East Horsley Pageant
Pageant type
Performances
Place: Grounds of Horsley Towers (East Horsley) (East Horsley, Surrey, England)
Year: 1936
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: 1
Notes
4 July 1936 at 3pm
Name of pageant master and other named staff
- Pageant Master: Kitching, Alan
- Director of Music: Edith M. Bathurst
- Recorder: Rev. W.J. Right
Names of executive committee or equivalent
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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
900th anniversary of St Martin’s Church
Audience information
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
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Associated events
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Pageant outline
Prologue. AD 400. Saint Martin of Tours
Scene I. AD 1036. Building of the Church
Scene II. Thored Presents the Manor of Horsley to the Archbishop of Canterbury
Scene III. AD 1129. Edith’s Gift
Scene IV. AD 1152. Roger of Horsley Leases the Manor from the Archbishop
Scene V. 12th Century. The Enlargement of the Church
Scene VI. AD 1317. The Prior and his Friends go hunting. Pilgrims call at the Church on their Way to Canterbury
Scene VII. Procession of Monuments
Interval
Scene VIII. AD 1699. Denny Muchamp, owner of Rowbarnes Manor and Bishop’s Manor, marries Lady Lanesborough, owner of Horsley Manor
Scene IX. AD 1800-40. William Currie builds a New Manor. Lord Lovelace buys it, rebuilds it, and gives a garden party.
Scene X. The Great War. The British Legion and the Roll of Honour. The Ghosts of the Past return and Procession of Players.
Key historical figures mentioned
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Musical production
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Newspaper coverage of pageant
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Book of words
- None noted
Other primary published materials
- Programme for East Horsley Pageant commemorating the 900th anniversary of St Martin's church, East Horsley, held at Horsley Towers, 4 Jul 1936. Nd., 1936. [price 6d].
References in secondary literature
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Archival holdings connected to pageant
- Copy of Programme in Surrey History Centre, Woking. Reference 7297/1.
Sources used in preparation of pageant
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Summary
In the interwar period, village pageants were notably popular in Surrey. This is an example of one such pageant. Staged just once, it was like many such pageants closely associated with the local parish church. Indeed in this case the pageant was put on to commemorate its nine hundredth anniversary. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the focus of its narrative was very much on local religious history, and on the Lords of the local manor, with which the church was closely associated. Performed in the grounds of Horsley Towers, the pageant constituted— it seems likely—a socially conservative celebration of traditional rural society against a background of a rapid spread of suburban development which saw Surrey's population mushroom during the inter-war period.
Footnotes
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘East Horsley Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1478/