Walpole Old Chapel Tercentenary Pageant

Pageant type

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Performances

Place: Walpole Old Chapel (Walpole) (Walpole, Suffolk, England)

Year: 1947

Indoors/outdoors: Indoors

Number of performances: 2

Notes

14 June 1947

[Performances at 3.30pm and 7.30pm]

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Author and Producer [Pageant Master]: Moore, Rev. Ivan
  • Assistant Producers: Rev. P.R. Southgate, Mrs E.K. Bannister, Mrs J. Morling, Rev. E.F. Hickling, Mrs T.E. Legg, Miss Jean White
  • Musical Director: Major J.H. Bennett
  • Wardrobe Mistress: Mrs R.J. Robinson
  • Property Master and Stage Manager: Mr R. Sago
  • Groundsmen: Messrs H. Farrington, J. Limmer and S. Woodward
  • Electrical Assistant: Mr E.W. Bridges
  • Publicity: Messrs R.W. Brame and J.W. Newby
  • Advance Bookings: Mrs E. Chapman
  • Treasurer: Mr M.B. Beverley

Names of executive committee or equivalent

n/a

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

  • Moore, Rev. Ivan

Names of composers

n/a

Numbers of performers

The pageant was performed by members of Beccles, Bungay, Halesworth, Leiston, Lowestoft and Oulton Broad Congregational Churches.

Financial information

n/a

Object of any funds raised

No information but almost certainly towards the Suffolk Nonconformist Society

Linked occasion

Tercentenary of the founding of the chapel

Audience information

  • Grandstand: Not Known
  • Grandstand capacity: n/a
  • Total audience: n/a

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

n/a

Associated events

n/a

Pageant outline

Prologue

God Save the King is also sung. [Synopses texts taken from Souvenir Programme of Walpole Old Chapel Tercentenary Pageant. Np., [1947]]

Scene I. Felix of Burgundy Evangelises the Saxons.

At the request of King Sigebert, Felix of Burgundy was sent to conduct a Christian mission throughout his kingdom of East Anglia. Felix was given the seat for his bishopric at Dunwich. Education activities played a great part of his work.

Scene 2. The Danish Persecution of Saxon Christians.

After the defeat of the Saxons and the death of their King Edmund the Danes ravaged the whole kingdom of East Anglia.

Scene 3. Medieval Walpole.

A glimpse of medieval village life, the wandering players and the Lollard preachers.

Interlude: A Morality Play

Scene 4. The Great Bible comes to Walpole.

Henry VIII ordered Bibles to be set up in the Parish Churches throughout England.

Scene 5. The Founding of the Independent Chapel

The chapel was founded in 1647 at the insistence of Samuel Manning and others. The present building was adapted for worship and contact was made with the Church at Yarmouth.

Scene 6. A Sunday at Walpole about 200 years after.

Epilogue and Procession.

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Felix [St Felix] (d. 647/8) bishop of the East Angles
  • Sigeberht (fl. 630/31–654) king of the East Angles
  • Edmund [St Edmund] (d. 869) king of the East Angles

Musical production

n/a

Newspaper coverage of pageant

n/a

Book of words

None noted.

Other primary published materials

  • Souvenir Programme of Walpole Old Chapel Tercentenary Pageant. Np., [1947].

References in secondary literature

n/a

Archival holdings connected to pageant

  • Copy of Programme in Suffolk Record Office, Reference HD2272/253/3

Sources used in preparation of pageant

n/a

Summary

Nonconformist religious groups were notably active in the pageant movement. This is a post-Second World War example from Walpole in Suffolk, which was put on by members of local Congregational churches. Needham Market in the county had held a Nonconformist pageant in 1932, attesting to the strength of nonconformist support in Suffolk. Held indoors, Walpole's was a fairly small-scale event, and it seems to have been a serious-minded treatment of East Anglian religious history, from a Nonconformist perspective. The emphasis was on the Word of God (hence the episode devoted to the arrival in Walpole of the English Bible), and the efforts made to spread it.

Footnotes

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Walpole Old Chapel Tercentenary Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1498/