1920s Britain at work and play: Glorious National Geographic colour photographs capture an innocent age a century ago.

From Boy Scouts on a hike to children playing on a beach, this wonderful set of photographs captures British life almost a century ago.

The images from the 1920s and 1930s also include scenes of postmen on their rounds, police directing buses and characters in a pageant.

They were taken by Clifton R. Adams, who was sent to England by National Geographic magazine to photograph life in the country.

Mr Adams, who died in 1934 aged just 44, had instructions to record its farms, towns and cities, and its residents at work and play.

He took the images in colour using Autochrome Lumière, which was the most advanced colour photographic process of the day.

The plates were covered in microscopic potato starch grains coloured red, green and blue-violet, with about four million per square inch.

Light passed through the colour filters when an image was taken, with the plate then processed to produce a positive transparency.

SEE MORE PICTURES AFTER THE CUT......

 

 Life's a beach: Children play on the sand near Yarmouth, a popular destination for holidaymakers on the Isle of Wight in 1928

You've got mail: Two girls send a letter at a red pillar box in Belfast in 1927

  A woman is seen on the Isle of Wight in 1928

Work in the fields: A police constable passes the day with farmers gathering hay in Lancashire in November 1928

Rule Britannia: Characters in a pageant - Britannia and her colonies and dependencies - on the grass in Southampton in 1928

Sandcastles: A young girl plays on the beach with bucket and spade in Sandown on the Isle of Wight in 1928

Ruby red: A man posts a letter next to a traditional telephone box in Oxford

 A group of women hike in Cumbria (right) in 1928

What a view: Locals enjoy the view of the Surrey Hills, in 1928, which was designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1958

Off to work: An informal portrait of a farmer and his cart in the small town of Crowland in Lincolnshire, near Peterborough, in 1928

Choices: Two women buy ice cream from a vendor out of his converted car in Cornwall - which has the phrase 'Stop Me & Try One' - in 1928

Two soldiers stand in Hythe, Kent, in 1928

 Two girls talk outside a home in Chillington, Devon, in 1928

Pleasant: Two women enjoy a leisurely tea in 1928 in front of the Clock House in Buckinghamshire, which was originally a hospice