Wells-next-the-sea Coronation Revels

Amateur footage of community festivities for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, including fancy dress costume. Wells, 1953.

Locals from the seaside town of Wells-Next-The-Sea celebrate the Queen’s coronation in June 1953, a great opportunity for everyone to come together in fancy dress costume and let their hair down. Some black and white, some colour footage, includes Maypole dancing by the schoolchildren of Wells Primary.

An amateur film made by Cyril A Claxton, donated to the East Anglian Film Archive by his daughter, Caroline Ajose. Mr Claxton received a beloved gift for Christmas in 1950; a Standard 8mm camera and Bolex M8 projector. Over the next eight years the camera was put to good use capturing local places, events, and people, including in 1953, the Coronation celebrations in Wells. Mr and Mrs Claxton and their four children lived on Wells’ picturesque East Quay, opposite the slipway. They were the owner of Claxton’s Mineral Water Works in Wells.