[1] was an East Anglian farmer, photographer and expert amateur archaeologist.
He provided photographs for several books about East Anglia, including Nikolaus Pevsner's Suffolk,[2] and his photography led to an important discovery of Bronze Age barrows in Essex.
[1] In 1917, during the First World War, Girling was drafted into the Territorial Force as an infantryman and served in France.
[1] Girling was extremely interested in the culture, history and archaeology of East Anglia.
[5] His interpretation of Suffolk merchants' marks is mentioned in The Arma Christi in Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture, edited by Andrea Denny Brown and Lisa Cooper.
[6] Girling also wrote articles for local archaeological societies on a variety of subjects (see bibliography below).
In 1957, through his photography, he found a circle in a field of sugar beet in Dedham.
[7] Bryan Blake excavated the site for Colchester Museum and found Bronze Age collared funerary urns,[8] which were photographed by Girling in 1960.
[10] Girling also provided images for Humphrey Pakington's book, English Villages and Hamlets.
[1] The Conway Library at the Courtauld Institute of Art holds a collection of Girling's photographs.