From the collection of
Established in 1992, the South West Film & Television Archive collection spans from 1893 to the present day containing more than 250,000 items. Formed from a variety of depositors, including broadcast news and programmes material from the Westward and TSW archive. In 2018 the archive collection transferred to The Box in Plymouth.
Join the crowds in Barnstaple for fairground attractions
Barnstaple holds an Annual Proclamation Ceremony on the Wednesday preceding 20 September in the Guildhall. A white glove is suspended from the top window symbolising the open hand of friendship and officially trading at the market begins. The Town Clerk reads a proclamation at the site of the South and West Gates. Barnstaple Fair may have the reputation of the oldest in the country with its origins believing to date from 930.
In the past trading and the fair would last a week with fairground rides and amusements organised by the Showmen's Guild. From the turn of the 20th century, many famous show people graced the fair with rides and antics from freak shows to boxing booths. The trade developed from livestock to china with the horse fair present until the 1940s. This ceremony is presided over by the Mayor of Barnstaple, Frederick Chanter.
At the dawn of the cinema age, these trailblazing early adopters brought filmmaking technology into the home.
Home moviemaking is older than the first cinemas: we've been filming ourselves for well over a hundred years. The birth of the cinematograph in 1895 inspired a plethora of inventions pitched at the domestic market: Kinoras, Kammatographs, Pictorialographs, Birtacs and Biokams - all cameras designed for amateurs and enthusiasts to film and project in the home. This collection celebrates the earliest home movies preserved in Britain, and bears witness to the dawn of the amateur's long-standing fascination with family, travel and community. "The object in introducing this apparatus is to endeavour to popularize this extremely fascinating branch of photography.... [I have] always looked forward to the time when animated photography would be within the reach of every one" - filmmaker/inventor Birt Acres, on his Birtac camera, 1898.
