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Beverley Today

A native filmmaker uses his local knowledge of Beverley to great effect here to give a wonderful portrait of his home town, covering everything from the shipyards to the market.

Amateur film 1968 19 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for Yorkshire Film Archive

Overview

Anyone wishing to visit the historic town of Beverley could do a lot worse than take in this comprehensive overview made in 1968. Evincing a great familiarity of the area, this film presents a wide ranging picture of Beverley, with a local commentary on the many historic sites featured. It also takes us back to show Beverley as it looked half a century ago, with a boisterous market, working shipyards and barges being unloaded on the Beckside at Hodgsons the tanners.

Many amateur filmmakers have preserved their home towns in moving images, and this film, by S Stephenson, is a fine example of this. For anyone interested in local history these films bring the past to life in a way that documents and even photographs are unable to do. Much of the historic sites and buildings shown in the film have remained fairly unchanged over the years. However, the shipyards are no longer there, nor are the firms of Hodgsons and Barkers and Lee Smith, the animal feed mill, seen in the film. Film courtesy of East Riding of Yorkshire Council Archives.