Weston Pageant

Pageant type

Notes

Performed by members of the Townswomen’s Guild

Jump to Summary

Performances

Place: Weston Village (Bath) (Bath, Somerset, England)

Year: 1951

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: n/a

Notes

Summer 1951

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Pageant Master: Rowe, Rev. Everhard
  • Chairman and Costume Maker: Margaret Bodley (Chair of Townswomen’s Guild)
  • Historical Advisor and Author: Mrs Begley

Names of executive committee or equivalent

n/a

Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)

  • Begley, Mrs

Names of composers

n/a

Numbers of performers

n/a

Financial information

n/a

Object of any funds raised

n/a

Linked occasion

Festival of Britain

Audience information

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

n/a

Associated events

n/a

Pageant outline

Scene 1. Building of the Via Julia by the Romans

Scene 2. Story of St Alphege

Alphege was the son of a Saxon woman who became the Abbot of Bath and the Archbishop of Canterbury

Scene 3. Crusaders

Scene 4. How Weston became the Property of the Abbey of Bath

Scene 5. The Dissolution of the Monasteries, 1539.

Scene 6. Elizabethan Times

Scene 7. The Battle of Lansdown

Scene 8. The Visit of Queen Anne to Bath

Scene 9. The Napoleonic Wars.

The scene represented the rise in food prices, when Weston became known as the ‘Laundry of Bath’ because women took in the town’s washing due to poverty.

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Ælfheah [St Ælfheah, Elphege, Alphege] (d. 1012) archbishop of Canterbury
  • Anne (1665–1714) queen of Great Britain and Ireland

Musical production

n/a

Newspaper coverage of pageant

n/a

Book of words

n/a

Other primary published materials

n/a

References in secondary literature

  • A Weston Miscellany. Weston, 1999. At 37-8.
    Published by Weston Village Townswomen’s Guild.

Archival holdings connected to pageant

n/a

Sources used in preparation of pageant

n/a

Summary

The Weston Pageant was one of many held for the Festival of Britain in 1951 (see, for instance Ewelme, Chippenham and Bedale).The pageant was organised jointly by the Rev. Everhard Rowe and the Weston Village Townswomen’s Guild.  Whilst a number of other pageants were assisted by members of the Townswomen's Guild (see Barrow (1967), and St Albans (1968)), Weston's was one of the few which were organized exclusively by them. The pageant was particularly poignant because during the Festival year the village was incorporated, by an act of Parliament, into the City of Bath.1 Bath had cancelled plans for a major pageant to celebrate the Festival despite being one of twenty-three Festival centres given government funding.2

Footnotes

1. ^ A Weston Miscellany (Weston, 1999), 37-8.
2. ^ Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 29 July 1950, 7; 21 October 1950, 1; 16 December 1950, 5.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Weston Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1355/