EXPLORING the Dark Continent, with all its inherent dangers, hardly equates to meandering around the peaceful country lanes of 19th Century Worcestershire by gentle horse drawn cart taking snap shots of local beauty spots.

But Francis Frith knew his market.

The pioneering Victorian photographer, who went to Africa a decade before Stanley met Livingstone, realised there was more money to be made of a view of the Old Hills at Callow End than of one of scary natives up The Congo.

As the railways threaded their way across England in the second half of the 1800s, people began travelling beyond their own village or town, many for the first time.

Frith quickly appreciated these new tourists would appreciate souvenirs of their days out.

Library

So he embarked on a project to photograph every town, city and village in Britain, building up a massive library of views in the process, to be sold either as postcards or prints.

Francis Frith died in 1898, but his legacy survived and today the Frith Book Company is at the forefront of producing collections of "nostalgia" photographs.

The latest is Worcestershire - Living Memories, which contains 150 black and white images from the Frith archives.

As most are dated in the 1950s and 60s, they obviously weren't the work of old Francis, but the team of photographers the company now uses to keep the legend alive.

The collator of the volume, Dorothy Nicholle, has dipped into the vaults to uncover some classics.

There's Load Street, Bewdley, looking down to the River Severn. Although it was taken in 1955, the number of wire-wheeled saloon cars and the flat caps of the men on the pavement make it seem more like the 1930s.

The traffic island at Powick, now just a triangle at a road junction, used to be a huge circle of neatly clipped grass in the 50s and the thatched cottages fronting the main road at Hallow have long gone, to be replaced by two rather uninspiring modern houses. Today, the old cottages would surely have been renovated.

Just as they have been in Chaddesley Corbett, which now looks a much fresher and better preserved place than in 1960.

No surprise that not much appears to have altered in Malvern town centre and the 1955 view of Belle Vue Terrace and Church Street, bar a few pieces of street furniture and shop signs, is almost the same today.

So too Ombersley of 1960, the glorious line of black and white properties still there, but the scene of a rainy Angel Place in Worcester taken in 1950 looks every bit its age.

"The difference between this book and many other old photograph collections is that the scenes are all from the last 50 years or so," said Hannah Marsh, Frith's sales and marketing executive.

"In other words, they are within living memory, hence the book title.

"We would expect people to be able to look at them and recall scenes from their younger days and the memories they bring."

In that respect old Francis would have been proud his ideals are still going strong.

Worcestershire - Living Memories by Dorothy Nicholle is published by Frith Book Co. at £14.99. It includes a voucher for a free print of your choice.