images seen on most websites.
Of course, we can talk about this in more detail when we meet up...
Sydenham Town History
Hi
Due to health reasons I am not available for meetings, visits etc., but am available for donkey work typing, collating etc., if you need some assistance in this area. All initially by email please.
Many thanks
steve.syddell@ntlworld.com
Due to health reasons I am not available for meetings, visits etc., but am available for donkey work typing, collating etc., if you need some assistance in this area. All initially by email please.
Many thanks
steve.syddell@ntlworld.com
As an aside, and prompted by the thread elsewhere on the racing circuit, it seems that the local connection with Speedway is all but forgotten, which is rather a shame in view of the fact that Crystal Palace were one of the first tracks in London right at the dawn of what became the second most popular spectator sport after football.
It might not be of much interest to the majority of people, but if an article to be posted on a history site would be of use, I'd be more than happy to put something together.
It might not be of much interest to the majority of people, but if an article to be posted on a history site would be of use, I'd be more than happy to put something together.