The GWR had numerous sets of lantern slides covering the territory served by the company. These were available free of charge to the general public, the only stipulation being that at least two weeks’ notice was required for any set of slides required. The slides were housed in wooden boxes and the accompanying lecture notes were supporting scripts which could be read out as each slide was shown.

Holiday Haunts devoted a complete page to the lantern lectures in each year of publication during the period from 1914 to 1936. In 1914 15 sets were available ranging from ‘Shakespeare’s Country’ with 29 slides to ‘Oxford’ with 107 slides. The series remained unaltered until 1924 when ‘Legend Land’ with 100 slides was introduced. 1927 saw the introduction of ‘Cardigan Bay Resorts’ and ‘Historic Abbeys and Cathedrals’ with 82 slides and 67 slides respectively. In 1928 the series was generally updated (2 titles were dropped, 2 new titles were introduced and 4 titles were changed and the number of slides increased or decreased in a good number of sets) and further updating took place in 1933 and 1934. In 1936 there were 19 sets on offer.

Somewhat oddly, the GWR on occasions increased or decreased the number of slides in a set by just a few slides, which presumably would have meant that the accompanying lecture notes would have had to be re-printed. It is possible, however, that Holiday Haunts contains typographical errors or mistakes were made when the slides were counted!

There is little on record of the sets that were available before 1914 and after 1936. Certainly titles were available as early as 1906, as the lecture notes from that year for ‘Historic Sites and Scenes on the G.W.R.’ are known. The slides continued to be available until nationalisation although by the late 1930s interest in lantern slides was waning. The sets that were available at the end of 1947 passed to British Railways and they continued to be offered to the general public for a number of years.