This film is part of Free

Know Your Midlands No 1

Once a major transport hub with coaching inns galore by 1957 Dunchurch in Warwickshire was letting the world pass by.

News 1957 4 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for Media Archive for Central England

Overview

Dunchurch has a link to one of those historical events known to everyone - the Gunpowder Plot. It was at the Lion Inn in the village that the conspirators waited for news of the attempt by Guy Fawkes on Parliament in 1605. In later years it was a major stopping off point on the A45 road between Holyhead and London and the Dun Cow Inn, which is featured, is one such former coaching inn. The statue is for a less well known personality: local land owner Lord John Scott who died in 1860.

This short piece of silent film produced in the early days of commercial television features the presenter Noele Gordon sitting in the village stocks. Several years later her appearances in the motel based soap opera Crossroads extended her fame well beyond the Midlands. It is probable that this film was first shown in her daily Midlands originated magazine programme Lunchbox.