Trying to find the story

An old postcard image from Ashlett Creek, and a thoughts that have been rolling around for some time. I read some time ago about Edwin Mudge, a Fawley based photographer who had a small darkroom in the old mill at Ashlett.

This weekend was the 200th anniversary of the mill, and I was able to meet up with Tim Woodcock who had a similar interest in Mudge. The story goes that he buried 4 tons of glass plates in his garden, and I can't stop thinking about trying to recover these. His images are fantastic, the one above is taken from his darkroom at the mill. You can see the Jolly Sailor pub before it was extended and the square looking very different to today.

They had organised a music festival to mark the occasion, and we listened to the music of The Real Raj, a superb local musician from Beaulieu.