Great Western Approaches Revisited
🎥 Exploring Wessex Through Archive Film
Windrose Rural Media Trust is a charity that uses the media to reflect rural life in the past and to provide a voice for rural communities today.
Over several decades Windrose has saved films of local life in Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire dating from the 1910s onwards.  With the support of GWR’s Customer and Community Improvement Fund it has drawn upon this massive archive to create Great Western Approaches Revisited.
Scroll down to find:
Simply click any station on these routes and you will discover a fascinating film from the past of the community that it serves. Â Let these images be a companion for your journey or an exploration from your armchair.
A word about the films: the videos in this collection were made both professionally and by amateur filmmakers. We have enhanced the films using new technology to clean up the images, stabilise the picture where necessary, and upscale from standard definition to HD.  We always keep the films in their original aspect ratio. In addition we never colourise black and white films or add sound effects or music when they were originally made without audio.  The films include a mixture of 35mm, 16mm, 8mm film and analogue video, so as you can imagine, the quality can vary enormously.  Some of the films are more than 100 years old — so keep in mind how, in some cases, the images are surprisingly good!
