Burges and Cross Cheaping

Think we may have had this one before but worth a repost for the terrific detail. Not sure if it's a Wingrave but possibly as it's 1860s............ A special image to me as it would have been a scene familiar to my Great Great Grandfather George Yardley who ran the Turks Head down there in Silver Street in that period.

This colourised image appeared on FB had me lost initially. It's older than it looks as we believe (thanks Helen!) it's possibly No.26. T. Liggins Merchant Tailor appears in the 1896 directory. I didn't think the suits looked of that age TBH. The building remains today!

Hello, Descendants of the Liggins cloth makers lived in Sewall Highway. My family knew them well. Their roots went back centuries, via Worcestershire.

The Liggins tailors are at the address much earlier according to the newspapers. A date of the photo may be determined if the date of the rebuilding of number 25 could be determined. I've yet to find anything along those lines. The gap in the buildings was what confused me. The blurring of the property number is why people need to be careful 'improving' original photos.

Hello Helen, I know that Mr. Liggins, worked at the Coventry GEC, but his roots go back via Lucy Liggins, from Worecester. "When Lucy Liggins was born on 26 December 1878, in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom, her father, John Liggins, was 29 and her mother, Caroline Franklin, was 26. She married Thomas Joseph Barnacle on 31 March 1900, in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 1 daughter. She lived in Coventry Holy Trinity, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom in 1891 and Coventry St Thomas, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom in 1911. She died in March 1962, in Coventry, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom, at the age of 83, and was buried in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, England, United Kingdom." They had family in Warwick. Worcester had a unique industry of glove making. Over half the gloves made in the UK, were made in Worcester. Mr Liggins who I knew loved motorcycle combinations.

Along with Yardleys and Troughtons, Coventry is littered with Liggins, including the people at Liggins Mill.

Given how much the photo of Dunn's was spontaneously modified and that the 26 turned into a 20, how much can some of the details of this AI photo be trusted? Was there genuinely a building gap to the left on the original? The arched passageway on the left is quite distorted. Is the block of plasterwork above the two Gs genuine? Colourising and sharpening images is legit but not this AI rewriting of the past.

It made the suits looks a lot more modern to me Helen.

To me the scene looks like early New York.