Smithford Street (inc. Ram Bridge)

The old remaining Smithford Street buildings didn't move away from the alignment of Smithford Street, did they! As they are in the image, they do show that actual alignment in relation to both Broadgate House and the Upper Precinct - fact!

MR, I understand what Dutchman is trying to express and agree. It is to do with the relationships of space close to the viewer and this when standing further away. If you look down at your feet you can possibly judge a one metre distance but at 100 metres you would have trouble judging it with any relevance to accuracy. As you are a photographer too then looking at a row of houses through a 28mm lens and a 200mm lens then in the latter image they would look compressed. That is not a phenomenon of the lens but of the distance. The latter lens merely crops your view so it fills the frame.

Thank you MR for your excellently detailed answer. Actually what I was trying to get at was why that particular spot was picked, my reference to the old photo was to wonder if there had been any sort of standard or monument (which I thought I could see on the photo) at the top end of the street, which the city architect wanted to use as a "known" point to start the whole new Broadgate scheme from. Anyway I`m just dreaming aren`t I? But all grand new schemes need an exact starting point and a story - don`t they?

I think this rather contradicts your argument and in fact supports my original observation

I had a go at showing where the City Arcade was (and ought to still be) in relation to the present day.

It depends how well you know the historical area - and many of us don't/didn't. It's easy to assume that the gap between the two modern blocks sat over the old line of Smithford Street. There are several places in the modern city that look like the old layout but are subtly different. If you study images from all directions you can work out the changes but sometimes if you only view one direction it can confuse. I've spent a lot of time trying to overlay maps to work out the exact lines of the old roads and it's very fiddly to get it exactly right. A lot of us have no early memories of the city to guide us.

According to the 1956 map of Dutchman above, a few yards of Smithford Street survived in the upper precinct at the same time as the circular cafe existed in the lower precinct. It's hard to believe they were concurrent though it must have been difficult to map this area while construction was in progress. Also the fragment of Smithford Street is labelled as the A46, along with High St!

Midland Red, those are two beautiful pictures of the top of Broadgate, but surely the distance from Smithford Street to the Precinct is the distance of the shops front to back in the Precinct. I have no idea what you would see from the church to Broadgate, the back of Woolies maybe. No idea what the pole was, but surely too far down to be related to the Elephant?

All - I was going to share this 'tool' in a dedicated thread but this may help here. It may have been seen/shared elsewhere but certainly will be of interest to you all. Please see this early 20th century map here. Hopefully it will link to the area over Broadgate. Now if you 'slide' the 'Change transparency' blue dot to the left - on the left hand side of the page - you will see today's map 'merge' with this old one to give you the exact line-up of old streets and buildings! You can see that the line of Smithford Street ran right through Smithford Way. I presume the change for the new Precinct was to make the cathedral spire line up when stood in the centre of the Precinct. Although they obviously didn't tell the designer of the glass escalator that! Anyway enjoy the maps!

This does not explain what is in the distance on the postcard but is probably in the red spot on Heathite's map Elephant on Pole

The thing in the distance doesn't match anything in any of the images I have of Smithford Street. Could it be something mundane like a crane? There were a lot of new buildings constructed on both sides of the street post the horse and cart eras. Alternatively is it a lot closer than you think and it's part of the tram overhead system

I agree Helen. I have looked through all my books. I have looked on Britainfrom above but the only things I can see that tall are chimneys but they are fatter and yes I wondered about cranes. It certainly looks like something on a pole!

It looks like its mid-way down Smithford Street to me? Its bloomin' tall!

A few excellent postcards uncovered with great detail!

A lot narrower than I'd imagined here.