Webinar report – Street Studies with Liz Craig and Lucy Sarson

Our October webinar was ran ‘in house’ when our Treasurer Liz and Secretary Lucy presented aspects of their very different street studies. Both live on the streets they study, but Liz studies a nineteenth century street in Southsea and Lucy a Georgian crescent in Taunton. As such Liz and Lucy discussed how they drew on different resources to find out about the changes in the streets over time. Liz was particularly fortunate to be allowed access to a neighbour’s cellar which had been adapted to act as an air raid shelter in WW2, this illustrated the value of being able to combine information from paper records and architectural details to give a fuller picture of the street. Lucy’s street has a number of buildings which have changed from residential to business use and, in some cases, back to residential over time. This gives her a range of areas to explore as she considers both the people who lived in the properties and the businesses which were run from them. Subsequent discussion illustrated that three of the attendees lived in houses which had been converted from telephone exchanges – what a coincidence!

Both Liz and Lucy covered some of the range of material available when conducting a street study and considered how these may be combined. Some of these sources suggested new areas for people to consider when researching streets. A number of those watching were enthused to start their own street studies, or to revitalise ones which had perhaps become dormant – watch this space!