What were the main subjects of photographs taken by William Clarridge in a medium-sized historic market town close to the western boundary of Hertfordshire, England?
William Clarridge William Clarridge trained as a painter before taking up documentary photography in the early 1850s. Two albums of his photographs survive documenting the town of Berkhamsted. These form one of the earliest documentary records of English village life. Amongst his pictures are a number of photographs of young girls which were sold at Sotheby's in 1984 described as "in the style of Lewis Carroll". There is evidence that he may have visited Christ Church, Oxford in the mid-1850s where Lewis Carroll was professor of mathematics.
Harpsden Harpsden is a rural and semi-rural village and civil parish immediately south of Henley-on-Thames in South Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire, England. Its scattered centre is set 0.5 mi from the east border which is the River Thames, marking a short boundary with Berkshire. The parish extends 5 mi inland and borders Rotherfield Peppard to the west, that is, next to its main sections of woodland in the southern extreme of the Chiltern Hills including an SSSI area of ancient woodland. The village has neither railway station nor shops, but has the main road from Reading to Henley, both of which have grown substantially since World War II into centres of trade, education and general meeting places, such as by their increased number of cafés and restaurants.