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Sometimes you don't realise you've photographed a piece of history until many years later.

Back on 10 April 2000, I was flying over Ashford in a Cessna, photographing the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link — what we now know as High Speed 1 (HS1).

Recently, while going through some of my old stock negatives — yes, negatives, which certainly takes me back — I came across this lovely series of Aerial Photographs of Willesborough.

What immediately caught my attention wasn't just the construction work. Clearly visible below is the old Willesborough Level Crossing and its footbridge, still very much part of everyday life at the time.

Today, of course, they have disappeared into Ashford's history.

Ashford was changing beneath us.

 

Look more closely at these photographs and you can see just how much was happening.

Work was already well underway on the new high-speed railway through Ashford. Foundations were being constructed and piling work was taking place for the viaduct that would form part of the new rail route linking London with the Channel Tunnel and continental Europe.

At the time, though, I was concentrating on recording the construction work.

I don't think I appreciated that I was also recording all the ordinary things that were about to disappear.

The crossing. The footbridge. The roads. Buildings. Fields. Businesses. Even the way people moved around the Town.

That is one of the things I now love about going back through my Aerial Archive. Quite often, something sitting quietly in the corner of a photograph becomes just as interesting as the reason I took the photograph in the first place.

Do you remember this Crossing?

   

These photographs were taken more than 25 years ago.

For some people looking at them, however, I suspect it won't feel anything like that long.

Perhaps you drove over Willesborough Level Crossing on your way to work. Maybe you waited there while yet another train went through. Perhaps you walked over that footbridge every day, or remember it from your childhood.

Maybe you used that Crossing while taking the children to school — children who now have families of their own.

If you remember it, I'd genuinely love to hear from you.

That's what I would like these stories to become — not simply photographs from my Archive, but a record of Ashford told partly through the memories of the people who actually lived, worked and grew up there.

There's much more to come.

During the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link I made many flights over Ashford and the surrounding area, recording the enormous changes taking place below.

I've now started going properly through that Archive, and there are many more photographs and stories to come.

Some show major engineering works. Others capture roads, houses, businesses and landmarks that have since changed beyond recognition or disappeared completely.

I'll be publishing more of those photographs and their stories here as I work through the collection.

These stories are here for everyone to read and enjoy. I hope they bring back memories, start conversations and perhaps reveal parts of Ashford's recent history that had almost been forgotten.

And if a particular photograph brings back a special memory, you can buy a digital copy or have one made as a photographic print to keep.

But you certainly don't have to be buying anything to contact me.

Perhaps you've looked at one of these photographs and thought, “Oh my goodness, I remember that!”

That's reason enough.

Tell me what you remember. Tell me what's changed. Tell me what that little corner of Ashford meant to you.

Those recollections put the people back into these photographs and help preserve another part of the Town's story.

So please, get in touch — whether you'd like a photograph or simply want to say:

“I remember that.”

After all, I took the photographs.

Your memories are part of the story.

All photographs remain copyright of Simon Burchett and may not be reproduced, copied or republished without permission.