The City of Slate Delabole celebrates carnival week

The villagers of Delabole celebrate carnival week before the onset of war. The Carnival Queen is crowned and festivities get underway in one of the largest carnivals in the region. Floats include Progress Made in Sanitation in last two centuries, Air Raid Precaution wardens in gas masks, adults dressed as schoolboys and carpenters in Chips off Ye Old Block which could refer to a 1926 film short revived in the 1955 Bob Hope film the Seven Little Foys (1955). 

The village is also known as the City of Slate because the quarry provided slate for roofing and flooring from late medieval times and possibly even since the 12th Century. Delabole used to be the deepest man-made pit in the world before the advent of open cast mining in the USA and Australia. The Carnival is a regular feature of rural village life until 1965. It is revived in 2001 after 40 years by local, John Lugg. The railway station is named after the slate mine in 1893 and the three villages of Pengelly, Meadrose and Rockhead become one to make Delabole.