The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Rothbury Carnival
A fleeting monochrome glimpse at a lively Rothbury Carnival parade in the 1930s.
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Overview
A street bursts into life with all manner of eccentric costumes in this tantalising home movie fragment of a Rothbury Carnival parade in the 1930s. Most unusually, a bouncy Michelin Man catches the eye. The carnival was one of the major social events in the Upper Coquetdale calendar until 1985.
This amateur footage was shot by a member of the Watson-Armstrong family, heirs to the Newcastle-born engineer, industrialist, and shipping magnate, Sir William George Armstrong, known as the Magician of the North. He was the inventor of a 110 ton monster gun used in the Crimean war, for which he was knighted by Queen Victoria. An early environmentalist, Armstrongs Cragside house, near Rothbury, was the first in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity, using incandescent lamps provided by the inventor Joseph Swan, and generated by five artificial lakes on the estate.
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