Chelmsford, The Stone Bridge 1919

Photo ref: 69030

More about this scene

And the architecture? It is very varied. Entering the town, you may see some of the following: several acres of Victorian housing, from railway-side terraces to detached, self-confident villas; a church with a nice green spire; a white tower-block with a jazzy stonework pattern on the side; the turrets of an old schoolhouse or a 1930s factory; and, in the middle, a vast, grey building with the words 'Chelmsford Market' picked-out in plastic lettering. Ah yes, the market… Whatever else it is, Chelmsford is primarily a tradesman's town. Industry has only recently arrived here. Chelmsford, as we now understand it, was the creation of a handful of 13th-century market people. There was no unbroken link back to the earlier settlers who had been drawn here by the fertile gravel farmland. Nevertheless, it is with those primordial settlers that we shall begin.