Pageants 48
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The Pageant of Centuries
Buckden Palace was formerly the seat of the Bishops of Lincoln, first constructed sometime in the twelfth century and continually extended, rebuilt and repaired (due to recurring fires) over the ce... -
The Pageant of Guildford 1957
The Pageant of Guildford was a relatively large event staged to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the granting of the town’s first charter. It was produced by Christopher Ede—by this point the m... -
A Pageant of Hampton
A Pageant of Hampton was the second of three large pageants in Southampton in the interwar period, following the Mayflower Pageant of 1920. Unlike that event, and the Silver Jubilee Pageant that fo... -
The Chelsea Historical Pageant
Performed in 1908, the Chelsea Pageant was part of the initial wave of ‘pageantitis’, and notably the first pageant to be staged within the capital. ‘Little Chelsea’, declared The Times, was ‘going... -
Dartford Division of Kent Historical Pageant
The Dartford Historical Pageant was one of the final civic extravaganzas produced by the famous pageant master Frank Lascelles. In his typical fashion,1 the pageant was a large and spectacular affa... -
The Chipping Sodbury Pageant
The Chipping Sodbury Pageant was a small pageant staged four times in south Gloucestershire in summer 1935. It was produced and mostly written by Cicely Bedford, who had been producing plays since ... -
Naworth Castle Pageant
The Naworth Castle Pageant was a small event that took place in 1960. It was really more of a fete and short play than a ‘true’ historical pageant. The focus was solely on the Tudor period and Henr... -
Southampton Quincentenary Pageant
Taking place as part of a wider celebration, staged to acknowledge the quincentenary of a charter that established the County Town of Southampton in 1447 and the five hundred and second anniversary... -
St Albans Pageant 1953: A Masque of the Queens
Having staged a pageant during the height of Edwardian ‘pageant fever’ in 1907, as well as one of the early post-war pageants in 1948, St Albans did it for the third time during the Coronation cele... -
Pageant of Runnymede
In 1921 there had been outcry when the government attempted to sell Runnymeade Meadow for development, the proposal only being averted when the civil engineer Urban Broughton bought the land. His w... -
The Pageant of Empire
The Pageant of Empire took place over the course of a wet six weeks in July and August 1924 in the huge newly-constructed concrete Wembley Stadium. It was just one attraction of the monumental Brit... -
The Walthamstow Pageant 1930
The Walthamstow Pageant of 1930 was staged to commemorate the granting of a Charter of Borough Incorporation the previous year. It took place indoors at the plush Palace Theatre, an impressive buil... -
Pageant of York
The alleged 1900th anniversary of the founding of the city of York in 1971 was employed by the city council to stage a yearlong programme of celebrations. The varied programme produced was without ... -
Hitchin Pageant
The 1951 Festival of Britain saw something of a revival of historical pageantry in a world in which it appeared increasingly outmoded when competing with cinema, theatre and—most of all—television.... -
The Milford-on-Sea Pageant & Fete
On Bank Holiday Monday in early August 1930, a pageant and fete was held in the grounds of Newlands Manor, home of the Sir John Power, MP for Wimbledon. The event was put on in aid of the Milford-o... -
The Pageant of England
If one were in search of England in the 1930s, as so many contemporaries from H.V. Morton to J.B. Priestley to George Orwell seemed to be, one could do worse than head to Slough. The army had set u... -
The Greenwich Night Pageant
Taking place against the backdrop of economic depression, the Greenwich Night Pageant partly aimed to stimulate the new ‘important industries’ that had sprung up along the Thames, and, during the r... -
The Grand Historical Pageant of Gloucester
The Grand Historical Pageant of Gloucester took place in the summer of 1930 and was the top billed event of a fundraiser for the Gloucestershire Royal Infirmary—which was trying to raise £20000 for... -
The Wolsey Pageant
The Wolsey Pageant was a mid-to-large scale event staged in Ipswich to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the town’s most famous son: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. The pageant was directed and partly-w... -
The Three Towns Pageants
The Festival of Britain 1951 was the key cultural event of the period.3 Nationwide, a programme of events was skilfully planned with the aim of embracing modernist influences on British culture whi...