Our latest piece of footage in the British Pathé archive features action from the 1930 Ward Union point-to-point at Mullinan.
At this time, the great majority of the country were living in the countryside, or in rural towns and villages, with the population remaining just below the three million mark.
The levels of poverty in rural areas remained high, but sporting activities, such as point-to-point racing, remained particularly popular as is evident in the footage.
The Ward Union is one of the oldest hunts in the country, tracing it’s origins back to 1854, and is well established on the point-to-point circuit.
In keeping with what many of the other archive clips have shown, the footage from this event, which lasts over two minutes and 20 seconds, shows the sport being run over natural obstacles, with both lady and gentlemen riders competing.
Up banks, drains and hedges are among the natural obstacles to be negotiated along the course which is just marked out by flags at each obstacles, and crowds lining the unmarked finishing straight.
Footage from the Ward Union point-to-point two years later in 1932 also features among the British Pathé collection, and this footages features a number of the different races on the card.
