Description: A young man in a school tie and blazer, standing in front of a curtain, announces that this is HBC, and the last in the present series of Nower Hill at One. This week is an outside broadcast. The HBC logo appears on screen to the sound of rising electronic arpeggios, followed by a close-up of Elizabethan style chimney pots on a manor house, then opening out to long shots of a tithe barn. A simple intertitle announces NOWER HILL AT ONE, followed by a 1911 plan of the Headstone Manor Estate focussing in on Manor Farm surrounded by fields, all to a background of 70s style beat music. Another intertitle tells us that the programme is presented by Nick Chandler. After another long shot of the tithe barn, a young man in a smart suit, white shirt and tie and holding a microphone, walks a few paces across a park towards the camera, welcoming viewers to Nower Hill at One, which today comes from the Tithe Barn in Headstone Manor Park. He tells us a little of about the barn, the renovation of which has at last been completed, and explains that in today’s programme they will be showing the history of the barn and its re-opening celebrations.

With an old sketch of the barn on screen, a voiceover tells us that the tithe barn was built in the 1530s, with an old photo on screen, that it was renovated in the 1970s, and then with newer photos, that it is now open and available for hire and that the opening celebrations were held on Monday 28th May with a barn dance and ‘general Bank Holiday merry making’. Against a background of a rather rundown barn interior we learn that when the Local Authority took over in 1928 only urgent repairs were carried out and then further work was done during the war when the barn was used as a temporary theatre. And a smarter interior is shown as the voiceover tells us about the reconstruction work begun in 1972 and now finished at a cost of more than £39,000, all done with home grown oak and elm and government funds.

A poster advertising the Tithe Barn Re-opening Celebrations with the Harrow Folk Dance Club and the Herga Folk Club introduces the next section of the film. In the afternoon the Herga Morris Men, formed three years ago we are told, are dancing on the grass outside the barn, in white shirts, knee breeches, long socks, crossed baldricks (sashes) and tricorn hats, skipping around and waving their handkerchiefs to the music. On a stage, a music group, drums, violin, guitar and accordion, is playing and a caller is giving instructions to the dancers below as the public has now been invited to join in. The folk dancers in their waistcoats and skirts are also taking part and other members of the public sit in deck chairs looking on.

Young Nick, now indoors, appears again to tell us that in the evening the festivities continued inside the barn. The lighting inside is dim, but we can hear the music and see the Morris dancers, the folk dancers and members of the public crowded together and enthusiastically dancing a Virginia Reel – a dance that the voiceover explains is an American version of the Sir Roger de Coverley. The caller we are told is Brian Jones and music is played by the Chingford Hoe-Down Band. Between the dances an excellent banjo player performs. Long haired, bearded with sideburns and wearing dark glasses and a slightly hippy looking open-necked patterned shirt, he shows ‘great skill’, tuning his banjo as he plays. Next it’s Harrow Folk Dance Club’s turn performing the Texas Star in their uniform shirts, waistcoats and knee-length skirts for the women and knee breeches for the men Finally there is a Mummers Play, which we are told is one of the oldest forms of drama, performed by all-male casts from groups of strolling players. The men wear a strange assortment of costumes – shapeless tunics some tied in the middle with rope or belts, various kinds of head gear and one seems to be a knight with a big cross on his tunic and a silver helmet. It’s the end of the play and they take round a collecting bowl and sing ‘To Be a Farmers’ Boy’. The entertainment is enthusiastically received by the audience with applause and cheers. Nick and the film crew wish us good night.

Finally the credits roll to the sound of the same introductory 70s beat. The crew are listed, and special thanks are given to the headmaster, Mr Frank Gristwood and also to London Weekend Television for the use of their sound cassettes at the beginning and end of the programme.