Dating old photographs.

One of the challenges faced by local historians is to date old photograghs. For the Caerwys book we had access to hundreds of photographs; of these only a few were dated. Fortunately we were able to date the most important Victorian photograpgh taken by John Thomas precisely  to 1875. Others have proved to be less valuable as we have not been able to offer an exact date. However with some detective work and common sense it is possible date most photograghs to within a few years. The most difficult are those from around the turn of the 20th century. I suppose I have wanted to know whether or not the images were 19th or 20th century. The following image is a good example. It was given without any date:

A view of South Street Caerwys.

The dresses of the ladies on the left of the photogragh are hard to see clearly, but they do appear to be 'fuller' than those of the post First World War period. The Town Hall is clearly visible and that was built in the 1880s; the Baptist Chapel at the bottom of the street was built in 1893. Therefore judging from the buildings and the style of dresses we are looking at a date of between the mid 1890s and 1914. Beyond that it is hard to be more accurate.