Meldreth 900th Anniversary Pageant
Pageant type
Performances
Place: Holy Trinity Church (Meldreth) (Meldreth, Cambridgeshire, England)
Year: 1990
Indoors/outdoors: Indoors
Number of performances: 1
Notes
10 June 1990
Name of pageant master and other named staff
- Director [Pageant Master]: Power,
Micahel
- Commentator: Peter Allen
- Lighting: John Brand
- Sound: Fred Askew
- Costumes Organised by: Jackie
Billingham, Rosemary Childrerley, Paula Mortimer and Jo Padfield
Names of executive committee or equivalent
n/a
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
Names of composers
n/a
Numbers of performers
n/a
Financial information
n/a
Object of any funds raised
n/a
Linked occasion
900th Anniversary of the founding of the village
Audience information
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
n/a
Associated events
A time capsule was put together by the Primary school, including modern coins, postage stamps, sweet wrappers, an empty drink can, register of electors, booklets of local schools, a copy of Meldreth Matters, a newspaper, a teenager’s magazine, and a Meldreth-to-London train ticket.
Pageant outline
Scene 1. Vikings Plunder the Village
Scene 2. King Edgar establishes peace
Scene 3. Building of a wooden church
Scene 4. Invasion of Normans
Scene 5. Explanation of St. Christopher through the wall paintings
Scene 6. Plundering of the church by the Royal Commissioners
Scene 7. Andrew Marvell, poet. Charles I and Cromwell. Plundering of the church by Cromwellian soldiers.
Scene 8. 1850. The Coming of the Railway
Scene 9. The Coming of Methodism
Scene 10. 1910: The Village School
Scene 11. The First World War
Scene 12. The Second World War
Scene 13. Finale.
Key historical figures mentioned
- Edgar [called Edgar Pacificus]
(943/4–975) king of England
- Marvell, Andrew (1621–1678) poet and
politician
Musical production
n/a
Newspaper coverage of pageant
n/a
Book of words
- None known
Other primary published materials
- 900th Anniversary Pageant: Programme of Events. Meldreth, 1990.
References in secondary literature
n/a
Archival holdings connected to pageant
- Copy of Programme in Cambridgeshire Local Studies Collection, Cambridge, Reference E07.2704
Sources used in preparation of pageant
n/a
Summary
The Pageant was a revival of the text of one first performed in the 1950s in the village of Meldreth, which lies on the Cambridge to London railway line. The Pageant was common of more modern productions, in including scenes from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and in particular the First World War.
Footnotes
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Meldreth 900th Anniversary Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1428/