monsters
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The Festival of Grime Collection #5
Another collection of pre-carnival floats. Notice how, alongside various insects, they also celebrated the pig. At risk of sounding condescending to our dear readers, it is no coincidence that they also chose a pig to represent their struggle for survival in an age when making it past the age of five was a miracle. At…
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The Festival of Grime Collection #4
We return to the festival which celebrates northern pride, grit and determination. This time we are archiving photographs of the carnival floats which took a huge amount of time to construct and involved numerous people in the communities coming together. These photographs were taken in and around the Lancashire towns circa 1880 several days before…
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Godbert Lawley and the Original Victorian B-movie Collection #4
We return to the fascinating universe of Godbert Lawley’s B-movies. This time we have included stills from what we believe to be the first zombie movie ever made. It’s called The Workhouse Dead and it played for 6 consecutive years every Halloween to an audience of around fifty viewers in a tent. These viewers would…
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The War of the Magic Mushrooms Collection #2
You may recall the first part of this collection which provided some background to the events of Skail in 1871. It became known as the War of the Magic Mushrooms and resulted in tragedy. At least thirty village people were shot by a ragtag army made up of police, locals and scientists. Some of these…
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Happy Halloween 2023!
‘May the night be long and frightful, may the trick or treaters be rude and spiteful, Let the lanterns burn big and bright long into the dead of night, See the ghouls be very cruel and the monsters carry some heavy tools, They fill the children up with dread and use those tools to bash…
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Victorian Hoax Photography Collection #7 (Flying Monsters Edition Part #4)
This is the last of this collection for a while. We apologise for not posting as promised yesterday. We had to deal with some trick or treaters who refused to leave the office until we gave them some biscuits. We will return to this collection in the future with more fascinating background information and solve…
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Victorian Hoax Photography Collection #6 (Flying Monsters Edition Part #3)
“Who on God’s Earth is responsible for this?” screamed the Penny Rotten Paper and Illustrated Times headline. It was printed alongside the cartoon in photograph #10. Nobody really knew the answer to this until many years later. The majority of people surveyed in the 1860s believed it was something to do with the paranormal; the…
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Victorian Hoax Photography Collection #5 (Flying Monsters Edition Part #2)
Here is a journal account written by a landlord living in London: “The giant ghouls and monsters hung in the sky, staring down at us as if we were prey. Is this how the apocalypse begins and ends? I have seen people all over London down on their knees, reaching to the heavens and praying…
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Victorian Hoax Photography Collection #4 (Flying Monsters Edition Part #1)
To get into the Halloween spirit, we are going to archive some interesting photos from the second half of the 19th century. They are all in the Ambrotype style and have been touched up over the years by oil paint which explains how immaculate they are. In cities across England, during the month of October,…
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Godbert Lawley and the Original Victorian B-movie Collection #3
We’re keeping things short and sweet today. Here are some more stills from the movies of Godbert Lawley. Our research suggests that many of the actors, sets, stories and props were recycled. However, they were reworked to such a degree that a casual viewer would never detect it. We believe that the images in this…
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