Croston Pageant
Pageant type
Performances
Place: No information (Croston) (Croston, Lancashire, England)
Year: 1951
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: 1
Notes
28 May 1951
Name of pageant master and other named staff
Names of executive committee or equivalent
n/a
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
Names of composers
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Numbers of performers
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Financial information
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Object of any funds raised
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Linked occasion
Festival of Britain and the 1000th anniversary of the founding of the Parish
Audience information
- Grandstand: Not Known
- Grandstand capacity: n/a
- Total audience: 3000
Notes
Source for audience information: Manchester Guardian, 28 May 1951, 3.
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
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Associated events
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Pageant outline
Anglians and St Aidan planting a cross which gave the town its name, 651
The Coming of the Normans
Granting of the Market
Founding of the Grammar School
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster rides through
Wedding of the Fleming Daughters to the Lords of Dalton and Hesketh
A Mystery Play given to honour the Earl of Derby
The Passing of Peter Lathom, the Pedlar, through the Parish
Robert Master, Rector of Croston in 1793 Divides the Parish into Chroley and Rufford
Declaration of the Creed and the Choir sings ‘Lift High the Cross’
Key historical figures mentioned
- Áedán [St Áedán, Aidan] (d. 651) missionary
and bishop [also known as Aidan]
- John [John of Gaunt], duke of Aquitaine
and duke of Lancaster, styled king of Castile and León (1340–1399) prince
and steward of England
Musical production
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Newspaper coverage of pageant
Manchester Guardian
Book of words
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Other primary published materials
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References in secondary literature
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Archival holdings connected to pageant
- A film of the pageant, ‘Pageant - The Ancient Parish of Croston May 1951, and Coffee Day Processions’, accessed 26 March 2017, is available at http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-pageant-the-ancient-parish-of-croston-may-1951-and-coffee-day-processions-1937/
Sources used in preparation of pageant
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Summary
The Croston Pageant was one of hundreds held across the country in celebration of the Festival of Britain in 1951. Like many other Festival pageants, it eschewed a focus on prominent figures—Kings and Queens, Dukes and Duchesses—in favour of a history of the common sorts who had made up the parish over the last millennia. Although not particularly religious in content, the pageant ended with a massed reciting of the creed, affirming the Christian faith. The Manchester Guardian, which covered the event in highly favourable terms, declared:
There is something inexorable about the progress of a pageant. It does not mind incongruities and accidents, forgotten lines or the stilted words of amateurs. It achieves its end through surfeiting the audience with colour and symbolism, music, and often – as here – through the entirely unprofessional delight and sincerity of actors and, above all of the children.1
The newspaper quoted the narrator of the pageant who declared afterwards: ‘“Our tale is told… our past unveiled before you. The stones have spoken in living words of flesh and blood”’.2 A colour film was made of the pageant.3
Footnotes
1. ^ Manchester Guardian, 28 May 1951, 3.
2. ^ Ibid.
3. ^ ‘Pageant - The Ancient Parish of Croston May 1951, and Coffee Day Processions’, accessed 26 March 2017, is available at http://player.bfi.org.uk/film/watch-pageant-the-ancient-parish-of-croston-may-1951-and-coffee-day-processions-1937/
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Croston Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1522/