Southend High Street over the decades - in pictures

Here we take a another delve into the archives to look back at the now city centre in decades gone by including the 1970s and 1980s.

Images show the festive and Christmas decorations that filled the High Street in the past.

There were large displays with arches, flags and bunting.

The street scene may be familiar, but these pictures from the Echo archive show a selection of shop names which have long disappeared.

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But there are also familiar brands, such as Boots and Marks and Spencer, which remain in Southend to the present day.

Looking back reminds us how the High Street was open to lanes of traffic long before it become pedestrianised.

The archives also reveal how the High Street was dug up with a long trench created, as a salt water main being laid in the now city centre in 1937.

Workmen put in the hours digging and laying the water services in the street.

Footfall was high in the Seventies and Eighties with many, many shoppers visiting the range of businesses in the High Street.

Images remind us how busy the High Street was long before the days of online and internet shopping.