Custom revived: Chipping Camden’s Cotswold Olympicks, Gloucestershire

He [Dover] spares no cost; this also doth afford
To those that sit at any board.
None ever hungry from these Games come home,
Or e’er made plaint of viands, or of room

Nicholas Wallington

When one thinks about Olympics one thinks of Greece and the four yearly major events that travel around the world. But like the Japan Olympics the Coronavirus crisis cancelled the Cotswold one as well. Unlike the ‘real’ Olympics – the Cotswold Olympicks has an older pedigree.

The name of the game

The Cotswold’s games is a new name for what was and is called Dover’s Olympicks. Robert Dover who was a local lawyer is said to have started the games in 1612. Why is unclear but it may have been that he felt that physical exercise was important or that he wanted to bring all classes together in a single enterprise and as such the events included a wide range of county pursuits ranging from horse-racing to wrestling, hound coursing to sledgehammer throwing. The games would take place on the Thursday and Friday of Whitsun usually lying in mid June or late May. These games took place in the amphitheatre of a hill fort called now Dover’s hill. One of the features of the custom would be the erection a wooden Dover’s castle where small cannons would be fired to start the event off and fireworks at the end.

The custom soon attracted fame. Prince Rupert is reported to have attended the Games in 1636 and at the same time a collection of poems celebrating it was also produced called Annalia Dubrensia (Annals of Dover). The poetry called it “an occasion of social harmony and communal joy” and was written by noted poets Thomas Randolph, Ben Jonson, Thomas Heywood and Michael Drayton. The common theme was that the games were celebrating and reviving English social life, stating that it was peaceful and well behaved and contradicted views that it allowed “drunken behaviour and sexual licence”. By this time the Games had acquired their title of “Olimpicks” which was approved by Dover especially as it secularised the events. It is thought that because Dover was brought up in a Catholic family he was reluctant of course to let people know and make people especially Puritans to think he had revived the pre-Reformation church ale.

The games outlived their founder – although there has been some debate that he may not have founded it but re-founded it. This was despite some disapproval of the event from 17^th Century Puritans who disliked the event being associated with Whitsun and many local landowners forbade their workers to attend it. As the custom had support from James I, it was perhaps not that surprising and especially when the English Civil war broke out it was stopped.

However, you cannot keep a great custom down, especially one which was centred around fun and frivolities and thus coming of the Restoration it too was restored. Sadly Robert died in 1652 and so did not see its revival. It was his son Captain John Dover took it over, but he died in 1696 and it based onto one of his sons , Dr. Thomas Dover.

Game over!

However, the Games were not secured, perhaps without its guiding hand, they soon become associated with drunk and disorderly behaviour. Despite Thomas’s great interest in his grandfather’s Games, by this time he had moved away and let the organisation be done by others only having an honorary presidential capacity.  After his death in 1742 the Games were held a further 220 times over the intervening years through various promoters gaining the name Dover’s games although the family had no longer an association.  Poet William Somerville described it in 1740 as “just another drunken country festival” where chairs, and forms, and battered bowls are hurled/With fell intent; like bombs the bottles fly” and writer Richard Graves in the Spiritual Quixote of 1773 as a “heathenish assembly’ with: “six young women began to exhibit themselves before the whole assembly, in a dress hardly reconcilable to the rules of decency.”

After Thomas. Dover’s death in 1742 the Games continued under a variety of promoters, right through the 18th as this advert from 1812 states:

“On Thursday in Whit-week, On that Highly-renowned and universally admired spot called Dover’s Hill, Near Chipping Campden. Glos. The sports will commence with a grand match of Backswords for a purse of guineas, To be played by 9 or 7 men on a side. Each side must appear in the ring by 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Or 15s. each pair will be given for as many as will play. Wrestling for belts and others prizes. Also Jumping in bags and dancing. And a Jingling Match for 10s. 6d. As well as divers others of celebrated Cotswold and Olympic games, for which this annual meeting, has been famed for centuries.”

By 1845 the reputation of the Games was calling for their demise. The local rector Reverend Geoffrey Drinkwater Bourne, claimed that the 300000 attendees were all drunk and disorderly and that it attracted the lowest scum between Birmingham and Oxford. The event by that point was organised by local publican, William Drury, who would have been very keen to get alcohol sold there in return for his £5 fee for the event. It may have been that there were underlying reasons for local people to have it curtailed as the hill which was common land and oddly enough the consent for enclosure was given to the very same rector in 1850. Lo and behold in 1852 it was stopped this was despite very little record in court papers for any prosecutions associated with the event.

Thus by the time of T. F. Thistleton Dwyer British Popular customs present and past (1875) he reports:

“The vicinity of Chipping Campden was the theatre of the Cotswold Games, which, in the reign of James I. and his unfortunate successor, were celebrated in this part of England. They were instituted by a public-spirited attorney of Burton on-the-Heath, in Warwickshire, named Robert Dover, and like the Olympic games of the ancients, consisted of most kinds of manly exercises. The victors were rewarded by prizes, distributed by the institutor, who, arrayed in a discarded habit of James’, superintended the games in person for many years. The meetings were annually held on Whitsun Thursday, and were frequently attended by an immense number of people.”

It was a dead custom the land was portioned by local land owners and enclosed. Dover’s hill might change forever and with it gone his games

Back to the game

The way back to its survival happened when fortunately the land was acquired by the National Trust opening up the possibility of public access to what had become known as Dover’s Hill. Then in 1951 someone thought of reviving the games for the Festival of Britain, amazing just under 100 years since its cancelation. However, its celebration again was sporadic; foot and mouth disease in 1952, the Coronation in 1953 prevented regular observation and it was not until 1966 that it was regularly organised. Its significance in the history of the Modern Olympics was recognised  by the British Olympic Association as the ‘first stirrings of Britain’s Olympic beginnings’ when they made their 2012 bid for London.

The organisers excellent website state the various games played:

“King of The Hill One of the traditional events at the Games, this antecedant of modern events like the pentathlon involves individual competitors competing at 4 separate events (in the lower arena). These events are: Static Jump (jumping as far as possible from a standstill), Spurning the Barre (an old English version of the Scottish tossing the caber), Hammer Throw and Putting the Shot. The combined total for all four events decides the winner. Entries for this event open at 6.30pm on the night of the Games. Entry is open to all adults over 16.

 Championship of the Hill A true crowd pleaser! The traditional team challenges of ancient rural Games, updated for the 21st century! Teams of 6 participents (many from local pubs or other groups) compete against each other in a series of ever-more-frantic, and ever-wetter games! These games vary from year to year, but generally include relays involving wheebarrows, dustbins, hay bales, slippery running surfaces and lots of water!  Very limited team entries are available for this event, but you must notify us beforehand. We reserve the right to refuse entry if this event reaches its maximum of 6 teams.

 Running Races After a few years’ absence, the running races will be back this year.  The course will be entirely cross country and entirely on Dover’s Hill.  There will be a 1 lap (c. 1 mile) and a 3 lap (c. 3 miles) race.  

 Tug O’ War One of the traditional rural sports, (and former Olympic sport), and still taken very seriously. Teams of 8 people pit their strength against opposing teams, in a series of ‘pulls’ culminating in a final in front of Dover’s Castle on the Lower Arena. A limited number of team entries may be available. Please let us know your intention to enter before the Games.”

and then finally the most famed:

“Shin Kicking The media’s favourite (for some strange reason!). One of the sports which took place in 1612, and we’re still doing it to this day (although we’ve made it a bit safer since those days – Steel toe caps are banned, and we allow the use of straw to pad shins).”

This later as they suggest has taken on a life of its own and indeed could be seen as a custom within a custom.

Game set and match

I experience the Cotswold Olympicks back in the mid 1990s. Chipping Camden is a delightful village and the modern Cotswold Olympicks as they are now known is a great addition. Like the origin games, Robert Dover dressed in his ceremonial coat, hat, feather and ruff (the original a donation of James I) albeit this is now an actor starts the event. He then rides in to ceremonious applause. A reconstruction of Dover’s castle is set up on the hill’s amphitheatre. The event started with some Morris dancers – Chipping Camden a traditional team – although there was no real evidence the Morris were originally involved but they sort of come with every rural event these days.

There was a real fun atmosphere there and watching the events was both exciting and amusing. For those who miss It’s a knockout its zaniness and bizzareness will be very familiar. Special interest was the shin-kicking event of course and although no days its much safer the contestants – perhaps I should say combatants – there was determination on their faces. After adorning their white coats and stuffing their socks with a shin pad and then with straw and then more staff and even more straw they were off. It was intense and rather comical as so stuffed with straw a number of times they went to take a kick and fell over together. The competition was difficult to work out who was winning to be honest as they held on to each other and started kicking – it was like a weird ballet! Their coats being more and more dirty until one fell and they were the winner!

The event ended with a huge bonfire being lit and we were all given wooden torches and encouraged to light them. A horn sounded and we were encouraged to start our journey down into the town and as it swayed through the streets in the darkness a dragon on light. It was a magical ending to a great revived event.

Custom revived: Gloucester Day and the Mock Mayor of Barton

“Dulce est Desipere in Loco”

It is delightful to play the fool occasionally, so reads the motto of the revived Mock Mayor of Barton. How appropriate!

Gloucester over it!

Land use around train stations in the UK is always less than promising. Only a handful of cities and towns can boast a good vista from the station. Gloucester isn’t one of them! The buildings around both train and bus station are no great advert for much of the beauty and fine architecture that can be found in the city: hideous concrete slabs, boarded up windows and row after row of charity shops and cheap shops. There must have been some nice architecture there…perhaps the war removed it, but the post-War did much to ruin it. So it might seem strange that a city which appears to be going through a patriotic revival ignores this part. Ho hum..a few  streets in of course and we enter the Gloucester of the postcard, but it’s a shame our post war architects could not have been more imaginative, but I digress.

Siege mentality

Gloucester Day celebrates the lifting of the 1643 Siege of Gloucester, when the city survived after an onslaught of the Royalist forces in the first English Civil War. Strangely despite celebrating what could be conceived an anti-Monarchist event, the custom survived until around the nineteenth century. It was arrived in 2009 by the colourful figure of Alan Myatt, the Town Crier and forms part of the Gloucester History and Heritage Week.

Double Gloucester

Not only is Gloucester Day is celebrated on the day but there is a Morris meet, called Hands Around Gloucester and more interestingly the revived Mock Mayor of Barton. This too is believed to date from the Civil War. It is said that that after the siege Barton was removed from the city and so as a response decided to mock them and elect their own mayor. However, in a contributor to Jennings’ Gloucester Handbook suggests an age  “more ancient than the Mayors of Gloucester”, possibly deriving from an old moot called Halimote of Barton.  Certainly, the mock mayor did have a ‘court’, which would be held in various pubs doubling for the town hall: the Old Vauxhall and lastly the Bell Inn, and as noted a coat of ‘arms’. He also had some armorial insignia which survived in a wine merchant of Bell Lane in the 1880s, but now cannot be traced. The mayor would have duties such as visiting the Cotswold Olympics and the Cheese Rolling. The mayor could also inflict penalties, comical though they may be. Generally, the offender would be forbidden to:

 “shoot ducks, fowls, donkeys, pigs, or any game whatever, or fish in any river, running stream, ditch, pool, or puddle, with many other pains also”. 

Any resident of Barton who had lived there for two years would be eligible and were selected through some mistake or blunder:

“through want of judgement or absence of mind, made some blunders of an amusing nature before he could be named to the ‘Court’”

Once appointed he could not shake off this ‘honour’ and Duart-Smith (1923) notes that:

 “one of the elected mayors had impounded his own pigs by mistake, believing them to be his neighbour’s” 

Another member was inducted because he sowed soot to grow chimneys and another setting up a expensive fenced in piggery forgot to include a doorway! Interestingly, it is reported in the Gloucester Standard of c.1889 – 90 that despite the mockery of the position, some notable individuals became mayors such as a solicitor, the editor of the Gloucester Journal, a Russian Consul, and a timber importer and indeed once the City Mayor at that of Barton were one and the same. What caused the custom to disappear is unclear, but it probably considering its association with hostelries became associated with drunks and antisocial behaviour.

Another month another Mock Mayor

At 11.00 in the morning the members of the Mock Mayor’s mayor making entourage assembled behind the museum and what a motley bunch: Morris dancers, goats, a colourful burger, sword bearer, and a whole range of eccentrics who resembled the Monster Raving Loony Party. With the sword beater menacing in front they were off to a confused Gloucester shopping public, some of who appear unaware that if a procession comes along get out the way!! They passed the real Mayor, councillors and local MP near St. Michael’s Tower, upon which the sword bearer undertook a circular dance, probably if not intentionally intending to show contempt to them much in way they did at Woodstock. The newly elected Mock Mayor being carried on a bike powered trailer and sat comically upon a metal beer barrel. After circling around the parade came back to near the tower where a stage was erected, here the other civic party awaited. The electee, sword bearer and burger climbed on stage, and some slights and comical I jokes came flying out. After the Mayor making proclamation which ended with an up yours, the more comical politicians had a say…I mean the local MP and real Mayor to recognise the valuable work behind the trivial ness done by the mock mayor. All the platitudes over the group processed down to the nearby church and here the Morris were there again holding aloft their staffs, they formed an arch under which the groups flowed for their thanksgiving service. For a few hours normality resumed, but then…

Off we go again

If one parade was not enough wait a few hours and another, larger one comes along at 2.00. This was the Gloucester Day parade. Back with the Mock Mayor, minus the Morris who congregated at the cross road near St. Micheal’s Tower, ready to dance as the group went by. These parades appear to have a formula:civic dignitaries + religious groups/Scottish bands+~ knights or Romans to its credit Gloucester’s parade added a bit more to this formula including cross dressers from the gay community, masons, a giant pig, those goats again, the Waits a revived medieval group of musicians, as well all lead by the town crier. I didn’t notice the Gloucester flag much touted from a few years back, but it was a flurry of colour and a barrage of beats. Perhaps not as comical as the mock mayor procession…but well worth a few and where else do you get two processions a day!

This re-instated custom certainly is impressive and undertaken which such enthusiasm it difficult to believe it is only been revived since 2009!

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Custom survived: Cooper’s Hill Cheese rolling

Hard cheese

It is perhaps rare that an attendee to a calendar custom or tradition could claim to have a feeling of dread verging on PTSD attending one. However, I got that feeling returning to the internationally famous Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling. It has been a long to, 27 odd years since my first and only visit. A lot had changed. But one thing remains, the bizarreness of running after a 7-8Ib Double Gloucester!

The Coopers Hill or Brockworth cheese rolling is perhaps after a royal occasion the most famous of British customs. However, it was not always like that. Indeed its history is a bit mysterious. The first recorded evidence is in a message written to the Town crier of Gloucester in 1826; although it locally thought to date back six hundred years. Many suggestions have been made for its meaning. Was it done to secure grazing rights on common land? Did it have an association with the turning year, the cheese representing the sun? Afterall cartwheels were rolled down hills in England at Midsummer and still are in Scandinavian countries. Did it thus represent a pagan tradition? A fertility rite? Indeed, the scattering of sweets at the start which was done for children could be associated with such viewpoints. What is certain is that was once associated with Whit Monday which suggests it may have had been part of a wider Whitsun fair; akin to that on the Uffington White Horse. And indeed, here too cheeses were rolled and chased.

A description from the Folklore journal of 1912 states

“The Master of Ceremonies, Mr W. Brookes, who has officiated in this capacity for over 30 years, appeared wearing, as usual, a brown top-hat which his parents won in a dancing competition many years ago, and with a chemise over his coat. He stood by the maypole and repeatedly called the crowd to form ‘the alley’ down the slope. The course being clear, the Vicar opened the ball by sending the first ‘cheese’ (a disc of wood wrapped in pink paper) rolling down the hill. Helter-skelter ran nine young men after it, and most of them pitch-polled. The first to secure the disc, stopped at the bottom by a hedge, had to trudge uphill again, and there exchange it for the prize cheese.”

So to 2023 and after making the considerable arduous climb to the slope the first thing that amazes you are the crowds – 1000s – all ages, all nations assembled to watch what is clearly the most pointless, crazy and dangerous of all calendar customs. The grandfather of all extreme sports and certainly the progenitor of all ‘down the pub’ wacky customs. At the brow of the hill could be seen the master of ceremonies adorning a large top hat and white smock and beside him a crowd of participants, precariously perched ready to launch after the cheese they could never hope of catching.

Then

“One to be ready!”
“Two to be steady!”
“Three to prepare!”
“and four to be off!”

Off went the Double Gloucester and off went the racers, in their impossible attempt to gain the cheese. At first the majority had managed their composer, its just like any other race, but then momentum hits and the ground does not appear as even as first appeared. A few start tumbling forward, then more, then they fall, cartwheel and tumble head long into the row of rugby tacklers below. All fuelled by the considerable cacophony of cheers from right across the hills.  Some despite a few bruises leave standing up with the dignity upheld and proud to have done it. The majority disappear back into obscurity, save the boast to all that will hear that they ran the race. A small number go on to greater fame. Hopefully as the winner, denoted as the first to arrive at the bottom. Some as the ones injured by the experience.

The later often as was in the Women’s race often as not the same, as the adrenalin to win pushes you on and it seems a body devoid of the purposed propulsion of one’s legs is quicker! Indeed, it looked fairly inevitable for that winner and as the curtain closed around her and medical team came to her aid, a hush developed around the hill as we worried the cheese would be awarded posthumously. However, after a rather tense 20 minutes or so, the curtains retreated, a cheer went up as the winner naturally looking rather dazed and confused stood up and greeted her cheese and the clicks of the assembled photographers. The men did not go unscathed either with the men’s winner having a brief moment of recovery before not only being given the cheese but the new world record which he took with considerable humility. The previous record winner, a local, taking the loss with good nature but as he appeared each year to regale in his honour, the new winner hailing from Washington State, USA his regular challenge might be a challenge…but such is the international nature of this event now.

Roll back to the 90s!

Back in 1996 I met up with some old Uni friends who after even after seeing the carnage of previous attempts roped themselves and me into the race. To be honest either due to fortune, folly or favour, I do not recall making it right to the bottom; pretty sure they did; but at least I can claim to have done it. A boast that wins considerable kudos amongst the 1000s who now watch on in disbelief.  Certainly, watching it from the bottom up is far more anxiety inducing than watching it from the top I can attest.

Much of the custom appears to be the same, the curiously attired master of ceremonies, the cheeses and races and the equally crazy run and finally crawl up the hill. The one thing I didn’t notice was the distribution of sweets. This certainly happened at the top of the hill when I attended and either I missed it or its gone. I would not be surprised it has vanished; the large numbers of spectators make it bit unlikely small children would be at the top ready to scramble for them.

I was not aware of any injuries when I went but only a few years earlier in 1993 it was noted that 15 people were injured, four seriously so and only three years after I went, in 1999 the council banned it, but a small group defied the ban and moved the race to earlier in the day to allay the councils fears over the sobriety of the participants. It worked and as Steve Roud (2005) notes in The English Year:

“Oddly enough, this was just in a time when the custom was becoming popular with the national press, who now report on it each year, usually accompanied by a piece on the eccentricities of the English. Now that its fame has spread, the event attracts entrants from far and wide, and seems ilittle danger of being allowed to lapse.”

Cheesed off!

However, Roud spoke too soon for in 2009 perhaps the inevitable did happen. Health and safety again unsurprisingly raised its head and it was officially cancelled. There was no rolling in 2009 and it seemed like the end. However, you cannot keep a good roll down and the next year a smaller event was organised by an unusual alliance of journalists and locals. Such that in 2011 when locals Candis Phillips and Sara Stevens bought their own four cheeses, as the company who had donated them had been prevented from doing so due to the legality of the situation, the event thus running without management. Around 500 people turned up and interestingly no injuries were reported: A former winner being quoted as saying:

“No-one’s going to stop us doing it. They say it’s not official, but we are all Brockworth people, and we’re running cheese today, so it is official. We strongly believe in it.”

A ‘Save the Cheese Roll’ campaign was started and the revival and global fame built and built. Only a major pandemic would stop it in 2020 and 2021, returning yet again in its rather spontaneous fashion unusually on Sunday 5 June 2022 due to the Jubilee celebrations.

So since the late 90s the fame of the cheese rolling has grown perhaps as a result of its near banning; such responses often result, such that it has become festival like. Thousands of onlookers crowd the banks either side of the ‘track’ and on the hill sides below, which incidentally give a remarkable unblocked view where the chases appear to tumble like dominos down the near vertical slope. Yet despite this fame and notoriety it remains unfettered by commercialism. There are no Cheese rolling T shirts. No mugs. No merchandise at all. Plenty of people come dressed up in a cheese fashion including some rather fetching cheese hats, but there is no attempt to make money from the event. To over commercialise it bar the car parking that is perhaps! In 1996 parking nearby was relatively easy and above the hill; now all roads are blocked and attendance does require a lengthy uphill pilgrimage.

Custom demised: Meltham Collop Monday Penny Scramble

This was a little known lost custom which existed in Meltham near Huddlesfield and apparently unique to there. This was a distribution of new pennies a sort of penny scramble on Collop Monday. The custom is first described in an 1929 edition of the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer 

“Collop Monday.

“Collop Monday” was observed at Meltham, near Huddersfield, yesterday, by giving a newly minted penny to each child who appeared at the gates of Meltham Mills, and later by scattering further coins to an assembly of the young. I nearly assembled myself, but I am afraid it would not have been much use.”

The article goes on to say that:

“Formerly the children made the round of the village, saying, “Pray, dame, a collop or a halfpenny” at each house. But this has been dropped, and the scattering of shining new pence has taken its place. “

Apparently, the custom begun in 1881 by a Mr Edward Brook and was continued after his death in 1904 by his son. It would appear that he can adopted it from other penny scrambles which existed in the town such as at Whitsun. This custom however begun with the distribution of the coins from a leather pouch and then thrown to be scrambled for!  It was clearly popular with the local children as the money could be used to pay for sweets.

The article continues:

“The custom was begun in 1881 by the late Mr. Edward Brook and has been continued since his death in 1904 by his son, Lieut.-Col. Charles Brook. He, however, was absent yesterday, and so his son, Capt. Edward Wm. Brook — who was equerry to the Duke of Gloucester on his recent big game hunting expedition — came to the rescue. Among those present was Mr. John Pogson, foreman joiner at the Mills, who has been present at the ceremony ever since it started, and who has 66 years of working life to his credit.”

An article in the Leed’s Mercury of the same year stated that:

“There is thought for the less burly, too, for before the scattering each child who comes to the works gates receives one of the bright coppers.

But the scrambling provides the real adventure. One or two who would have departed without participating in the riotous joy were rebuked by their colleagues.”

The Leed’s Mercury notes;

“A Happy Crowd.

From a substantial bag, akin to that one sees on racecourses, Captain Brook hurled aloft the pennies, and the crowd surged forward and dashed back with screams of laughter, pushing, plunging and raiding to get the benefit of the shining shower.

Captain Brook was very judicious. Small girls, looking on wistfully, had a shower — several showers — for their special benefit, and one got the impression that only the very lazy or the hopelessly unlucky failed to augment their original capital.

Mr. John Pogson, who is 75, and has worked for 66 years at Meltham Mills, supervised the distribution. He has seen the pennies thrown for fifty years, and his patriarchal beard and paper workman’s can were a picturesque touch.

With his eyes alight with fun, John told me that the custom of scattering coins among children dates back to the period when the Israelites emerged from Egypt in bondage. At any rate there is something jolly and old-world about the business they carry it through in this pleasant Yorkshire village.”

A great glimpse can be felt in the article in the Yorkshire Evening Post from 1938:

“Miniature rugby scrums took place all over the road, the bruised knees and hacked shins were speedily forgotten in the rush for possession.

Tiny tots hardly the size of “threepenn’orth o’ copper,” as one villager described them, fought with as much determination and vigour as the older children, and they seemed almost to enjoy being sat on and stamped on as they rushed to the bottom of the scrum.

Some of the lads are proud of the records they have set up at these Meltham scrambles. I spot to one who picked up a dozen pennies this morning. Others said that on previous occasions they had collected 27 and 30 pennies respectively.

The boys, incidentally, do not have it all their own way, and some of the lassies of Meltham had a very successful morning“

It is not clear how long the Mills continued the custom but clearly understanding that one penny could become two in the hands of the parents perhaps by the time of the Second World War, it was the local shopkeepers who began handing out free sweets to children on the day. Sadly little is reported of the custom but what is remarkable is that it is reported to have continued up until the early 1990s by Mrs Annie Woodhead who ran a newsagents in the market square. Why it then died out is unclear but with her the last of this local scramble and the longest public association with collop Monday died out!  

Custom demised: Visiting wells and springs at Midsummer

Many wells and springs were believed to increase in proficiency either Midsummer (Eve or Day). Often such wells would be dedicated to St. John the Baptist, the saint whose feast day would be on that date. Some such as St. John’s Well, Broughton, Northamptonshire or St John’s Well, Shenstone, Staffordshire, whose waters were thought to be more curative on that day.  This is clear at Craikel Spring, Bottesford, Lincolnshire, Folklorist Peacock (1895) notes in her Lincolnshire folklore that:

“Less than fifty years ago a sickly child was dipped in the water between the mirk and the dawn on midsummer morning,’ and niver looked back’ards efter, ‘immersion at that mystic hour removing the nameless weakness which had crippled him in health. Within the last fifteen years a palsied man went to obtain a supply of the water, only to find, to his intense disappointment, that it was drained away through an underground channel which rendered it unattainable.”

Now a lost site, it is possible and indeed likely that the site now called St. John’s Well in the village is the same site considering its connection to midsummer.

Often these visits would become ritualised and hence as Hazlitt notes in the Irish Hudibras (1689) that in the North of Ireland:

“Have you beheld, when people pray, At St. John’s well on Patron-Day, By charm of priest and miracle, To cure diseases at this well; The valleys filled with blind and lame, And go as limping as they came.”

In the parish of Stenness, Orkney local people would bring children to pass around it sunwise after being bathed in the Bigwell. A similar pattern would be down at wells at Tillie Beltane, Aberdeenshire where the well was circled sunwise seven times. Tongue’s (1965) Somerset Folklore records of the Southwell, Congresbury women used to process around the well barking like dogs.

These customs appear to have been private and probably solitary activities, in a number of locations ranging from Northumberland to Nottingham, the visiting of the wells was associated with festivities. One of the most famed with such celebration was St Bede’s Well at Jarrow. Brand (1789) in his popular observances states:

“about a mile to the west of Jarrow there is a well, still called Bede’s Well, to which, as late as the year 1740, it was a prevailing custom to bring children troubled with any disease or infirmity; a crooked pin was put in, and the well laved dry between each dipping. My informant has seen twenty children brought together on a Sunday, to be dipped in this well; at which also, on Midsummer-eve, there was a great resort of neighbouring people, with bonfires, musick, &c.”         

Piercy (1828) states that at St. John’s Well Clarborough, Nottinghamshire

“a feast, or fair, held annually on St. John’s  day, to which the neighbouring villagers resorted to enjoy such rural sports or games as fancy might dictate.”

Similarly, the Lady Well, Longwitton Northumberland, or rather an eye well was where according to Hodgon (1820-58) where:

“People met here on Midsummer Sunday and the Sunday following, when they amused themselves with leaping, eating gingerbread brought for sale to the spot, and drinking the waters of the well.”         

When such activities ceased is unclear, but in some cases it was clearly when the land use changed. This is seen at Nottinhamshire’s Hucknall’s Robin Hood’s well, when the woods kept for Midsummer dancing, was according to Marson (1965-6)  in an article called  Wells, Sources and water courses in Nottinghamshire countryside states it was turned to a pheasant reserve, the open space lawn was allowed to grass over and subsequently all dancing ceased. In Dugdale’s (1692) Monasticon Anglicanum notes that at Barnwell Cambridgeshire:

“..once a year on St John Baptist’s Eve, boys and lads met there, and amused themselves in the English fashion with wrestling matches and other games and applauded each other in singing songs and playing musical instruments. Hence by reason of the crowd that met and played there, a habit grew up that on the same day a crowd of buyers and sellers should meet in same place to do business.”       

Whether the well itself was the focus for the festivities or the festivities were focused around the well because it provided water are unclear, there are surviving and revived midsummer customs which involve bonfires and general celebrations but no wells involved.

The only custom, revived in 1956, which resembles that of the midsummer well visiting is Ashmore’s Filly Loo.  This is the only apparent celebration of springs at Midsummer is at Ashmore Dorset where a local dew pond, where by long tradition a feast was held on its banks, revived in 1956 and called Filly Loo, it is held on the Friday nearest midsummer and consists of dancing and the holding of hands around the pond at the festivities end.

Another piece of evidence perhaps for the support of a well orientated event as opposed an event with a well is the structure of the Shirehampton Holy Well, Gloucestershire which arises in:

“‘A large cave … Inside, there is crumbling masonry – the remains of an ancient shrine or hermitage – and a pool fed by a stream which seeps through the floor of the cave. The rays of the midsummer sun are said to strike the centre of this pool, and seers used to read the future in its depths.”

It was suggested that the building was:

“duly oriented for midsummer day, so that it is clearly a mediaeval dedication to S. John Baptist.”

This unusual site may indicate the longer and deeper associations of springs and midsummer than is first supposed…or antiquarian fancy. Nowadays if you visit these wells at Midsummer you will find yourself alone…but in a way that may have been the way it had always been.

Custom demised: Calennig on New Year’s Day

“Dydd calan yw hi heddiw, Rwy’n dyfod ar eich traws I ‘mofyn am y geiniog, Neu grwst, a bara a chaws. O dewch i’r drws yn siriol Heb newid dim o’ch gwedd; Cyn daw dydd calan eto Bydd llawer yn y bedd.”

Translated: “Today is the start of the New Year, and I have come to you to ask for coins, or a crust, and bread and cheese. O come to the door cheerfully without changing your appearance; Before the next arrival of the new year many will be dead.”

On New Year’s morning the streets of parts of Wales, rural areas of Dyfed, Aberystwyth, Monmouthshire, Radnorshire, Glamorgan and Carmarthan, could be heard this curious rhyme which was associated with a strange gift. As a custom it only appears to have spread with slight variation to the boarder regions of England – Gloucestershire’s Forest of Dean, Shropshire and Worcestershire. Although we associate Christmas Day as the traditional day for gifts, New Year’s Day was also often associated with gift giving. This was more often associated with the idea of First footing – which survives albeit in a weakened form across England – even this year I remembered my bread to bring in.

Yet as noted until fairly recently Wales had a unique house visiting custom one which involved children. They would visit their relatives by midday carrying skewered apples stuck with fruit and raisins – akin to pomander. Ronald Hutton in his Stations of the Sun describes them as follows:

“an apple or orange, resting on three sticks like a tripod, smeared with flour, stuck with nuts, oats or wheat, topped with thyme or another fragrant herb and held by a skewer.”

It was the fruit which was called the Calennig it appears rather than the custom. In the book 1944 book The Pleasant Land of Gwent, Fred Hando notes a report of his friend Arthur Machen who noted:

“When I was a boy in Caerleon-on-Usk, the town children got the biggest and bravest and gayest apple they could find in the loft, deep in the dry bracken. They put bits of gold leaf upon it. They stuck raisins into it. They inserted into the apple little sprigs of box, and they delicately slit the ends of hazel-nuts, and so worked that the nuts appeared to grow from the ends of the holly leaves … At last, three bits of stick were fixed into the base of the apple tripod-wise; and so it borne round from house to house; and the children got cakes and sweets, and-those were wild days, remember-small cups of ale.”

In Gentlemens magazine march 1919:

“Children to their inexpressibly journey will be drest in their best bibs and aprons, and may be seen handed along the streets, some beating Kentish pippins, others oranges stuck with cloves, in order to crave a blessing of their godfathers and god others”

Generally states as the Calennig had a basic design. As Jacqueline Simpson in Folklore of the Welsh boarder this was an apples mounted on three wooden legs (a tripod) and decorated with sprigs of box and hazel nuts.

It was not always restricted to apples either sometimes it was an orange in this case using holly, tinsel, raisins, gold and silver glitter being added.

The Opie’s in Lore of Schoolchildren (1955) notes of a Radnorshire girl

“I always go New Year gifting with my sister and friends, about four of us. I get up about 7 O’clock and call for my friends and go around the houses and farms:

“I wish you a merry Christmas,

A happy new year,

A pocket full of money and a cellar full of beer,

A good fat pig to last you all year,

Please give me a New Year’s gift for this New Year.”

She stated that sometimes she would get apples or mince pies. She stated that gifting must finish by midday otherwise people will shout ‘fool at you.’

The custom appeared similar in south-west Shropshire in Clun where the children recited:

“Happy New Year. Happy New Year, I’ve come to wish you happy New Year.

I’ve got a little pocket and it is very thin,

Please give me a penny to put the money in,,

If you haven’t got a penny, a half penny will do, if you haven’t got a half penny – God bless you.”

Interestingly in Glamorgan and Carmarthen they could extend it to the entire month. Whether we should include the English counties is unclear, as outside of Wales the decorated apple does not appear to be recorded. It was called The gift in Worcestershire, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. Interestingly, Simpson in Folklore of the Welsh boarder states they were still common in Monmouthshire and around St Briavels in 1900. In Chepstow she states before the First World War it was called a Monty and those who carried it chanted:

“Monty, Monty, Happy New Year,

A pocket full of money and cellar full of beer”

Origins of the custom

It is possible that the custom descended from adults for in Herefordshire, the 1822 Gentleman’s Magasine notes that the peasantry called with:

“a small pyramid made of leaves, apples, nuts etc,, gilt in hope of receiving gifts in exchange for the luck this conferred.”

Yet by 1880s it was only youngsters. Certainly in 17th and 18th references are made to a decorated orange with cloves being a gift for New Years in England. Brand (1900) in his Observations on popular antiquities makes note of a remark on the Christmas masque of Ben Jonson ‘he has an orange and rosemary, but not a clove to stick in it Hutton in his Stations of the Sun saw the three components as representing gifts of the Three Wise Men of sweetness, wealth and immortality. The author of The weird wonders of wales – the right way with Calennig from 12/12/1986 notes:

“This calennig apple clearly dates from ancient times, being a representation of the sun which was absent during winter.

Death of the custom?

Even by the early 20^th century it was in decline as Donald Davis of Those were the days from 11/7/1936 notes:

“Lately the carrying of an apple has been discontinued and only the recitation of brief verses or greetings and the collection of new pennies mark the custom in those districts where it has survived.”             

In Llandysul, Carmarthanshire, an account on the BBCs Domesday Reloaded records:

“The custom has rapidly declined over the years and this year, 1985, very few children came collecting because the children today get enough pocket money and food. Also, many children may not have been told about the custom by their parents.”

In other parts of the country it was still being recorded but it in a way the well-meaning anonymous author of The author of The weird wonders of wales – the right way with calennig from 12/12/1986 perhaps by begrudging gifts led to its decline:

“Soon it will be calennig time. That’s when youngsters come to the door asking for me years gifts. Over the last few years, those who have come to my door have been duly treated, but this year will be different. Why? Because they haven’t been doing it right! Shame on them. We shall put things right. The way it should be done….is for the children to knock day a proper calennig verse to the person who answers, and then receive the gift.

He also goes on to note he had seven such verses that the children should use.

“Os fyddech chi mor garedig, Ac agor drws y ty, Y flwyddyn fwyaf lucid a fyddo gyda chwi” ‘Blwyddyn newydd dda I chi, Ac I bawb sydd yn y ty, dyma yw’n dymuniad ni O ddechrau’r flwyddyn hon.’ If no one answers Blwyddyn newydd ddrwg, Llond y ty o fwg.’ A bad new year may your house fill with smoke and then run away like the clapper readers can help preserve the custom too by responding to those youngsters who ‘do it proper’, let’s see what we can do to keep our traditions alive”

I wonder if they heeded him. Certainly there is little reference I can find to the custom through the 90s. Today Calennig has become a name for civic New Year’s celebration, often for children, such as those held in Cardiff. Yet it is difficult to be sure with private and domestic customs. Does it still survive? Certainly it did in 2003 but by the sound of the article The custom of calennig on 16/1/03 it did not sound particularly healthy (with five children only)!:

“The old welsh tradition of calennig is still alive in Llanrhystud. At around 11 o’clock on New Year’s Day in the morning the joyful sound of children’s voices was heard at several homes in and around the village as five local children sang traditional New Year songs to wish all those they visited a happy new year. Some were rewarded sign gifts of money. In older times children would be given gifts of fruit, cakes or sweets. Calennig normally begins soon after the dawn of the New Year and continues until noon, the earliest callers are generously rewarded for their enthusiasm. It is good to see this ancient custom continuing well into the twenty first century.”

The fact that the custom survived into the 80s with no mention as a living custom by folklorists is astounding, survival into the 21^st century even more amazing, but of course such customs can survive like the New Year’s Penny Scramble in Driffield which was then absent from books and sites like the excellent Calendercustoms. Certainly people are aware of it as the Youtube clip and Twitter feeds shows and guides how to make one exist. But does any child still go out properly house visiting with one? Has it died a death completely like other house visiting customs succumbed to the power of Hallowe’en! Does it still survive where you are? Please comment and perhaps add photos.

Custom survived: Sending Christmas Cards

“Sending cards is a very British thing…”I have a few French friends who think we’re all a bit potty for doing it, but it’s engrained in our social culture – it’s what we do.”

If you are anything like me you’re probably staring at a pile unsent. Or else looking at a card from the one person you didn’t send to or perhaps you again sent them too late! Whatever it is you’ve sent Christmas cards…what is less well known is that the custom of sending cards is relatively modern – arriving in 1843 and is British!

What a card!

A civil servant called Sir Henry Cole was investigating how the general public could utilise the newly established post office – and what an invention he came up with – one which has undoubtedly kept that service alive and kicking into the 21^st century. However, like all good customs it was not original people had been giving new year cards for many years previous

Sir Henry invited an artist friend John Horsley to design it. The card which cost 1 shilling had three panels. The central panel showed a family eating Christmas dinner with two side panels of people caring for the poor. Around 1000 cards were printed. The message was a traditional and still popular ‘A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you.’

Despite a short run the success of the card was sealed. The establishment of the postal service’s Penny Post made the sending of items more affordable to the general public. Soon based on the train large volumes prices for sending these new cards dropped to half a penny for one in an unsealed envelope, a much cheaper method of correspondence that letter at the time which cost a penny!

Sign sealed delivered I’m yours

Unsurprisingly Dickens has a hand in it…indirectly. A man who could claim possibly single handedly reinventing Christmas! His artist William Egley was one of the first noted individuals to draw for a Christmas card. Most of these early cards naturally showed the nativity, but by the late 1800s snow scenes and the Robin appeared. By 1900 it had spread across Europe and English speaking colonies and ex-colonies.

Not everyone is keen on them of course! Those with Robin were unpopular. For it was also unlucky to bring a Robin into the house and this remained a belief and possibly still is a belief into the age of card sending. Some people refused to have it on the card suggesting a death in the family would arise as result! An account from a Gloucestershire correspondent of Folklore recorded in 1955:

“A young women told me it was a death sign to receive a Christmas card with a robin on it. This saying dashed me considerably at the time, as I had just had card with robins printed. However, I sent them out in spite of the warning, and I am happy to say that here was no undue mortality amongst my friends that year.”

Steve Roud (2006) states that the belief was still recorded in the 1990s and may still be around.

Fall of a card

2007 Telegraph was telling us that Britain was:

“falling out of love with the Christmas card. The number of festive cards bought in High Street shops has dropped by 20 million in the past two years.”

Why? The eCard an electronic greeting sent over the Internet or by mobile phone and the Telegraph told us it was:

“increasingly popular with young people who say it is easier, cheaper and more environmentally-friendly than traditional cards.”

However, despite this clarion cry for its demise. It has not happened. In 2009 a 3% rise in sales was recorded and it was perhaps because of the lack of thought associated with e-cards. Some companies like Scribbler noted for their rather avant garde and sometimes downright rude cards even saw 15% increase.

Stephen Bayley a design critic and cultural commentator noted:

“In our exhaustingly pixellated world where gigabytes count for more than a winning way with a rhyming couplet, the greetings card may seem a quaint anomaly. But its survival is not so very strange. Nowadays any fool can reach 50 million people after a few minutes heartless work on a keypad, but reaching an individual is altogether more interesting. In the same way that a single witty postcard is worth more than 25 million Tweets, a card suggests something that went missing in the digital revolution: intimacy.”

So in a way the Christmas Card tradition is like any other custom, preserved because it still means something and everyone welcomes a card.

Custom survived: Bisley Ascension day Well dressing

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The three days before Ascension Day it never stopped raining, so it was with some trepidation that I made my journey to Bisley for their annual water based celebration. Rain was on the forecast, but I noticed oddly enough a gap both geographically and temporally was noted on the weather website and that was good enough for me. Of course, rain would be wholly appropriate on a day when thanks is traditionally given for water, a little odd since the day commemorates the Ascension of Jesus, which of course is the reverse!

Well positioned

Bisley is a delightful village, high above Stroud, it has all the great features of a classic Cotswold village with a historic old pub, The Bear with its association with the Bisley Boy legend ( a story of a switch between a local lookalike and a child Elizabeth I), a lock-up and those traditional delightful Cotswold stone cream buildings..and a picturesque well head situated below the church’s rocky outcrop. This well head, encloses seven springs, the name given to the site, of which five flow with considerable power through Gothic pointed arches and into a trough which lines the walling. Another two at the front gable fill large troughs. The water looks delightfully refreshing.

Well thought of.

The custom is one of the oldest Well dressing customs continually done in England; the only one outside of the Derbyshire-Staffordshire region with any pedigree. There are after all tens of well dressings and I don’t yet intend detailing all, but one so unique geographically and old needs mention. Surprising, it is still little known, cursory mention is made of it in well dressing volumes and even Katherine Brigg’s 1974 work Folklore of the Cotswolds ignores it!

Debate exists over whether in 1863 the custom was revived, transferred from Derbyshire or the pure invention of the noted vicar Thomas Keble. Being the brother of the more famous John of the Oxford movement it is fairly obvious that establishing such a custom fell into the remit of the Anglo-Catholic views they espoused. Certainly, the legend over the well was carved to cause controversy being a Catholic inscription of the version in the Common Book of Prayer.

The Reverend Keble repaired or built the well house, perhaps also giving the Seven springs name and having done so much effort thought it would be an excellent idea to celebrate this annually. Little appears to have recorded from this earliest day and the first mention of it is from Skyring Walters who’s 1928, Ancient Wells, Springs and Holy Wells of Gloucestershiresadly does not delve too deeply into their history and spends more time discussing Tissington.

Bisley Boys (and Girls)

“The ceremony still has much traditional atmosphere unlike many of the Derbyshire well-dressings which are becoming more like floral art displays for tourists.”

Such states Laurence Hunt (1994) in Some Ancient Wells, Springs and Holy Wells of the Cotswolds in Source and I completely agree. One of the reasons why the Bisley dressings feel unique is the procession. Many Derbyshire well dressings have a brass band, so do Bisley, ably provided by Avening Brass Band, all have their clergy, but few possibly none carry the well dressings or have them carried by costumed children. These children are dressed in traditional Victorian Tudor blue coats and smocks for the girls. Joining them this year where two children from the twin town in Brittany with traditional Breton children’s dress. They carry the dressings because unlike those of Derbyshire they are wrapped in garland frames with moss and inserted flower heads made by a cross generational team of children, parents and grandparents. I was told that they take a day or so to make, which of course is shorter than that of Derbyshire, but they are no less picturesque or effective.

Head from the spring head

There was short service in the Parish church, I decided as the sun was shining to listen from outside bathing in the bright sunshine. Then at around two the children appeared and collected their well garlands and after some to-ing and fro-ing to get those letters in the right order…ACSENSINO being an interesting word but not right! Then off they went following the brass band downhill to the wells.

At the wells, the two Star of Davids were attached to the front of the well house and the individual flower letters spelling ASCENSION were raised and an attached between each arch and in the middle the traditional flower letters and numbers AD 2014.

The other children and indeed some adults laid small posies in the long trough around the wells base, perhaps the most primitive of responses..ensuring that everyone in the village could commemorate this once valuable water source.

At the well head, soon a large crowd assembled around and here on a small stage, the vicar, The Reverend Rosie Woodhall, read a watery reading of the Benedicite which ended with the fitting:

“O ye Wells, bless ye the Lord : praise him, and magnify him forever.”

The congregation sang and the wells were blessed and then a bit like a rock star, the vicar left the stage climbed back up the hill and disappeared out of view, which I thought a little strange,…perhaps the banter that I often expect from vicars at these events happened in the church above. Nevertheless, 2013 was the 150^th anniversary and despite the rain that day, nothing appears to dampen the village’s desire to celebrate the wells and its 2014 celebration was a delightful remembrance of not only a once important source of water but a great vicar in the history of the Church.

Find out when its on

Calendar Customs …no specific site but there is a post on well dressing http://calendarcustoms.com/articles/well-dressing/and of course http://welldressing.com is your first port of call for all things well dressing naturally!

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Custom revived: Ely Hoop Trundle

“It is up there with rolling a Gloucester cheese down a hill and Eton’s Wall Game,”  

Principal Sue Freestone.

School customs are a fascinating, if frustrating group of customs..many have a long and fascinating history, but often understandably due to the nature of the establishments difficult to witness. Ely’s Hoop Trundle although a fascinating custom it is unlike say Westminster School’s pancake grease inaccessible to the custom crawler…as it is done in public on the Green behind Ely’s imposing cathedral and although not always in May, so a bit of a cheat, it appears to often be on that month and appears set for that day from now on. Easily the best of such events for the spectator with no barriers, it is easy to watch and subsequently become part of the action…as the hoops rolled into the audience on a number of occasions.

What the hoop-la?

The customs is liked to a tradition of the re-founding of the school by King Henry VIIth in 1541. As he dissolved its educational predecessor Ely monastery, he appears to have had a pang of guilt and so established the school with its first charter with 12 schoolars. Apparently he allowed them to play games in the Cathedral grounds and although this does not appear to happen anymore, by rolling a hoop they retain that right and remember that re-founding.

Cock a hoop

Despite the press releases which state it has continued since the time of Henry VIIIth,  I believe this is a revived custom probably as the principal agreed being resurrected by a 20^th century predecessor probably around the time of the school’s adoption of Queen’s Schoolars in 1973 but I have yet to have that confirmed.

Hoops outside your head

At the allotted time the green began to fill with the students, staff and parents of the school. An oil can was carefully placed in the middle of the grass and the wooden hoops and sticks collected ready to be distributed. Then scholars appeared in their red gowns and the wooden hoops and sticks were passed amongst. No soon as this happened then they were off rolling them and racing backwards and forth.  I was told that originally it was ran down the road outside the Cathedral but too many grazed knees and cuts would occur and problems with traffic no doubt. Despite what would appear to be a fairly innocuous event danger clearly awaited. For whilst practising, one of the prospective contestants in the clashed with another and when head over hills and appeared to damage his ankle. This appeared to be a fairly rare occasion as he had to be carried off in a work van! Well it was one way of reducing the odds.

Then the two heats produced their winners, a Euan Richards and Yuki Kimura who proudly, picked up their commemorative wooden tankards and their names entered in the history of Hoop trundling. They posed for pictures holding their hoops aloft and everyone disappeared into the city.

So keep an eye out for the next trundle, I spoke to the principal who said they aimed to ensure it was always on the same weekend as the Ely Eel festival…details of that for another May.

Find out when its on

Calendar Customs …its not on there yet

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Custom demised: Observing the holy thorn

A thorny subject

Just before Christmas in 2010 vandals inexplicably chopped down the Holy Thorn on Wearyall Hill, Glastonbury and a nation was shocked. Whatever the reason for this destruction it prevented anyone witnessing this tree blooming according to tradition. However, despite this being the most iconic and well known holy thorn, it was only one of a considerable number across the country which originates from the original tree which stood before the Parish church before being cut down by Cromwellian troops in the English civil war, the axe wielder is said to have lost an eye as a result which James Howell of odona’s grove noted:

“He was well serv’d for his blinde Zeale, who going to cut doune an ancient white Hauthorne-tree, which, because she budded before the others, might be an occasion of superstition had some of the prickles flew into his eye and made him Monoculor”

However this tree is not the holy thorn, not even in Glastonbury for its progeny is found in the churchyard and Abbey grounds. Records of other holy thorns occur not surprisingly at West Buckland, Woolmingston and Whitestaunton also in Somerset, Sutton Poyntz Dorset, but also at Houghton Le Spring, Durham, Brickendon, Hertfordshire and Shenley Church End and Quainton, Buckinghamshire. Herefordshire curiously had and has a number of examples. These listed by folklorist Leather included Wormsley, Rowlstone, Dorstone, Colwall, Stoke Edith, King’s Thorn, Tyberton with one at Bredwardine in Herefordshire. Palmer notes Alfrick, Hampton, Newland, Ripple and Tardebigge in Worcestershire.

A blossoming story

Despite being such a well known story, the thorn is only first mentioned in a 1520 work by Richard Pynson Lyfe of Joseph of Arimathea where the blooming in winter and spring are first recorded. Indeed, Joseph himself only appears in legend in the 9th century. What is interesting is that the plant, Crataegus monogyna biflora is not a native species. DNA of all known descendents match and experts in Kew have identified it from Levantine Palestine hawthorn…so there may be evidence.
To these trees it was customary for the devout to visit these bushes on Christmas Eve to see them bloom. In the 17th century Bishop Goodman of Gloucester noted:

“The white thorn of Glastonbury which usually blossoms on Christmas and Easter.”

The flowers were thought to bloom exactly on midnight, the hour Christ was born, on Christmas Eve, and then drop off an hour later. For example an account in the East Anglia Miscellany notes a thorn:

“near Parham Hall (Norfolk) is a white thorn bush which blossoms by Christmas Day, and the people of the neighbourhood flock to it in great companies upon Christmas Eve..”

Although the author does note that:

“I had some of the buds just blooming brought to me on Sunday, the 2nd of December, 1734”

But wait a minute this is January’s blog!

Yes and the date of the above account is significant, for only 22 years later it may not have bloomed. Why because in 1752, the calendar changed. Indeed, the blooming of the holy thorns was used by those critical of the date change as evidence that the new calendar was wrong. For when the calendar did change, these disbelievers of the new Calendar, waited to see when the tree would blossom the 25th December or the 6th January? The Gentleman’s magazine reported in 1753 in January:

“A Vast concourse of people attended the noted thorn on Christmas-day, new stile, but to their great disappointment, there was no appearance of its blowing,which made them watch it narrowly the 5th of January, the Christmas-day, old stile, when it blowed as usual.”

Such begun a January tradition For example on the 7th January 1878, the author Kilvert visited a farm at Dolfach where the blossoming was witnessed by a group of fifteen people and he was given a spray of blossom by the farmer’s daughter. Kilvert notes that he grafted this cutting onto his tree and reported that on the same date the next year it bloomed despite the severe frost. Attendance to see the thorns was still current in Sutton Poyntz Dorset until 1844, Woolmingston Somerset 1898 and Wormsley at least until 1908 when folklorist Ella Mary Leather recorded it in her Folklore of Herefordshire. She also noted one of the reasons for the popularity of the custom and its demise:

“A piece of thorn gathered at this hour brings luck, if kept for the rest of the year. Formerly crowds of people went to see the thorn blossom at this time. I myself went to Wormesely in 1908; about forty people were there, and as it was quite dark and the blossom could only be seen by candle light, it was probably the warmth of the candles which made some of the little white buds seem to expand. The tree had really been in bloom for several days, the season being extremely mild. Mr Powell of Peterchurch told me he could remember that on old Christmas Eve, people came for miles round to Kingstone Grange, where a holy thorn grew in the garden; they were liberally supplied with cake and cider.”

Blooming cheek – an unpopular custom

Leather noted that such rather impromptu perhaps gatherings were not always popular she notes:

“At Cleohanger, years ago a man was very much annoyed at the damage done to his garden by those coming to see the thorn blossom which grew there, so he began to cut it down. But blood flowed from the trunk of the tree and this so alarmed him he left off at once!”
Similarly at Acton Beauchamp, the local farmer so annoyed by the concourse of people who crossed his field to see the flowering, that he destroyed the thorn but so the story says he broke both arm and legs and his farm house burnt down!”

Nipped in the bud

Not always were the crowds able to witness a show. A 100 assembled in 1934 failed to see the Cleohanger thorn bloom. Yet in 1949, it was reported by the Times that the Orcop Thorn at the Stars Little Hill in the village was to be filmed by the BBC put there was nowhere to plug in their lamps! Indeed memory of visiting the thorns is still current if a correspondent to WW2 People’s War website is anything to judge:

“I used to visit my Grandparents over Christmas and there was a thorn tree that used to flower. They had a ladder to pick the bloom..If you picked the flower when it flowered, the next morning it would have died. Young men used to pick the flowers for their girl friends. There were lots of flowers in the tree-it used to be in full bloom. Everyone got excited about it-the adults would be chattering.”

Sadly this thorn was lost in a storm of 1980. However, the third reason for the decline had already had a significant effect. The predations of the pickers which came in coach loads had their impact and weakened it. Of the other holy thorns, I am unclear of what survives or still blooms and it would be useful to do further research. Many other sacred thorns lie forgotten and unheralded. Some have died such as that of Orcop above, Shenley Church End, and Quainton Buckinghamshire and Houghton Le spring (although a cutting survives) others survive such as that of Brickenden, Hertfordshire and Glastonbury of course, but whether they can escape the joint perils of ignorance and vandalism is yet to be seen.