THE mystery of the photograph found in the walls of the former Greyfriars college has been solved.

A Colchester historian spotted the article and thanks to a couple of clues soon worked out where the picture was taken.

Alan Skinner, former principal of the college who discovered the photograph, thought it might have been a works outing but was not sure who the two women might be.

Local historian Andrew Phillips, who has a book coming out –, Colchester in the Great WarColchester in the Great War, later this year, – says the two women are members of the Women’s Land Army formed in the First World War.

Having already started to think the roses the men are all wearing in their buttonholes might be a clue, Andrew says he then recognised the man in the middle wearing a straw boater hat as Frank Cant, the nephew of famous Colchester rose grower Ben Cant.

“In the Victorian age, when roses were the most popular flower in England, Ben Cant was the best known rose grower in Britain, constantly winning national prizes and selling his roses all over the world.”

He taught his large family the trade on condition they worked for the family firm but Frank went against this, promptly setting up in competition.

During the First World War they both continued to grow roses and enter competitions but with food shortages becoming a problem the Government began to control its production.

“Both Cant firms began to grow potatoes, but with half the adult men in the area already in uniform, there was a shortage of manpower too. One answer was the Women’s Land Army,” he says.

Andrew says the photograph dates from 1918 or 1919 as before then there were few land army women trained in the area.

“However, the buttonholes show that Frank Cant is back growing roses, so it is possible that this is 1919 –: before the Women’s Land Army was disbanded, and after Frank got back to roses.”

Reader Julia Cottee had also recognised her grandfather Thomas Nice on the right side of the picture wearing a flat cap.