How the High Peak prepared for the Queen's Coronation

Homes, shops and streets were awash with red, white and blue as Glossop and the rest of the High Peak prepared for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953. 

Glossop Chamber of Trade even booked a special train to take locals on a day to remember in the capital. 

Tickets were £3 for adults, half price for children, and that included breakfast and lunch on the way down. And if anyone fancied watching the racing at Royal Ascot, that was seven shillings and sixpence, less than 80p extra. 

The chamber also organised what it called a shop window 'fuddle' where traders put clues among 'coronation type' questions in their front windows, offering tokens to customers who came up with the right answers. 

There was also a 'Mystery Man' competition where a stranger would walk around Glossop. 

The idea was for children to approach him and say 'you are the mystery man and I claim the prize'. 

Which for the lucky guessers were sets of specially minted coronation coins. 

Glossop Town Council had spent weeks making plans to celebrate the big day. 

Streamers and ribbons of coloured lights swathed the town hall and Hadfield Hall. 

ROYAL EVENT: Glossop’s very own coronation. Neighbours on Edward Street pictured after crowning their queen.

A beacon was lit on the top of the Nab, the flames visible for 25 miles. 

Scouts put a flaming torch to the stack of wood on seeing a rocket lit by the Mayor Alderman Richard Beckman from outside Victoria Hall surge into the sky. 

While on 31 May, just a few days before the Coronation, a huge parade of Scouts and Guides and representatives of local organisations left Hadfield train station for the long march into Glossop. 

Led by Besses o' th' Barn Band, it arrived in a Manor Park packed with hundreds of people. 

Glossop and High Peak people celebrated by decorating their homes and streets and holding street parties, huge trestle tables with sandwiches, cakes, jellies and cream, laid out on sheets of white paper. 

Chairs were dragged from homes, some streets picked queens and princesses for their own coronations. 

Glossop Swimming Club held a 'coronation' gala, Glossop Bowling Club a competition for a 'coronation tankard', Glossop Cricket Club a three-a-side tournament for a coronation cup. 

The townswomen's guild presented a 'coronation' clock to go over the entrance to Manor Park pavilion. 

While over in St George's Church in New Mills, a 'chiming and striking coronation clock' was installed.