Smallford History Pin
This page shows the Historypins that we have made, displaying photographs from various different times throughout history. Click on a photo to view more detail about it, feel free to add your comments and by all means, please add information if it is missing! We hope that by pooling our collaborative resources together, we can gather as much information as possible from every angle.
Please bare in mind that what you see on our map is only a fraction of what exists on the Historypin website, you’re only viewing what we have put online. To view more content, from other sources, please head over to the main website www.historypin.com and you will be able to view nearby locations such as St Albans etc.
“What is Historypin?”
Historypin is a website that allows you (a user) to put a picture on a map. The clever bit is that it that you can then give it a bit of history, such as the circumstances surrounding the photo or subject of the photo and of course, most important, add a date when the photo was taken. The idea is that over time, an accumulation of photos of any place will occur which will then enable people to view that place and how it has evolved over time. For instance, you might look up Oxford Street in London and see that it has many photos from similar angles taken over many decades, making it plain and easy to see the changes that have accompanied time.
“Why does Historypin concern us?”
Our project about Smallford Station already has several photographs taken throughout the years of the station at various times, e.g. whilst still in use to after the tracks were taken up and most recently as a ruined platform along the Alban Way. Historypin is a good tool which allows us to ‘pin’ photos to a [Google] map and, as aforementioned, add a date to each photo.
“You’ve mentioned a lot about photos, what about pre-photography imagery?”
Historypin was based upon the use of photography between 1840 to the modern day, primarily because of the advent of mainstream consumer cameras only being readily available in the last century. As such, the website currently caters for photographs of places better than it does for paitnings. However, there is no reason why you can’t pin a painting to the map. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this, the timeline only goes as far back as 1840 but this is set to change. Likewise being able to overlay old maps over new is something the Historypin team are working on and may become a possibility at a later date.
“How do I pin something?”
This is probably best answered on the Historypin website rather than explaining here, but, in short, you upload a photo/file/picture/image to Historypin. Once uploaded, you are then prompted to complete some information about it, such as give it a title, a description, any copyright information etc. Finally, you are asked to pin it to a current map. You can search for a place by name or simply drag the mouse around the map until you find what you’re looking for. As it is based on Google maps, the controls work in the same way, the only difference is you need to drag the little photo pin which represents your uploaded photo to the place you want it to be.
“Anything else?”
Yes! There are a few other things that Historypin can do, such as it can enable you to overlay an old photo over a Google street view image, making old streets come to life, given enough old photos from the same date of course. The best examples of this are usually found in places like a historic grand event in a city where there would have been many photos taken from every angle on the same/similar dates. Resultingly, this allows Historypin to act a bit like a historic Google Streetview.
If you would like more information about Historypin or how to use it, please get in touch with Historypin or contact us!