Walkington Victorian Hayride 1980

A chance to see a unique village custom celebrating rural history, with the longest procession of horse drawn vehicles on the open road in the country, and now sadly no longer going. The short lived Walkington Victorian Hayride is seen and heard in full here in 1980, from initial planning to the last horse going into its carriage. In between we are treated to a Victorian feast, including renditions of music hall favourite "My Old Dutch" and the foreign import "Oh! Susanna".

This film was made by Walkington locals Roy Cheeseman and Roger Hateley, who was lecturing in Chemistry Education at Hull University. Roger made a sizeable collection of films in the 1970s and early ‘80s. The Hayride, a fairly recent tradition beginning in 1967, would start and finish in the stackyard and fields of Northlands Farm, usually on the third Sunday in June. The procession would pass through Bishop Burton and Beverley Westwood on its journey. It was the idea of Ernie Teal, “the architect of modern Walkington”, to raise money to help fight cancer, and raised over £250,000 until its ending in 2007 and replacement by other local events to raise money for charity. Ernie was awarded the MBE in 1990.