The North Revisited: Major exhibition of documentary photography opens at Jodrell Bank

In 1965, The Sunday Times Magazine sent photojournalist John Bulmer north to document the region at a time when it was defined by industrial decline. But the images he returned with told a more complex story: shot in colour, they showed humanity and dignity alongside the hardship. They went on to shape how the North of England has been seen ever since.

Sixty years later, photographer Simon Hill has retraced that journey. The conversation between their two bodies of work, now showing together at Jodrell Bank, builds a portrait of how much has changed since then and how much remains.

While Bulmer visited 16 locations across the North, Hill travelled to more than 50. From late 2024 to mid 2026 he crossed the historic seven counties from Newcastle to Liverpool, visiting former mining communities, coastal towns, city centres, remote landscapes, and the motorways connecting them all. It’s one of the largest single-photographer commissions of its kind awarded by Arts Council England and was featured in The Sunday Times Magazine in August 2026.

In homage to Bulmer’s pioneering use of colour, much of Hill’s work was shot on Harman Phoenix 200, a contemporary colour film made in the North, and known for its unpredictable, textured qualities.

Bulmer’s North captured communities facing uncertain futures as the industries that defined them began to disappear. Hill’s is post-industrial, more diverse and still evolving. Former centres of heavy industry have become sites of cultural reinvention and technological growth. But echoes of that earlier North remain in the faces, streets and gestures Hill captured, alongside images that show just how much has shifted. Together, the two sets of photographs build a portrait of a region still in flux.

Jodrell Bank feels a particularly fitting setting for work that’s fundamentally about time, distance and how we measure change. You can see what the North looked like when Bulmer first pointed his camera at it, and what it looks like now that Hill has done the same, and the connections between the two.