Exploring Axbridge : Page 6

The Axbridge Pageant

Axbridge was an important administrative centre with its own police station, magistrates courts and council offices until local government re-organised in 1974. It was on a busy main route so the traffic squeezed through the narrow streets, and traffic jams were legion. It made life here by all accounts dangerous and dirty.

When the by-pass opened in 1967 there was general rejoicing in the town.

In fact, they liked it so much they decided to hold a pageant marking the town's history to celebrate their liberation from the traffic.

Now pageants are held every ten years and more than four hundred townspeople take part. It goes on for three days, and the Square is once more returned to a car-free zone and filled with visitors from far and wide as the residents act out important things that happened to former residents from the time of the Romans to present day. Then they have to go back to wearing their ordinary clothes again.

Next pageant is due in 2010.