Anyone born and bred in the village of Chalvey, now absorbed into the urban sprawl of Slough, is called a ‘stab Monk’. Why? Well the name is associated with a strange legend with an even more bizarre custom which became held annually on Whit Monday usually in June.
Despite some attempts in linking the custom to Roman pagan traditions and parallels can be drawn to Oasby’s Baboon night and the famed monkey hangers of Hartlepool, it appears to be based on a fairly recent story. This story apparently dates from between 1850-1880 and tells how on Sunday an Organ Grinder visited the village to entertain the villagers, especially the children. However, one child teased the monkey and unsurprisingly perhaps he was bitten on the finger. When he rushed home to tell his father, who understandably having been drinking all Sunday the Cape of Good Hope Pub all day quickly responded by storming over to the Organ Grinder and stabbing the monkey to death! To recompense the Organ Grinder, a collection was made, a funeral arranged and a wake organised. It is said that this wake was so popular, providing as it did free beer, that it was repeated the next year!
The next year, a plaster monkey made by a local craftsman and another wake was organised, although the model appears to be something that has come from a pub and one wonders whether it was originally came from the pub and was totally made up. During this one, a person fell into the Chalvey Brook and he was proclaimed the Mayor of Chalvey for that year! This also became a tradition and each year the person who fell into the brook was so proclaimed, in as much a person would be purposely pushed into it. One year it was a policemen watching the procession that was pushed in.
Of course, the popularity of the event was firmly based on alcohol and as such it frequently became notorious. One notable event was when revelers were caught drinking out of hours at the Cape of Good Hope Pub in 1919 during Victory celebrations. The landlord a George Holdway, was summoned to court to explain the situation. He won the case explaining that it was the funeral procession passing the pub which he invited to celebrate the end of the war. He won the case and just paid court costs.
This most bizarre event dragged itself through the early part of the 20th century and photos exist from the 30s and 40s showing robbed and top hat wearing processors, the latest being 1947 but it became less frequent, until it appears to have died out. Although apparently for charitable reasons he can re-appear, he resides in Slough museum for all who are curious to hear about this most unusual and perhaps pointless custom.
The name is preserved locally, in the football team with its logo of a monkey and knife, in the name of a local park the term ‘stab-monk’ used to describe man born and bred in Chalvey, having been pushed or fallen, into the Chalvey Brook
One minute it was UK null points…and a disappointing result for the Eurovision and the next a whole different musical experience..the Mollicar Sing.
Songs of praise
The origins of the Sing are difficult to find. Group singing in the open is not unique to this small part of Huddersfield, especially at Whitsun, but this would appear to be the oldest and the only one woodland based. Why? The accepted view was that the local choir in 1903 were looking for somewhere peaceful and isolated to practice choose these woods. Were they too noisy? Or did they want to scare the local wildlife? As three locations are chosen over a distance of two miles in the remote wilds behind the urban edifice of Huddersfield, one feels it may be older. The singing in these three prescribed locations is highly suggestive of a rogation activity perhaps. The West Yorkshire Federation of Women’s Institutes recorded in 1996:
“The annual event on Whit Sunday was first held in 1900. It was started by the Zion Chapel, Almondbury, later amalgamated with the Wesleyan church. The work always started at 7.30 am mainly through the Mollicar…with singing of hymns at allotted places through the walks. The woods were there best, with new green folliage and birds in full song. The sing finished about 9am, and in earlier years Mr. and Mrs. Gostridge of Farnley Hey boundary provided the breakfast – ham and eggs for the grown ups and bantam eggs for the children.”
If you go down to the woods today your sure of a big surprise
Given copious notes of the location I thought I wouldn’t get lost…usually one would have associated such instructions for a rave, but this was a more acceptable musical experience, but I did. But in a way that was quite rewarding for I soon found the group’s location by the sound of their voices singing ‘praise ye the Lord’ echoing through the sun soaked woods. Tracing my tracks back I soon discovered the origin of those dulcet sounds in a small field before the woods. They looked a little surprised. I introduced myself. The conductor said Early…no sorry I was late. I’d misheard him he was a Mr. Michael Early…starting at 7.30 a.m on a Sunday morning, a very befitting name for such an antisocial custom you might think..but despite the early morning everyone was very welcoming and full of that Yorkshire vim and vigour other counties can never match it seems! I was given a hymn sheet which included a selection of well known Wesleyan works, some more familiar than others.
When Whitweek and Late Spring bank holiday coincide may be good for the working folklorist but not for the custom…a lot are on holiday, last year there were around 40 and we’ve even had 100s, I was told, the Sunday I went 15…still they made up for it well, a few joined mid route. They weren’t letting numbers dampen the experience. They sung with all their hearts singing in a gallery fashion at points a mechanism much beloved of the counties carols.
It was interesting to hear that the choir had differing associations, the older ones had only being going a few years it seemed compared to some of the younger ones, two had been all their life it appeared over 60 years attending when babies and every year since which is a remarkable feat.
Singing from the same hymn sheet
After singing in the outside we moved to the woods walking through broad waves of bright bluebells and the smell of ransoms. In fact in one wood and out into another, the Mollicar, and here in a specific place the group stopped and returned to their repertoire. As the morning I went was a mixture of sunshine and showers it was fortunate we were inside the shelter of the woods when it decided to rain…the sound of the tapping on the leaves creating a sort of polite percussion. When the rain stopped the other sounds of nature become evident. These sounds of the enveloping canopy complimented the chorus..the tweets of nesting birds, the calls of the occasional cuckoo and the wooing of a wood pigeon. Who wouldn’t want to swap the claustrophobic confines of chapel to experience it. Sadly despite one rather bemused dog walker there was little in the way of an audience.
Song of life
The final singing point affording the group a view which was in the heart of all Huddefieldians..that of Castle HIll. It was shrouded in a glowing mist that morning that gave it an ethereal atmosphere. Here the choir finished off with ‘guide me O thou great Jehovah’ and ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’ two I felt confident enough to join in with. Finally a short prayer was given and the Doxology was song the event was over…and the group dispersed to various cars and houses doted around. Sadly as Mr Early noted the breakfasts were a much missed thing of the past.
Whatever your religious view…there’s something life affirming and enriching about experiencing all that nature has and singing thanks for it. There would be no null points from me, full marks. I recommend that as next year is the 200th anniversary of the local Almondbury Methodists it would be great to see the numbers swell…
When I first started experiencing our strange customs I often looked down upon revivals and rarely visited them , this was clearly a stupid mistake as firstly I missed a number of interesting customs and secondly often these revived. The Gate to Southwell (Gate from old English for ‘way’) is one of these, a modern construct based on an account of 1530 which referred to Morris Dancers, and such the revival is solely run by the local team.
What is known of the custom?
It is believed to have started in 1109, when a Thomas Beverley Archbishop of York who owned lands in Nottinghamshire including Southwell, asked parish churches to make a contribution to the building of their mother church therefore ending the debate on where money collected in the county should go Nottingham or York. Such that it appears that at Whitsuntide or more appropriately Whit Monday, a procession was established which was attended by the Mayor and Corporation of Nottingham, the priests and churchwardens from each parish in the county bringing their Pentecostal offering to the cathedral. They would be joined by townspeople and villagers. It is believed that the entertainment was provided by Morris Dancers. As suggested by that 1530 Nottingham Chamberlain’s accounts show a payment for bells, coats and ale for the Morris Dancers who took part in the Gate to Southwell. The procession upon reaching the town deliver the tribute would consist of what was called the Southwell Pence. This was collected from various parishes, ranging from Nottingham, for example, gave 13 Shillings and 4 Pence (about 66p), whereas lowly Stanton gave only 5d (about 2p). In today’s money, just under 16 quid..The colourful but supposedly solemn procession probably ended at the Reformation although it is not recorded when exactly. Interestingly, it is said that the only survival from this procession is said to be the Southwell races remembering the donkey races undertaken at Rolleston.
The revival
Considering this long time since its disappearance, it perhaps seems surprising that it was revived and indeed that it did gives impetus for others thinking of reviving long dead customs. First organised in 1981 it has continued ever since and now the custom has become a sort of get together for local Morris and allied groups, in a sort of Morris men ‘dance off’….I couldn’t help thinking with their banner held aloft that this a rather camper and more joyous version of a Trade Union mark (indeed perhaps the congregation may have had a couple of ex-Miners as well considering the county!)
Of course just having the Morris do the procession would be pointless without a beginning and end and as such Nottingham’s Lord Mayor is involved giving a small speech of welcome and good wishes as he hands over the city’s contributions at around 9.30 on the Sunday in the second weekend of June usually. I first experienced the Gate to Southwell in 2002, so in 2012, 10 years on I thought it time I revisited it and its heartening to say that it was still in rude health and little had changed. Nottingham’s market square was yet again thronging with the garishly coloured. The colours ranging from the more conservative whites of the organisers, the Dolphin Morris to that would be described as post-Rave Morris (a mixture of a sort of Goth, with eyeliner and coloured hair and a Day-Glo take on the paper boy). This final garb is perhaps the future of Morris, being the younger persons take on the tradition! In 2012 the Lord Mayor dutifully gave his dues and the Dolphin Morris’s leader related about the days when the attendees were given free alcohol and seeing that the attending crowd were locals, took an vote.
The assembled Morris team lead by the Nottingham’s own team-Dolphin who carry a board with bags displaying the villages and their monetary contributions, as well as a banner and decorated cross.. They process followed by their invited teams, in 2012 they were…………The first arrival is Sneinton where they meet the local councillor and member of the Sneinton Environmental Society who proclaims via a Town crier:
“To The Gate to Southwell. We the representatives of the Sneinton Environmental Society being charged with the honour of greeting this worthy pilgrimage by our members and cherishing the customs of olde Englande do hereby beseech merciful providence; that the weather be clement, that your footwear be comfortable, that your resolve will be greater than the journey, and that there will be good ale to refresh you at all convenient halting places. Go now with our best wishes. God save the Queen.”
The processional route
Although there is no record of the processional route, but as the villagers of Lambley, Lowdham, Caythorpe, Hoveringham, Thurgarton, Goverton, Bleasby and Fiskerton were involved presumably each of these were visited in order or rather their parishes passed through as the road to Southwell from Nottingham would have touched upon their land.. Today the procession does not of course process the whole distance but take to mini-buses stopping at pubs on the way where dancing is undertaken.
At the Minster
Finally at around 6pm the procession reaches the Minster and hand over the pence in the board. In 2012 I rejoined them at Southwell Minster , around 5.30ish and after waiting for a few minutes the procession moved into to view filling the previously empty grounds of the church. After a rather longer than usual wait when Dolphin Morris entertained us with some impromptu signing and a violin solo with dancing. Then out emerged the Bishop and his clergy to receive their pence and so bag by bag, the leader of the Dolphin Morris invited the different teams which had association with the towns and villages from whence the money came from to place the money in the large wooden collecting bowl held by one of the clergy. .
After giving their pence, which of course is in old money, a cheque to the same amount was given over. Then the dean invited the audience in for a short service. So the strangely dressed assembly (the clergy) invited the other strangely dressed assembly (the Morris!!) for a brief service which included a Morris dance in the transect and unsurprisingly Lord of the Dance.
All in all The Gate to Southwell, whose popularity has spawned an even better known Folk festival in the Town under the same name, is an enjoyable revival and one which as it enters its 3rd decade looks unlikely to die out!
In search of traditional customs and ceremonies 