Next week sees the launch of the Museum of Wimbledon’s second major exhibition at the Village Hall Trust Gallery in Wimbledon Village.

Running from 3 December until 2 March 2014, Now and Then is the gallery’s first exhibition of historical and contemporary photographs, showing Wimbledon sites as they have changed since the late 19th or early 20th centuries and can be seen by comparison today.

This fascinating show reveals both how much and how little the Village, town centre and other areas have altered.

Some streets have been transformed out of all recognition from once rural lanes passing fields and woodland to today’s residential and commercial thoroughfares crammed with parked and moving traffic as well as modern street furniture.

Many buildings have come and gone during the period but other comparisons show how shops and residential areas are often still recognisable after 100 years, although in most cases the names of businesses have changed.

Four photographs below show how the bridge at Wimbledon Station has developed over the past 140 years.

The earliest image shows when the steam railway from London down to the south coast was a relatively recent addition to the Wimbledon scene. In 1875 the bridge simply passed over the line and contajned no buildings of its own.

Thirty years later in 1907 this was still the case although more buildings had appeared near the station.

However as the century moved on, the whole area was utterly changed with shops on both sides of the bridge itself seen in 1973 when they included outlets such as Barrett’s the shoe shop and Russells the photographic business.

Another 40 years to 2013 and the buildings on the left have changed completely, along with the businesses on the right, the road markings and of course the vehicles themselves.

Now and Then follows last year’s ground-breaking exhibition Town and Country Wimbledon which displayed a selection of works from the Museum’s large collection of watercolours. That show ran from February until April 2012.

Free entrance to the photographic exhibition is via the Museum of Wimbledon at 22 Ridgway, open every Saturday and Sunday afternoon from 2.30pm until 5pm.

Since Town and Country Wimbledon ended in April 2012, the gallery has been used for exhibitions by local artists and schools with entrance via Lingfield Road.

That will recommence at the end of the current photographic exhibition next year.