A major album of 52 new images of High Wycombe has been added to the Chiltern Society PhotoGroup’s online gallery.

The link for the new album on the PhotoGroup’s website is: www.chilternphoto.org.uk/index/category/338

The new update complements the Society’s ‘High Wycombe Rye’ album added in September 2021, as well as ‘High Wycombe Furniture’ photographed in 2005-6.

Together, these albums give one of the most comprehensive collection of online photographs of how the town looks now.

Here we show two examples of the photographs and compare each with how the building shown appeared around the time it was originally built.

This new factory was constructed for the furniture company W M Birch Ltd.

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The company was founded in the 1840s by William Birch, whose first new factory was built in 1869 in Denmark St. He was joined by his son Walter, who opened the new factory in Leigh St in 1901.

The company pioneered the Arts & Crafts-style of furniture and was acquired by Gomme’s in 1954.

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The building for Wycombe’s Institute of Science & Arts in Frogmoor was constructed in 1891.

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After the First World War, the school was the first in the country to teach classes in metalwork and woodwork. As a result it changed its name in the 1920s to the Wycombe Technical Institute. This moved to Easton St and the Frogmoor building then had many different uses in the interwar period, including as a swimming pool.

After WW2 it became a theatre, variously the Repertory Theatre, Intimate Theatre, Tower Theatre, but always referred to as “The Rep”.

Since the theatre closed in 1958 the uses have again been many and varied.

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The two coloured photos - Courtesy of M King, Chiltern Society PhotoGroup