Pageants 24
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The Dover Pageant
Dover’s staging of a historical folk-play in 1908 was a nationally important and spectacular example of an Edwardian town gripped by ‘pageantitis’. Directed by the original master himself, Louis Na... -
A Pageant of Kimbolton, Depicting the History of the Castle and of the School
This pageant opened with the Tudor, Stuart and Civil War periods and also contained scenes set in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was staged in the grounds of Kimbolton Castle, which had... -
The Masque of the Lady Margaret
The Women’s Institute Movement first came to Britain from Canada in 1915, and rapidly spread across the country. Bedfordshire villages first took it up towards the end of the Great War, and its ext... -
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... -
Bramshill Park Historical Pageant
This pageant was held in the grounds of Bramshill House in Hampshire, and is an example of the many small pageants held in and around great country estates in the interwar period. Perhaps appropria... -
The Pageant of Plymouth Hoe
The Pageant of Plymouth Hoe was a locally major event staged to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation in 1953. It was the first large pageant in the city since the Mayflower Pageant in 1920, and followe... -
Kingston Church Pageant
The author of the Kingston Pageant, W.E. St Lawrence Finny, went even further than the great Pageant Master, Louis Napoleon Parker, who famously avoided the Civil War so as not to offend political ... -
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... -
Ashdown Forest Pageant
It was in September, 1928, that Mrs Olaf Hambro of Kidbrooke Park…broke to me the news that the Village Hall was badly in need of £1,500 for building its new wing, and that she and Miss Needham tho... -
The Pageant of London
The Pageant of London was the main attraction of the Festival of Empire at Crystal Palace in 1911. Undoubtedly the largest and most ambitious pageant of the Edwardian period, if not the whole twent... -
Oxford Historical Pageant
The Oxford Historical Pageant of 1907 was a major civic event, and took place in the grounds of Magdalen College. Despite being wholly a part of the initial outburst of pageant fever, it was one of... -
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... -
Berkshire Historical Pageant
Women’s Institute (WI) Pageants were highly popular during the 1920s and early 1930s, and county pageants were especially successful. Other County WI pageants were held at the following: Norfolk (1... -
Buckingham Pageant and Bazaar
This was one of very few pageants held in the small rural county of Buckinghamshire. Despite the pageant being held under the auspices of the Buckingham Methodists, it seems to have involved many p... -
Andover Coronation Celebrations
The 1953 Coronation was an important occasion for historical pageantry in the 1950s. This was one of many relatively small-scale pageants staged across the UK at this time. As is clear from film fo... -
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... -
Benfleet Pageant
This was the first of three pageants held in the small town of Benfleet, Essex, after the Second World War (the others took place in 1953 and 1994). Staged in 1946, the midst of post-war austerity,... -
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... -
Historical Pageant of Ipswich
‘The idea of writing a historical pageant of Ipswich was conceived by the History Club some time ago, and visions of its possible form presented themselves in February, 1934 when Mr. Rowley Ellisto... -
The Pageant of the Silver Penny
Although it was performed only once, the Pageant of the Silver Penny was a week-long affair, based in the Bedfordshire countryside. An article by Dorothy Clarke in The Guider documented the festiva...