The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
This film is part of Free
Wonders of Yorkshire
Rocks resembling alien creatures, a giant white horse, wooden mice, a cave where a famous prophetess lived, and a teddy turned to stone.
From the collection of:
Overview
Another highly accomplished documentary type film by Leeds amateur filmmaker Ken Leckenby, which is both very informative about the places it features and beautifully shot. Ken highlights the iconic Brimham Rocks, the picturesque North Yorkshire village of Kilburn, home of “Mousy Thompson”; Knaresborough, home of the oldest chemist’s shop in England and Mother Shipton’s cave; and Thomas Taylor’s White Horse, carved into a hill near Roulston Scar in 1857.
Ken Leckenby made films both on his own and collectively as a member of the Mercury Movie Makers Cine Club of Leeds. This is one of his own, which included other similar films on Wharfedale and Nidderdale, and a series of films he titled ‘Out and About’, which all had the form of bringing together film and information of local places and events. Each event would have a subtitle and Ken would often supply an informative commentary to go with the film. Ken would go out most weekends filming for these, and this continued from the 1960s through to the 1990s.