Corby Pole Fair time capsules ‘planted’ for organisers of future events

The Corby Pole Fair steering group has ‘planted’ two time capsules to help with the organisation of the next event in 20 years.

The ‘planting’ of one of the ‘time capsules’ took place last week (Monday, December 11) at Corby Heritage Centre.

For the past six years, the Pole Fair steering group has researched all Corby Royal Charters and Pole fairs back to 1585. This culminated in the 2022 Pole Fair.

Paul Balmer, who’s on the steering group, said: “The research on the past pole fairs was difficult. Even the actual charter had been lost. However, we eventually found good ‘stills’ from 1902 onwards and fascinating film from 1947 onwards.

“As a steering group we decided to make it easier for Corby 2042.”

All the resources and research, stills, films, and paperwork have been digitised and compressed into two small SSDs (solid state drives).

Paul said: “It’s been a bit of a marathon.

“Assuming the lights are still on in 2042 the future will be able to access everything.”

Corby Heritage Centre will have custody of one drive and the other will go to Northants Record Office.

Corby's once-every-20-years Pole Fair celebration took place on Friday, June 3 - and coincided with Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee.

Part-funded by a Heritage Fund grant of £158,000 the volunteer-led steering group, alongside project partners Made With Many, marked the tradition with a spectacular day-long community event.