Sunday, June 21, 2009

ASHTON CIRCUS (Part 1)


ASHTON CIRCUS (2), originally uploaded by bucklesw1.

Hi, my name is Chantel Rodriguez. I am Doug Ashton's granddaughter.

I was interested in sending you some photos of my grandparents circus (ASHTON CIRCUS, AUSTRALIA)
Robert Perry told me about your web site and asked me for photo of my parents circus (CIRCUS XSAVIA) to put on to your web site!

I have attached some Ashton Circus photos for you now and I will send you some more photos of Circus Xsavia as well.

Hope you like!!

Posted by Buckles at 6/21/2009 06:31:00 AM

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Buckles!

Happy Father's Day!

Bruce the Clown

21 June, 2009 08:27
Jim Zajicek said...

Is this where K & M got the Idea for their 4 pole top....Bears a resemblance...

21 June, 2009 11:34
Steve said...

Jim,
This was taken many, many years ago. There have been a lot of tents built like this. Very versatile - you can put it up as a one poler, a two poler or a four poler like this one.
Chantelle's mum, Jan, might have a date on this. It would have been taken before Chantelle was a gleam in her Dad's eye!

21 June, 2009 22:59
Jim Zajicek said...

Steve, No Doubt, Yet K-M and Tommy Liebel have the only 4-pole push -poles like this I have seen (Hell I do not even Know what they call em)...I would have never seen a Top like this if not for those...

22 June, 2009 11:01
Anonymous said...

I would guess that the cars, trucks and trailers are from the late 50's, but I'm no expert.
Bob Kitto

22 June, 2009 19:14
Steve said...

Jim - when Jan gets here or Chantel gets back, they may be able to correct me, but I think that this was Doug Ashton's first four poler.

It's a bale ring tent with the extra bits added to the normal size king poles in order to pull up the dome.

A few shows here used them before the advent of European style 4 polers. The domes were sometimes a bit tricky to centre properly so some shows ran the pull ups through a pulley block on the dome to allow it to self-centre. Doug's son [Jan's brother, Chantel's uncle] Mervyn spent most of his working life as tent boss on the Ashton tents.

Bob - the 50s sounds about right judging by the Ford Customline parked outside. I always wanted one of those but by the time I could afford one they were old hat!

23 June, 2009 06:35
Chic Silber said...

Yes it certainly appears to be

a bale ring round with 4 middles

separating the 4 corners and a

pyramid center and if you guyed

out the king poles you could

get much greater (and higher)

lift of the center

It would make sense to have a

custom cross sheave block at the

center for equalization that

would only require 2 lift lines

and you could easily have a

center pull line for small stuff

23 June, 2009 10:41
Chic Silber said...

Yup Steve

Looks like a 52 Ford

I had one in 59 or so

23 June, 2009 10:45
Chic Silber said...

Since the middles look square

and there is only one set of

quarters I would guess that

this is likely to end being

about a 35 meter top

23 June, 2009 11:39

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