Stepping Back in Time

Best Of British Magazine, November 2002.

Stepping Back in Time is an article by Dianne Boardman written for Best Of British Magazine, November 2002 and is reproduced with kind permission from the Editor.

Every year in  September, the bustling town of  Glossop - nestling at the foot of the  Snake  Pass on the edge of  Derbyshire's  Peak  District - steps back in time a hundred years as it holds its annual  Victorian  Weekend with much money raised for charity.

Walking around the market place or up and down the traffic free main street, the hundreds of visitors rub shoulders with elegantly clad  Victorian ladies sheltering under intricate parasols or leaning on the arms of gentlemen dressed in top hat and tails.  Barrel organs and brass bands fill the air with music while customers in old-fashioned shops are served by women in cloth caps and long thick skirts.

Today's children clamored to have a go of the 'rib tickler', a  Victorian 360 degree traveling show, practiced walking on stilts or played with whips and tops.  Then they had a go on the  Victorian merry-go round or watched  Morris dancers, jugglers and old-fashioned swing bands perform.

Pigeons fluttered away from chimney sweeps and urchins as they fell about laughing at  Punch and  Judy.  Little girls, in what we now think of as bridesmaids dresses, but what would have been regular garb for the daughters of  Victorian gentry risked their finery on the bright boat swings or the red and white helter skelter.

The shop fronts were interesting to look at too.  Many had displays of  Victoriana,  old sepia photographs in silver frames,  faded leather-backed books,  everyday kitchen tools and crumbly lace shawls.

  The newspaper offices displayed front pages from the late 1800s and the bookshop had the sort of tomes our forefathers would have read.

But the best collection was at the  Heritage  Centre whose front window was crammed with goodies from our ancestors' daily lives.  The friendly staff are so knowledgeable that it is the best place to go to find out more about the era.  Naturally they were in full costume,  the ladies in full hoop skirts, which they swore weren't too uncomfortable, with the  gentleman dressed as an authentic  Victorian doctor.  Even the staff at the bank were dressed in clothing from the last century.