WGRA pencilled-in on the back of this small amateur-printed print that it was his first attempt with a box camera.
Evidently taken at the sunny end of the day, we have Christ Church college in St Aldates street, Oxford, in about 1902, dominated by Tom tower, with the sun streaming-in from the west along Pembroke Street, and over the full width of St Aldates, half-way down on the right.
Pembroke Street is where Archer Cowley had their first warehouse and office, and St Aldates runs south from Carfax and becomes Abingdon Road (and Oxfordshire becomes Berkshire) beyond Folly Bridge. So it seems most likely that Archer Cowley’s founding-father, James Archer, WGRA’s uncle, went up and down St Aldates with his ‘Daily Carrier to Abingdon’ business from 1857 onwards.
St Aldates church is on the south-side of Pembroke Street at the St Aldates end (ie on the corner of Pembroke Street and St Aldates) and faces Christ Church College across St Aldates, and the family records clearly state that at least the two John Archers (brewers) and their wives were buried in the family vault in St Aldates Church, but I have so far failed to locate that vault or any reference to it by means of online searches.
Folly Bridge is where John Archer (junior), the son of his namesake father (both brewers) lived in a rather splendid residence (Grandpont house) in the days of his brewing business. And I have ascertained by investigations carried out at the Oxford record office, that the brewery itself was indeed “Off St Aldates” in a street/road/lane/entry (on the RHS with reference to this photo, perhaps a couple of hundred yards out of shot down St Aldates), called “Archer’s Yard” which no longer exists.
PBA (Phil Archer) and his brothers Michael (MJA) and Edward (REA) all went to Christ Church Cathedral Choir School in the 1940s/50s/60s, which is in Brewer Street, likewise off St Aldates on the west side, about opposite the south end of the college buidings in this view. We each went every morning in a crocodile of boys over St Aldates to the cathedral, under Tom Tower, across the quadrangle, round Mercury in his pond, and into the Latin chapel for prayers conducted by the headmasters, first Mr Vincent, and then Mr Dendy.