Crossness Pumping Station might be a marvel of Victorian engineering and ingenuity, but it’s also taking a step into the future via its archives. You might typically associate archives with the past, being storage for records and media of yesteryear, but here at Crossness, we have been utilising AI technology in an exciting way to discover more secrets and history about the site.
The archives at Crossness are extensive, containing over 13,000 items ranging from glass negative slides, engineering documents, VHS tapes, and more. Recently, dedicated archive volunteers Diana Dryland and Alison Crick have been undergoing a project to discover more details about the large collection of photographs held in the collection. One aspect of this project is utilising AI technology to enhance and define the photographs. With the help of photographic expert Bob Tovey and the programme Luminar Neo, new details about Crossness’ past are coming to light.
One way details are being discovered is through the use of colourisation, which is the process of taking a black and white photograph and digitally changing it to a colour photograph. Take a look at the example below. The original black and white photograph was taken overhead from an electricity pylon in the 1950s. As you can see, the original photograph is grainy and hard to make out in terms of detail. In the newly colourised photograph, you can see much more of the site, including the residential workers’ homes and possible allotments that they created in the upper right hand corner.
Another example of clues revealed is in a photograph of Crossness which originally contained just a black blur. After enhancement with AI, the blur was revealed to be two women pushing Edwardian era prams and a young girl walking beside them. It’s a fascinating development as we know that workers and their families lived on site at Crossness but we do not have much record of their lives at the pumping station.
The project is ongoing and there is much more to be discovered about Crossness’ extensive and fascinating past!