Link to full digitised version of Chilham Castle Pageant brochure (big file)
Our story begins when Sally Parker bought a bundle of piano music at a charity shop in Bridgewater, Somerset. Among her music sheets she found a programme for the Chilham Castle Pageant staged in the grounds on 5th and 6th July 1946. Sally felt that the booklet belonged in Chilham and took the trouble to make contact with Chilham Parish Council through its website then sent it to us.
The Chilham Castle Pageant booklet has now been digitised and posted here on our website so that 78 years on it can be studied and enjoyed. The original is now with the owners of Chilham Castle for safe keeping.
Historical pageants were popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Chilham Castle Pageant is reported to have been seen by about a thousand people in 4 performances over 2 days. It involved about 600 performers and made a profit of £2717. 2s. 4d for the Kent Appeals for the National Association of Boys’ Clubs and the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen’s Families Association.
Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent was patron for the pageant which doubtless gave it a substantial boost. Many rather interesting and colourful characters took part – most notably the producer, Edie Craig (daughter of famous Edwardian actress Ellen Terry) who had been an eminent and very active suffragette and was part of the Bloomsbury set, mixing with the likes of Vita Sackville West and Virginia Woolf.
To learn more about the fascinating Chilham Castle Pageant of 1946, visit Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Chilham Castle Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1031/. (Link to external site)
To learn more about historical pageants in general visit https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/123496 (Link to external site)