Chummy in Cowley

[Tony Griffiths]

Chummy in Cowley

[Steve kay]

Splendid historical statement. Chummy still evident in Cowley, but not a Bullnose, ohc Minor or Eight to be seen! Unless of course, the Chummy was sent there by computer in which case we'll soon have pictures of fleets of Morrises at Longbridge, Brooklands and in the paddock at Shelsley.

[Erich]

One of many things I like about this photo is the comparative lack of change. Not in a negative way. Driving through a small bedroom community of Seattle where I grew up, with farms and pastures and in which the tallest building was a modernist structure of six stories, today, I was confronted with sky scrapers and developments. Traffic in the thousands. Time to move to the countryside, if that still exists.

Erich in Mukilteo

[Andy Bennett]

Assuming they haven't been added as per the chummy in the second picture, on the original what are those double lines? I understood double yellows were introduced in the 60s or is that picture a lot later than it might appear?

[Mike Costigan]

They're a double row of granite setts, a common feature of road edges.

[Andy Bennett]

Ah right, were they to add wear resistance to the edges or emphasise demarcation between pedestrians and road users when there perhaps weren't generally defined pavements?

[John Cornforth]

Are the double lines not a form of Braille to mark the road edge for drivers using Austin Seven headlights at night ?

[Mike Costigan]

I don't think there were any thoughts of emphasising the demarcation of pedestrians and road vehicles - there was usually a substantial kerbside to do that. It seems to have been the convention to finish cobbled streets with edging like this - here's a pic from the Gallery of Berwick on Tweed which shows this:


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Even today it seems to be traditional to lay a contrasting edging to block paving:


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I suspect it may have been easier and neater to lay a row of setts rather than trying to spread tarmac up to the pavement edge, maybe we have a civil engineer amongst us who would like to comment?

[Malcolm Parker]

In the olden days the street edges were swept by the appropriately named street cleaners.  A double row of smooth granite setts was probably the best surface to sweep.  Tarmac laid up to the kerb at the edge of a pavement would have a tendency to get washed away with heavy rain, granite setts will last forever.

[Tony Griffiths]

Splendid historical statement. Chummy still evident in Cowley, but not a Bullnose, ohc Minor or Eight to be seen! Unless of course, the Chummy was sent there by computer in which case we'll soon have pictures of fleets of Morrises at Longbridge, Brooklands and in the paddock at Shelsley.

No, it's an original postcard - the image pinched from eBay. I'd not noticed the double-edging to the side of the road (it must have been a considerable additional expense) - you learn something every day.