SO 125 years have flashed by in Thornbury since the Gazette first dropped off the press 12 miles "up the road" in Dursley.

In 1878 only the craziest visionaries might have predicted the enormous changes that 125 years would bring, affecting every aspect of human life.

To say Thornbury was then a very different place is an understatement of some magnitude. Even the birth of the Thornbury district's "own" Gazette was still more than 40 years away, the paper as we now know it not coming into being until 1922.

However, when the Gazette approached local historians for help in marking the anniversary, it was decided to leave technicalities aside and make 1878 and the following two decades, our focus.

Using various "non newspaper" sources, but inlcuiding such important local publications as Thornbury Magazine, Tom Crowe and Meg Wise, of the Thornbury and District Museum Research Group, have compiled a fascinating a tableau to illustrate how much things have changed - and, occasionally, how much remains the same.

They have spent many hours collecting items which broadly conform to the various sections in the modern Thornbury Gazette to give a flavour of life in the town and district over the last quarter of the 19th century.

We are indebted to them for their efforts.