The Village Cross, Hempstead, Gloucester 19780 JV

An interesting monument and a nice village scene.

The Cross is still there without its railings. The surrounding houses almost all seem to have gone and been replaced with less attractive post WW2 ones, judging by what can be seen on Google Street scene.

I'm completely charmed by this scene. I just want to move into that far house on the left. I'm also curious: is "19780 JV" a postal code or a map reference or something else?

The JV initials are those of James Valentine, prolific photographer and publisher of prints and postcards. He is best known for scenery such as this. Many of the photographs, in this album of mine, are prints by him, collected by my grandfather. I have given most of the originals to local county archives or local history groups, having scanned them first. One batch had been stored in a box or piece of furniture with woodworm. They all had matching neat circular holes. I filled the holes digitally when I scanned them, but the archives have the nibbled originals.
The numbers may just be a catalogue number or could be a date.
Later - I don't think that the number is a date. While it might work for this picture - 19th July 1880 - the numbers on the others I have looked at in this album wouldn't work out as a date. The catalogue number seems more likely.