PETERSFIELD AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY: This month's speaker was Tim Winter and his talk was titled 'The History of Haslemere through old Postcards.'
Tim, who has lived in Haslemere all his life, is now a volunteer curator at the museum.
He started serious collecting when he was able to procure an album containing over 40 cards of the town.
Towards the latter part of the 19th Century train t
ravel, outings and holidays were becoming common place.
Sending picture postcards became fashionable partly due to the fact they could be sent with only a ½ penny stamp.
As each Francis Frith card was numbered and dated, much could be learnt about the development of the town over the last 150 years. A good selection of these fascinating early pictures were shown.
Unlike Petersfield, Haslemere was not on the coaching route and therefore of little significance as a staging post but it is believed that in order to obtain the land to build the railway line and station a guarantee had to made that all trains passing through the town had to stop at the station.
So from the initial three trains a day to the present three trains an hour to Portsmouth this is still the case.
Haslemere became a fashionable centre for the arts and crafts movement.
Because of the good railway connection to London and the south coast, many artists and writers, including Tennyson, built houses nearby.
From that time the town developed quite rapidly, increasing the population and making it a desirable place to live in up until the present day.
The next meeting of the Petersfield Area Historical Society, titled 'Georgian Food though old Recipe Books,' will be held at Herne Farm Community Centre on Wednesday, November 12 at 7.30pm.
The speaker is Ian Pearce. Visitors are welcome.
