A Cricket Match and a Children's Outing

From the collection of

Wessex Film and Sound Archive
Wessex Film and Sound Archive is based in Winchester. Providing the opportunity to see and hear history, the archive contains nearly 40,000 film, video and sound recordings relating to Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, ranging from late Victorian times to the present day. It includes both amateur and professional material, local newsreels, military and maritime subjects, as well as footage produced by individuals, businesses and organisations.

A Cricket Match and a Children's Outing


Lady Congleton's film captures the joys of country-house cricket in the 1930s - complete with servants, prams and New Forest ponies

Castle Malwood, seat of the Congleton family, is the venue for the cricket match seen in this fascinating social document from the 1930s. We see women and children sitting in the open. Nursemaids push the prams while the children cavort in Red Indian costumes. A frisky foal also cavorts in a field. A group of portly men assemble by two coaches before arriving at Castle Malwood where they watch a cricket match. This is followed by another family picnic and a visit to a beach.

The films in the Congleton collection derive from the family of the 6th Baron Congleton - John Brooke Molesworth Parnell. Congleton was married to Edith Mary Palmer Howard in 1918. They had nine children in all, some of whom appear in this film, though only seven would reach adulthood. Most of the films within the collection feature aspects of family life, and the children feature prominently.


Tags