Llangollen Agricultural Shows

Here are shire horses to die for, decorated beautifully for the first, post-war agricultural show in Llangollen, in 1945, which also offers a Red Cross Queen and surely the biggest bull on record! Caesar Hughes, a clock-maker with shops in Chirk and Llangollen, captures his life and times on film, including shots of the River Dee in spate, animals at Chester Zoo and on the racecourse, and adults at play with a picnic blanket.

Caesar Hughes was a clock-maker with a shop in Chirk which he kept on when he moved to Llangollen in 1928 to marry Edith May, there opening a clock/watch shop at 18 Castle Street, selling also radios and Kodak film which he processed and printed. His sister ‘Lil’ and his cousin Graham are amongst those being either tossed in the blanket and emerging in disarray or wearing it and pretending to be Indians or Gypsies. Caesar and his family – who lived at The Dingle, Tower Road – had a caravan at Eglwyseg, near Llangollen, and would meet up with family there and the Kynastons who lived at Rock House Farm, Eglwyseg (probably where the Hughes’ caravan was parked). The agricultural shows seen date from 1945 and 1946.