Our aim with this website is to create a site which will help people remember what their town or city looked like during the 20th Century. Since Bygone Films was first started in 1995, we have collected well in excess of millions of feet of cine film, from all corners of the UK, and converted them to video. The results of which are the many programmes in our catalogue.
The majority of these films were not made by professional filmmakers, but dedicated enthusiasts who on a variety of film format from 9.5mm to 16mm, captured scenes and events from towns and cities in the UK, and Bygone Films with their help produced the programmes. In some instances, local councils commissioned films to be made to promote their town/city and these films were provided for inclusion.
The original programmes were brought out on VHS, but now with the help of new technologies, these have been remastered and are now available on DVD.
Each DVD is interactive, where scenes have been included on a menu list to enable you to go straight to your favourite scene, or just watch the programme at your leisure in its entirety.
We hope that those of you who enjoyed watching Bygone Films on VHS, get further pleasure from seeing these titles on DVD. Do not be disappointed if your town/city if featured on the list, does not yet have a DVD title, register your interest and we will notify you when it becomes available.
Did you contribute to Bygone FIlms.
Bygone Films has a list of the original contributors, but it is out of date. On the Contributors link there is a list of names under a particular title of contributors. Please contact us if your name is on the list. If you contributed film and are not shown on the list, please contact us. All contributors are entitled to a free DVD of their town/city. We would like to hear some of your memories about the circumstances of the films you made to share them with other people.
Share your thoughts. We’d like you share your experiences with us and other people.
During the time we have been collecting cine films and making Bygone programmes we have heard dozens of fascinating stories connected with the filmmakers and the scenes and events they captured.
We have had people ringing up to tell us how they liked the film and provide a glimpse in to their own personal memories rekindled by the programmes.
One such lady called the studio to tell us that she had just watched Bygone Nottingham, her own reason for ringing was to let us know that she had seen her husband in the film, he had died some twenty years earlier prior to the programme being released, and the clip of her husband was the only image of him as a young man.
Her husband features in a scene about the visit of the Queen in the fifties, as the film follows the Queen in her vehicle, traveling through the streets of Nottingham, we see a glimpse of the policemen holding back the crowd. One policeman is seen holding a baby, helping out a woman in the crowd, whilst still trying his best to keep the crowd from spilling out into the oncoming Royal vehicles. This policeman was her husband, and she did not know that this film existed.
We would like to hear from you to hear listen to and share these memories with other people. These may provide an interesting background to some of the material we intend to screen on our internet tv channel, Bygone TV. Click here to contact us.
Please let us know you have visited us, we are interested in hearing what you have to say on how we can improve or add new features to this web site.
Please let us know you have visited us, we are interested in hearing what you have to say on how we can improve or add new features to this web site. to do this, complete the simple feedback form.Once you are our mailing list we will notify you of any changes, news items associated with this web site.