| Below left - The 1929 Parade, Sunday 23rd June. In London Road, marching towards the Sports (Cricket) Field and crossing the head of Bell Street. | The very foot of the article confirms that a film was made of the parade to be shown at the Sawbridgeworth Cinema later. Please contact the Webmaster if you know where any film might be! |
Photograph taken on the town Cricket Field.
For some reason that has remained a mystery the small town of Sawbridgeworth was able to attract fairly large parades up to and in the 1930's, that included attending Great St. Mary's Church as part of the 'requirements' of the occasion. These were in fact always referred to as Church Parades and usually took place on the town's Cricket Field. They were very much a Fire Brigade affair and included brigades from several - for those days - quite distant towns. There is in fact very little information to hand about the parades but it is believed they included some small demonstrations of drilling skills rather than competitions, again these taking place on the Cricket Field. It is not known when the parades commenced but as far back as 1908 they were in being and on the 4th of October that year £10. 1. 11d was collected at Church in aid of the Widows, Orphans & Benevolent Fund of the National Fire Brigades Union. The Inclusion of Bishop's Stortford Band was at the cost of £5. 5. 0d.
The 1930 parade passing along London Road.
This picture is believed to have been taken from an upper window of the house that was part of and belonged to White's Garage (now a filling station) in London Road. The Gate Public House is in the picture. The visitors on these occasions included Brigades from Harlow, Bishop's Stortford, Epping and Leytonstone. As well as still pictures, there were various cine films of these parades, presumably now lost for ever! In attending a social and games evening when very young, probably in 1939, and seeing one of these cine films presented by Bill White (of White's Garage), it included scenes of a number of fire engines turning from London Road - from the South - into the top end of Bell Street. The thing that stuck in my memory as a very young lad was the number of them! Does anyone know of the existence of any of these films?
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Church Parade 1937 in Knight Street. The leading appliance in the top photograph looks like the Sawbridgeworth Leyland but the number plate is just too faint to confirm that it is ARO 480. These two photographs kindly provided by Eileen Griffiths (née Riches) give credence to the number of brigades that attended these events and the top one is obviously the head of the parade. The other photograph is presumably taken about half way through the line of appliances to represent the end of the parade of appliances. As far as I can remember from my 'experience' referred to in the previous item above, the firemen paraded behind the appliances. The reverse of one of the photographs is endorsed "Sunday" but with no date.
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