Newly-unearthed atmospheric pictures show 1930s Greater Manchester landmarks from the air

The bird’s-eye view images were taken by one of aerial photography’s earliest experts Arthur William Hobart. Titled Air Pictures Portleven Collection, the series features scenes of famous landmarks, towns, industrial sites, seaside resorts and construction projects.

Some of the Greater Manchester locations pictured include Birchfields park in Rusholme, Duke Street in Stockport, Hyde Gas Works and the Oil Well Engineering Company Works in Stockport. Other well known spots from different parts of the country include St Paul’s Cathedral and Battersea Power Station in London.

In total, Historic England has a collection of 480,000 images from 1919 to the present day in its Aerial Photograph Explorer platform, which is available online for anyone to explore. Together, they cover 30% of the country. Portleven Collection is just the latest addition to the expanding archive.

Duncan Wilson, chief executive, Historic England said “Flicking through these photos lets you take flight over 1930s England, to see the changing face of the country in the interwar period. Many of us will not have seen so many well-known landmarks and sites from this fresh perspective provided by aerial photography. We are the guardians of the largest national collection of aerial images in the country and hope that releasing this collection helps inspire people to learn more about their local history through our online Aerial Photography Explorer tool.”

Aerial photographer Arthur William Hobart was born in London in 1882, starting his commercial photography business in 1920. Although there is no service record for Hobart, many aerial photographers at the time did serve in the First World War in aerial roles.

The pictures were mainly commissioned for use on postcards, but they were also bought by local authorities and construction companies. His body of work is thought to include around 10,000 images in total.