From the bus driver who delivers the post, to excitable children in smocks and weary-faced factory workers, people can take a peek into the Cumbria of yesteryear.

The opportunity to step back in time is thanks to the release of more than 750 films from the 1900s, many of which have not been seen since they first aired.

The BFI has launched the Rural Life collection, which includes more than a dozen films depicting Cumbrian life from the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

The films form part of the BFI’s Britain on Film project, revealing hidden histories and forgotten stories of people and places from every corner of Great Britain. They can be viewed for free online.

Footage includes scenes of Ennerdale, Derwentwater and Loweswater. Portrayed are images of walkers enjoying the scenery while picnicking.

Also on film are members of the West Lakeland Archery Club improving their aim near Buttermere in 1950.

Films include This Other Eden from 1937, an inter-war travelogue of Pennine Britain showing off Cumbria’s beauty, while jubilant scenes and 1970s fashions are on display in Fair Hill which captures the chaos and bustle of Appleby Fair in 1975.

However, none epitomises the county quite like Postman Plus, a film following a day in the life of Maurice Stout. Recorded in 1970, it follows postman Maurice, who transports both passengers and mail around Ullswater in his Royal Mail bus.

Patrick Russell, BFI senior curator, said: “Curators at the BFI and fellow archives – including the North West Film Archive (NWFA) which collects film in Cumbria – have selected material for Britain on Film to cover as much of the UK as possible, and also to represent the sheer diversity of the types of films produced over the whole of the last century, from documentary to fiction, newsreel, industrial, educational and amateur filmmaking.

“Cumbrian highlights range from a film of workers leaving a building in Carlisle in 1901 to a local newsreel from 1911 and a lovely lake district travelogue from 1926.

“The Cumberland Story from 1947 is a mining industry drama-documentary featuring local people and was the last completed film by famous documentary filmmaker Humphrey Jennings.

“These films document a century of enormous change.

“The 1970 film Postman Plus, from the NWFA collection, is an enormously evocative documentary not just about a postman’s day, but the whole pattern of rural life in Penrith and around, into which it’s knitted.”

Varying in length from barely 60 seconds to 15 minutes, they cover a range of topics.

Well-known Cumbrian author Hunter Davies also makes an appearance, in a documentary which sees him follow the route of Hadrian’s Wall.

The Tyne Tees and Border TV travelogue covers his one year – and 73-mile – tramp from Wallsend to Bowness-on-Solway.

To watch the films, visit player.bfi.org.uk/britain-on-film/