2-667-670 - Historic England Archive/Heritage Images

Pull's Ferry, Norwich, Norfolk, 1854. William Russell Sedgfield included this image, produced using the waxed paper process, among his entries at the 1855 Photographic Institution exhibition in London. The 15th-century water gate adjacent to Pull's Ferry protected the channel that had been dug to carry building materials from the River Wensum to the site of Norwich Cathedral. Even at the age of 16, Sedgfield was keen to use Fox Talbot's new calotype process, and, after training as an engraver, he turned to photography in the early 1850s, adopting the waxed paper, wet collodion and dry collodion processes. He became 'one of the most critically acclaimed photographers of his generation' and his photographs illustrated a number of books published during his lifetime, including Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain by William and Mary Howitt, which also featured work by Francis Bedford and Roger Fenton. Albumen print.