Future Exhibition in Bury St. Edmund's
One of the key aims of our project is to bring historical pageants to the wider population beyond the university, and especially to communities that have held historical pageants in the past. Bury St Edmund’s, as I wrote in my last blog post, has staged several large pageants across the twentieth century. Partnering up with the Magna Carta 800 and the St. Edmundsbury Heritage Service we are going to stage an exhibition in summer 2015 at the beautiful and ancient Moyse’s Hall Museum in the town square. Many of the objects associated with the 1907 and 1959 pageants, like swords and souvenirs, have lasted the years and are now held by the St. Edmundsbury Heritage Service. We are going to exhibit these items for the first time to the public, alongside all the other ephemera of historical pageantry – beautifully illustrated books of words and souvenir programmes, striking postcards, and even amateur-taken photography. Most exciting for many will be the filmed footage of the pageants that has survived – a fantastic glimpse into the sheer scale and popularity of the movement in the early- to mid-twentieth century. In conjunction with the physical exhibition we will be creating a more expanded online exhibition on our website, exploring the interesting stories and memories of pageantry in Bury. Today we met with Alan Baxter, the representative of Magna Carta 800, at the site of the exhibition: Moyse’s Hall. Exciting things – from pageant re-performances to oral history workshops -are planned over the next few months before and during the exhibition. Watch this space…
Some of the pageant team: Tom Hulme, Charlotte Tupman, Alan Baxter, and Paul Readman
Inside Moyse's Hall, where part of the exhibition will take place