Get ready to step back in time and enjoy a Georgian weekend of costumed characters, history, entertainment and even a bull run!
It’s not long to go until Stamford’s Georgian Festival from September 25-27 and it’s shaping up to be an exciting event.
Costume character specialist John White looks likely to become the face of Stamford’s Georgian Festival – or should that be the faces.
His first appearance on Saturday is at Burghley House as Sir Joseph Scott’, a Regency dandy, baronet and the MP for Worcester.
Scott has worked his way through a very considerable fortune in the pursuit of pleasure; high fashion, the excitement of the card table and the solace of the bottle are the key features of his life!
Burghley House visitors will hear of his life and society during the turbulent years of the Regency, drawing on the events of the war with France, the impact of the Industrial Revolution, the illness of George III and the excesses of the Prince Regent!
Two shows in Browne’s Hospital grounds on Saturday afternoon and Sunday afternoon, introduce John as travelling pedlar Matthew Chapman, offering all manner of ‘notions’ such as ribbons, buttons and stockings.
From a far-off battlefield, he will be telling of his travels following Wellington’s Army and as an eye witness to the horrors of the long and bloody day of the Battle of Waterloo.
Most gruesome will be his portrayal on Sunday morning of Thomas Turlis, the hangman at Tyburn during the 18th century, equipped with 12ft gallows, ropes, all the tools of his trade and relaying the gallows humour of the time.
Turlis recounts the nature of crime and punishment in the Georgian and Regency period at the time of the ‘Bloody Code’, a body of law that set death as the sentence for in excess of 200 offences!
It was a period that spawned established sayings; ‘one for the road’ being the last drink allowed to condemned prisoners on their way to the gallows and the phrase ‘on the waggon’ reserved for those whose crimes were so terrible they were denied even a last drink!
To book any of John’s fascinating character shows and any of the many other exciting events as part of the festival visit www.stamfordgeorgianfestival.co.uk
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