This week we are going picnicking! To Bobbin Head recreation area at Kuring-Gai Chase National Park. There’s a bus, some cars, people, picnic huts…can you help us to date this photo?
We have many other undated photographs in Photo Investigator and on our Flickr account. If you know the dates or any other interesting facts about these images please let us know.
Category: -- Can you date...?
Tag: Moments in Time, Sydney
Bob Meade says:
There is a 1937 Sam Hood photo in the State Library of New South Wales which shows built structures identical to those in the photo above. .
http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/item/itemLarge.aspx?itemID=10905
The SLNSW also holds some prints from the Government Printing Office dated 8/1938 and Apr1937.
A late 1930s date for this SRNSW photo would also be consistent with the motor cars we see.
Jeannette says:
The Sydney Morning Herald, Tuesday 29 December 1936, has an illustrated article on the ‘new roadhouse’ that had been built at Bobbin Head – the same building as in this photo. It was opened by the premier of NSW, as the Bobbin Inn, on 5 March 1937 (SMH 6 March 1937 ).
So the date is at or after the end on 1936. Historians in the National Parks and Wildlife Service (now Office of Environment) did a study of recreation buildings in parks (incl picnic sheds) in the 1980s. The report should be somewhere in the files.
enno says:
The part of the swamp on the camera side of the retaining wall in the right background was filled in by dredging later.
The cars look like late 1930’s to me.
Anthea Brown says:
Looks like this one might have been too easy for you all! So far we have a c.1937 date.
JennysOldCars says:
NONE of the cars are LATE 1930s, BUT all these models would have been common enough on the roads after WW2.
Except for the 2 cars, foreground pointing photo left, ALL other cars are definitely vintage ie. between about 1927ish and no later than 1930-31. Hoods/roof lines, mudguard shapes, headlight shapes and positions, door shapes all indicate late vintage cars.
The 2 foreground cars however are clearly different to the others, having early-mid ’30s styling of radiators, bumpers, roof line and rear of body tub, being the clues. The slightly larger vehicle of the two with the interesting and (for the time and vehicle) unusual white wall tyres and ‘spiffy’ wire wheels is possibly a 1933 Ford Model B/Series 40. It also is worth noting it has ‘suicide’ doors – a somewhat ubiquitous feature on cars of the era. If not a Ford then perhaps a Wolseley or Hillman – I suspect there is some distortion in the photo as the bodywork looks a little out of perspective.
If dating the photo from the cars ONLY then early 1930s -BUT I reckon the building clues are the ones to go with in this instance and as the others have suggested 1937 that sounds good.
The 2 buses in the background seem to be early to late 1930s.
Any one of the vehicles in the photo would please a vintage vehicle collector today!