Online gallery uncovers the past (From Witney Gazette)

Online gallery uncovers the past

7:30am Saturday 27th January 2007 in Headlines

PHOTOGRAPHS showing Oxfordshire's towns about 100 years ago have been used to create a new online gallery.

Oxfordshire County Council has joined forces with the Oxfordshire Town Chambers Network - which promotes local businesses - to create the new gallery on the network's website at www.otcn.co.uk About 100 black and white photographs of Oxford and many of the county's towns have been drawn from the Oxfordshire County Council photographic archive and can be accessed through the Shop Locally page - click on the town links on the right hand side for contemporary photos of the county.

The same photos can also be found on the heritage pages of the county council's website: www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/heritagesearch Abingdon, Banbury, Bicester, Burford, Carterton, Charlbury, Chipping Norton, Didcot, Faringdon, Thame, Wallingford, Wantage, Witney, Woodstock, are all featured.

Don Seale, cabinet member for cultural services, said: "This gallery is a great initiative from our perspective as it uses the county's rich photographic collections in a novel way to help promote the local economy.

"It also draws peoples attention to the many thousands of photos which can now be found on the heritage pages of the county council's website."