eye view of nation's cityscapes and landmarks in 1930s

A fascinating collection of never-before-seen photographs taken from the skies over Britain has revealed a rare glimpse of life in the 1930s.

Steelworks and collieries, silk mills and potteries, fishing docks and shipyards, a state-of-the-art power station and the country’s first international airport show evidence of an industrious nation during the interwar years.

There are hints too of a life away from work and becoming more focused on leisure, with the mass expansion of seaside resorts such as Bournemouth and the construction of ice rinks and public baths, including in Streatham, Greater London.

Many of the images show a rapidly changing landscape, where historic national landmarks such as St Paul’s and Salisbury Cathedral stand as proudly as the newly-built and more modern Battersea Power Station, Smith’s Docks in North Tyneside, sports grounds, new housing estates and major national infrastructure, such as Twickenham Bridge.

The captivating 242 black-and-white aerial images – released today by Historic England – were taken by little known aerial photographer Arthur William Hobart.

When Hobart took the images, aerial photography was still a relatively young industry having only just emerged after the First World War.

Hobart, who was born in London in 1882 and began his business around 1920, took images that reflected the market demands of the time.

Photographs for postcards would have been his largest market, but local authorities and the press were also major clients amid an emerging demand from the construction industry and industrial sectors.

It is likely that Hobart, like many early commercial aerial photographers, had served during the First World War in an aerial-related role, but to date no service record has been found for him.

Researchers have discovered he worked as a journeyman baker, commercial traveller and a draper’s clerk prior to engaging in this burgeoning sector.

The images were mostly taken of London, the south east and south west of England, but the collection also includes places across the country including Cumbria, Lancashire, Staffordshire, Tyne and Wear and Yorkshire.

Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said: ‘Flicking through these photos lets you take flight over 1930s England, to see the changing face of the country in the interwar period.

‘Many of us will not have seen so many well-known landmarks and sites from this fresh perspective provided by aerial photography.’

Collectively known as the Air Pictures Portleven Collection, the images form a part of a larger and mostly undiscovered body of Hobart’s aerial photography work, thought to be around 10,000 images in total.

The collection takes its name from a misspelling of ‘Porthleven’, a Cornish fishing village where Hobart lived.