Town’s ‘golden era’ celebrated in nine-day festival

A nine-day festival will mark the 300th anniversary of Beverley’s Market Cross and succession of George 1, with 25 events, including a masked ball, harpsichord music by candlelight - and a survey of the old Spa site on Swinemoor - which virtually everyone has forgotten about.

On September 21 after the proclamation of the King’s succession is read out and a volley has been fired by “redcoats”, 1,000 pieces of 1714 birthday cake will be handed out.

Beverley Georgian Festival, led by Beverley Civic Society, with the support of local arts, history and community voluntary groups, are putting on the programme with the help of £8,800 funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Some three-quarters of the listed buildings in Beverley town centre are Georgian and a highlight of the festival will be opening 15 to the public, including private houses, Lairgate Hall and the Old Vicarage.

Prof Barbara English said: “We are having the festival because it is the year of the accession of George 1, who first landed in England on September 18. We are pretty sure we are the only town in Britain that has noticed this.”

Because it is not studied at school, people are not aware what an important era it was, even though at the end of the Georgian era “it really was Great Britain,” she said. “They managed to lose America, but they gained Canada, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and quite a lot of other places inbetween. It became a world power.”

Beverley thrived too. It was a Jane Austen world; rich county family built townhouses to come and visit, go to the horseracing, gentlemen’s clubs and theatre. “The dukes were going to London, the slightly less rich had townhouses and a very active social life like Bath with an Assembly Room where men played cards and girls looked for husbands,” she added.

The festival runs from September 13 to September 21.