Stevenage Museum shows never seen before Queen photo

The Queen unveiled the clock tower plaque commemorating her visit in April 1959

A previously unpublished photo of the Queen is to be shown as part of an exhibition at a Hertfordshire new town.

Stevenage Museum has been exploring stories charting the history of the town centre through pictures and video.

The project has uncovered some amazing finds and photos that have never been seen before.

Historic England's Tony Calladine said: "The newly discovered images will give people a fascinating insight into Stevenage life."

The exhibition explores the town centre from the 1950s to the 1970s.

Visitors will be able to watch a film, made with local people, that shares their memories of visiting the town centre, with the option to add their own by filling in a postcard and adding it to the memory wall.

The free exhibition gives visitors the opportunity to see some never-before-seen colour images, including the first of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Stevenage in 1959, along with the visit from the Prime Minister Harold Macmillan that year.

There are also previously unseen pictures of the town centre, which was unveiled in 1958 as the first pedestrian-only shopping precinct of its kind in the country.

The project highlights just how controversial traffic-free shopping was in the 1950s, before many other towns and cities followed suit.

Corporation architects were asked to produce a sketch of the main shopping precinct with a central road looking north (what is now Queensway)

The exhibition has been funded by Historic England and Mr Calladine, its regional director, said: "When it was created over 75 years ago, Stevenage town centre was a ground-breaking pedestrian development, one of the earliest and most influential of its type in the world."

Peartree Photo Limited used special technology to help the museum develop colour images, to bring to life the town's different stories.

Loraine Rossati, portfolio holder for culture and leisure at Stevenage Borough Council, which runs the museum, said: "As well as the existing archive of mainly black and white photographs from the Development Corporation, we've also uncovered some colour slides recently."

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