The story of when Hollywood came to Irthlingborough
The Duke of Wellington, whilst staying locally, said that the lie of the land between Woodford and Irthlingborough reminded him of the terrain over which the Battle of Waterloo had been fought.
Charles Weston, an American film producer, put up at the Horseshoe Inn on the High Street in 1913 and was told of Wellington’s remarks.
Weston decided to make use of this scenery for a motion picture, and when he was asked to produce The Battle of Waterloo for the British & Colonial Kinematograph Co., setled on Irthlingborough as the location for the battle scenes.
Rarely had there been such excitement as when the film company moved in to stage full-blooded sequences of cavalry charges, infantry fighting among the farm buildings, and artillerymen working theri old-fashioned cannon.
The 12th Lancers from Weedon Barracks, permitted by the War Office to take part, rode into Irthlingborough and were billeted in the Skating Rink. They provided some spectacular scenes as they charged through the Ford in March Lane.
Just before the great day Napoleon’s coach rumbled in, having been brought to the station by railway truck and with battle about to commence, as a last-minute touch, dead horses from a Rushden knacker’s yard were strewn artistically about the field.
For three days the “battle” raged, whether in the town itself or on the stretch of land lying behind the Three Chimneys near Tannery Cottages, on the sloping surface of the Feast Field, or in the large meadow lying off Finedon Road.
The actors, one hundred Lancers from Weedon Barracks, over three hundred unemployed men sent from Northampton Labour Exchange and local shoe operatives [who had been promised seven and six pence a day] gathered in the High Street early on the morning of Monday, 9th June and were rapidly converted into Prussian, English and French troops.
The headquarters of both Wellington and Napoleon seem to have been located in the same place, the yard of Inward’s Farm in High Street. Scenes were shot of cavalry galloping along College Street and into the farmyard.
When Napoleon was finally defeated he could be seen disconsolately bemoaning his fate on the Isle of Elba. In actual fact he was standing by the “Birdspit”, a spot by the River Nene near the Old Bridge!
About another seven films were made in and around the town, but with the outbreak of World War One filming here stopped, and Charles Weston, the film companies and their actors transferred to the safety of the other side of the Atlantic Ocean – and the rest, as they say, is history!