Street Life

Wintry fun as a gang of Victorian boys launch a boisterous snowball assault

A group of boys scramble to retrieve pennies tossed into the shallow water at the foot of Brighton's West Pier.

Snow fun: schoolboy japes brighten a wintry Victorian day.

An illustration of horsemanship straight out of a Victorian novel

Victorian athletes demonstrate their diving skills at the pool - until an interloper makes the wrong kind of splash

Tally-ho! A display of driving skill, Victorian-style, with horse-drawn carriages impressing crowds at a country fair

A railway mystery: where are we? Can you help?

The daily exodus of Victorian factory workers - but where?

Blackpool Tower is hard to miss in this local version of a 'phantom ride'

Mischievous Victorian kids build a snowman - out of a passer-by!

A traditional Scottish dance, specially staged at Balmoral for Queen Victoria

London N7 as you've not seen it before: a Victorian tram ride view of the Seven Sisters Road

Webcam, Victorian style: high-angle film of London streets

A classically Victorian scene - horses and hounds setting off on an old-fashioned fox hunt

Very early film of the busy junction

Death-defying iron workers

Sailors strip off for a playground game with shovels for bats and coal for a ball

A May Day parade down Cockermouth’s Main Street, filmed by a local draper

If a man makes improper advances, could a dog defend the honour of a Victorian lady?

The source of a few Victorian families' bacon rashers and Sunday roasts - a pig is sold at an old-fashioned auction

A hapless fairground engine is rescued from a ditch

Can a freshly made snowman survive a hail of icy artillery in this epic Victorian snowball fight?

Crashing waves batter the seafront at Sandown on the Isle of Wight

Fairground visitors enjoy a bumpy ride.

A scene from the golden age of rail travel - all the hustle and bustle of a Victorian train station

Driver and Station Master exchange a staff as this LNWR 'local' stops for passengers

One of the earliest films showing off a brand: three women pack Vinolia soap into boxes

Two cricketing legends captured on an early home movie device

Subject: factory gate. Location: unknown...

Factory gate glimpses at - we think - Barrow-in-Furness

The ship may have been wrecked already, but storm waves batter it once again in this fearsome Victorian footage

A rambunctious local scene

Local boys in Singapore harbour

Visually striking Victorian interest film

An exciting finish suggests that this is one of the very earliest British films

Five large yachts sail by on a calm stretch of water, possibly a river or estuary

A bit of publicity for a Welsh film pioneer

A big celebration in Jedburgh, in the Scottish Borders

The familiar game turns into something not seen in modern playgrounds: have you played Mounty-Kitty?

A host of faces pass before the camera in a lively but frustrating film

Did he bowl or did he throw? A fascinating record of an early cricketing controversy.

The earliest surviving footage of bustling Victorian Bradford.

Edwardian boys and girls leave school, shuffled along by their earnest teachers.

The action in this little film is clear enough, even if the context remains a mystery.

Victorian revelry on Morecambe Seafront.

Red letter day for the Victorian horseracing fraternity and the Surrey town.

An accidental fashion parade as holiday promenaders pass before the camera on Brighton Pier

Greedy seagulls at Portrush, Northern Ireland

A two-wheeled convoy of Victorian gentlewomen in a charming early film enigma.

Dock workers unload grain from a cargo ship in Edwardian North Ayrshire.

On the Yorkshire coast, a Victorian crew launch their lifeboat the old-fashioned way, with a horse-drawn slipway

A rare glimpse of early Edwardian Manchester when the horse-drawn tram still reigned supreme.

An afternoon's boating in the River Ribble at Edwardian Preston.

Messing about in boats on the River Dee - fine frocks and frolics at Chester Regatta.

Edwardian tourists and businessmen hurry off the ferry and down the long pier at Egremont on the River Mersey.

A melee of traffic, carts, trams, bicycles and people of all ages squeeze past the camera in Victorian Hull.

An enigmatic Edwardian snapshot recording a ceremonial procession of soldiers and police in the Manchester suburbs.

A street scene in Edwardian Hull is dominated by advertising for an event to celebrate returning soldiers from the Boer War.

Aspects of the Lancashire market town, with policemen, small girls, dogs and passers-by.

A well dressed crowd emerges from an unknown building and engages with the camera.

Victorian County Durham celebrates the construction of Seaham Pier in a formal ceremony.

Outside a fairground cinematograph in Edwardian Lancashire.

Fancy a dip? Sheep get thrown in at the deep end in this glimpse of late Victorian farming

Ferries across the Mersey show Edwardian workers on their daily commute to and from Liverpool.

The kids are the stars in this early street scene

Busy Leeds traffic

An incidental scene from the Anglo-Boer war, with wagons of timber moved by a steam engine

Summertime laughs and larks at a West Yorkshire pleasure gardens.

Roll out the barrel organ for some street dance, Victorian style

Here's looking at you, kids. An early film camera draws in the children in this street scene

Seaside play at Rhyl - charmingly filmed by Wales' first filmmaker

Peer through a window into late Victorian city life, where pedestrians reclaim the streets

Early film technology has had a strange effect on the recording of this traditional May Day ritual

Sailors do fashionable exercises at Portsmouth

The origin of the silly point? An impossibly chaotic backdrop to schoolboy cricket in this early film

A procession of cyclists approaching the camera down the wide path of a public park

Top-hatted pedestrians and horse-drawn traffic pass over Blackfriars Bridge in London

These lads are bound to take a dunk in the Thames

A view out of a railway tunnel, which could have formed part of a longer ‘phantom ride’ film.

Few clues to who shot these Victorian scenes on an unknown bridge, and where.

Filmed by Rotherhithe, this film provides a glimpse into Victorian working life on the Thames.

Roll up, roll up! An outlandish circus parade wows the streets of Victorian Huddersfield

All the fun of the fair in this Victorian film, made in the early years of Newcastle's famous Hoppings

And we're off! Take a ride on a steam engine into total darkness, but never fear, there's light at the end of the tunnel

When you're on a pier this long, you can be forgiven for taking public transport

A lively Victorian harbour scene, destined for a royal viewing

A Victorian train trip through the Devonian countryside and into the famous seaside town.