Century-old portraits of Herefordshire rural life go on display

A selection of 800 photographs from a century ago discovered in shoeboxes in an old farmhouse have gone on display.

The photographic plates, now stored at Hereford Archive Centre, show the lives of farmers and their families from The Golden Valley, on the Herefordshire-Welsh border.

These memories were all captured by one man, Richard Jenkins.

His work has now featured in a book called Golden Valley Faces, by Hilary Engel, and are displayed at All Saints Church in Hereford.

Hundreds of his glass plate negatives were found by his family in a cupboard which had been covered with wallpaper.

Ms Engel said she had to "hold them up to the light to see what they were".

They had never been catalogued, she added.

Mr Jenkins was born in 1890 at Quarrelly Farm, in The Golden Valley.

He was the only son, so was raised to run the family farm, but his passion was always photography.

Ms Engel fell in love with the photos and the stories behind them.

"They may never have been photographed before... but Richard saw there was a whole story in their faces," she said.

Someone who helped Ms Engel piece the stories of farm life together, was 88-year-old Sylvia, Richard Jenkins' daughter.

Having the photographs in a book and on display in the church, she said she could now "treasure them".

Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk