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Customs
This is the collection upon which Collections was based. Brian Shuel got involved with the ‘folk’ world in 1962 when he was asked to provide pictures for record sleeves. Before he gave up on the singers around 1970 he had 50 or more musicians on sleeves and about 100 on file - which you can find out about in the separate Folk singers section of the Gallery.
However the singers soon led to the customs which are, after all, more pictorially interesting.
His first custom was photographed in Bampton on Spring Bank Holiday 1963 and in the next 31 years he covered around 200, both in colour and black & white, many of them several times. Since 1990, when Collections began, he has been too busy in the library - but not too busy to encourage contributing photographers to cover customs on their patch. The score to date is around 350.
The approximate statistics are 35,000 transparencies, thousands of b/w prints from 1500 reels of 35mm film and a large number of antiquarian prints mostly from Brian’s own collection. A full list of Customs is available below and any can be provided as a lightbox if you get in touch. All customs are represented by at least one picture on our linked website, www.collectionspicturelibrary.co.uk Put CUSTOM in the keyword space and over 1600 images will come up. More will be added regularly.
We have tried to keyword the pictures so that you will easily find what you want. Naturally the customs are all there by name, but also place, county, area (if relevant, such as COTSWOLDS, PEAK DISTRICT, LONDON etc), type (DANCE, PLAY, PROCESSION, FAIR etc), month, festivals like Easter (includes all from SHROVE TUESDAY to WHITSUN), Christmas, Halloween, and so on. We have used words like CHILDREN, HORSES, FLOWERS, FOOD and others in case any of you produce publications about those subjects. We have kept it as simple as possible. Look at the keywords and you will soon find your way around.
Telephone if you want any advice or information. Brian has produced a book about customs and has an extensive library...
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Marshfield Mummers 1966. |
Procession of a Guy, from Chambers Book of Days, 1862. |
Winster Morris Dancers. |
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Hallaton Bottle Kicking. |
Lord Mayor's Show. |
Pax Cakes, Palm Sunday, Sellack, Herefordshire. |
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Bert Jansch, London, 1964 |
The Troubadour Folk Club, 1962 |
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