Old Photograph of Nether Padley - The Parade (1)

A moment captured during a Parade whilst it was on its way past The Maynard Arms. We also have another postcard showing The Parade from the opposite direction, facing towards us on their way up the hill from St Helen's Church.

The occasion is the Club Feast of the “Grindleford District Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherd's Friendly Society”, on Tuesday 17th August 1920. They assembled at 10am at the Commercial Hotel (now the Sir William) where a procession formed to proceed to the Church for Divine Service at 11am. After church the members paraded to Padley “in processional order accompanied by Grindleford Band” (as shown in the photographs).

They then returned “for dinner in the schoolroom at 2pm at a charge of 4/- per head” - that's £0.20 (20p), but 4 shillings was a lot of money in those days! A dance was held in the evening at 8pm for which a reasonable charge was made. The Secretary was J.H.C. Bannerman.^[1]

Similar photographs exist of parades at Calver, showing men with sashes - one of which has “Free Gardeners Feast” written on the back. ‘Free Gardeners’ were a very prominent Society in the early part of the twentieth century and of course were all men. Another similar photograph of Calver shows a Whit Tuesday Parade for the Chapel, where only the men wore sashes, so this form of celebration was by no means unusual.^[2]

(Information provided by Rosemary Lockie)

References
[1] Information kindly supplied by Alan Jacques, from a record kept of the event in an Old Scrapbook belonging to by an elderly village resident.
[2] Information provided by David Turner.

This is one of several old photographs acquired after a sort-out at the Peak National Park Authority's Study Centre.