A lot of photos in my collection do not reach the standards of those produced by the postcard companies. Many are the small family snaps which were quite common up to the 1960s.

The one reproduced today measures a mere two inches by three inches, but I have asked that it is enlarged so you can see it more clearly. I hope you can.

Unlike many of these small photos, this image is of more than passing interest to those with Burnley connections.

We are in Bank Parade and what you are looking at is the St Peter's Walking Day, perhaps 50 or 60 years ago.

It is not only what is happening in the photo which is of interest. The picture shows the boys and girls of what I take to be the Sunday school at St Peter's making their way in the direction of the old grammar school building at the top of School Lane.

Notice the white dresses worn by the girls, the short pants of the boys, the older children helping the younger ones and the bystanders watching a charming scene.

If you look at the background to the picture, you will see a number of buildings, a high wall and large impressive gateway.

Almost all of these are now gone and it is difficult to appreciate that this part of Burnley was once one of the town's better residential areas.

The properties on the extreme left are still standing. They were built in the early 1820s and, for most of their existence, have been homes to some of the more interesting of Burnley's families from the religious, cultural, professional and business communities.

There is not room here to mention everyone who has lived in these houses but, at 64 there once lived William Smith, one of the founders of Cowgill & Smith, the ironmongers and builders' merchants. William was the son of James Smith of Hill, the Smiths of Hill being one of Briercliffe's more significant families.

William Cruikshank, very well known in Burnley in his day as a musician, and the organist at St Peter's lived at number 66. I have long since thought Burnley Civic Society ought to mark this house with one of its blue plaques.

However, the house next door, number 66, has already received recognition. The man memorialised is Sir James Mackenzie. He has given his name to this house, although now it is occupied, as offices, by a firm of solicitors. Because of his researches into the diseases of the heart, Sir James (1853-1925) was a famous physician. He lived at 68 from 1879 to 1907 when he took his practice to London, but the house has other very well-known connections.

A partner with Sir James was Dr John Brown. He was very well respected in Burnley, but his South African-born wife, Mary Soloman, was an early Socialist and feminist. Among her many achievements in Burnley was her role in the founding of the Co-operative Women's Guild, and I have a connection with that organisation in that I gave the last lecture to the guild, in the former Co-operative Rooms in Hammerton Street, before it folded, 30 or 35 years ago.

It was Mary Brown's connections with South Africa which brought another famous individual to number 68. This was Olive Schreiner (1855-1920), who was a frequent visitor to Burnley in the 1880s.

She was the author of the first important work of fiction to come out of South Africa. It was entitled "The Story of an African Farm", published in 1883 under the pseudonym, Ralph Iron.

Olive, in later life became a great feminist, pacifist and supporter of the Boers, the latter rather blotting her copy book with some of her English readers.

After Mackenzie House you can see Bankhouse Street, but the next properties have both been demolished. The first, in actuality numbers 70 to 72, was the offices of the Hargreaves Colliery Co., Burnley's largest commercial undertaking.

Then came Bankfield, the large house on the right. It appears to be divided into two properties here and I think the one on the left was occupied by Dr Bruggen, whom older readers may remember.

You can see the wall and gate. The latter leads to the two houses of Bankroyd, which occupied the site of Burnley's 17th and 18th Century grammar school buildings.

It was these that witnessed the famous devil raising exploits of some of its boys, not the building which survives on the other side of the road.

Out of the picture, the next building was Brown Hill, built circa 1819, which I have mentioned in other articles. It was a very impressive property and is one of those buildings which are sadly missed, at least by myself, especially when one considers that all that has replaced it is a car park!

We have learned quite a lot from the photo we have studied today. It was taken either as a family photo or as a record of a church event, but it is of wider interest because of the buildings in the background.

When the photo was taken I wonder if the person who took it was aware of how important it would become to those interested in the history of our town?