The Making of Lingfield: A Pageant
Pageant type
Performances
Place: Lingfield Parish Church (Lingfield) (Lingfield, Surrey, England)
Year: 1977
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: n/a
Notes
31 May, 1 June, 2 June 1977, at 7pm.
Name of pageant master and other named staff
- Pageant Master: Palmer, Elizabeth
Names of executive committee or equivalent
n/a
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
- Palmer, Elizabeth
Names of composers
n/a
Numbers of performers
50Financial information
Object of any funds raised
n/a
Linked occasion
The Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II
Audience information
- Grandstand: Yes
- Grandstand capacity: n/a
- Total audience: n/a
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
n/a
Associated events
Part of wider Jubilee celebrations including a model railway, gymkhana, riding display, kite flying, Punch & Judy, dancing display, adventure assault course and sports field.
Pageant outline
Key historical figures mentioned
n/a
Musical production
Newspaper coverage of pageant
East Grinstead Courier
Book of words
- Elizabeth Palmer. The Making of Lingfield: A Pageant. N.P., 1977.
Other primary published materials
n/a
References in secondary literature
n/a
Archival holdings connected to pageant
n/a
Sources used in preparation of pageant
n/a
Summary
This is an example of one of the pageants that were staged to mark the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 1977. The occasion marked something of a revival of the historical pageant movement, which had been in steady decline since the late 1950s. ‘The Making of Lingfield’ was a relatively ambitious pageant, by the standards of the later 1970s, and indeed was probably one of the larger such events staged to celebrate the jubilee. It was put on by Lingfield Parish Church, and performed outdoors by a 50-strong case on three evenings from 31 May to 2 June. The script was written by Elizabeth Palmer, a local writer; she seems also to have acted as pageant master for the occasion. The narrative content of the pageant was the history of the locality, which it traced from the time of King Alfred to the present day. While the pageant was quite a major event for a small place like Lingfield, it was only one element of a large programme of activities. On the day of Jubilee itself, the fun began at 2pm with ‘a grand procession from Mount Pleasant Road to the Racecourse where stalls, a model railway, and fenced off areas behind the Grandstand were ready for the gymkhana and riding display, kite flying, Punch & Judy, dancing display, adventure assault course and sports field’.1 The festivities, including the pageant, seem to have been a success, despite the rainy weather that dogged the Jubilee celebrations here as in many other places around the UK; as the East Grinstead Courier reported, ‘Even a thunderstorm failed to stop the celebrations.’2
Footnotes
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘The Making of Lingfield: A Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1122/