Unusual customs of
Cheese Rolling
This event takes place in different parts of the country, usually on the Spring Bank Holiday Monday. A round cheese is rolled down a hill chased by competitors. The winner is the first person to grab the cheese. It is a spectacular to watch but hazardous to take part in, with many competitors ending up with broken arms and legs.
Coopers Hill near Brockworth - last weekend of May (Spring Bank Holiday Monday)
Coopers Hill is the most famous Cheese Rolling Site. The custom originally ensured the villagers' rights to graze sheep on the hill.
Men and women hurtle 200 yards down a near vertical slope in pursuit of a seven-pound Double Gloucester cheese. Photos
Ranwick First Sunday in May (Spring Bank Holiday Monday)
Ranwick is a small Cotswold village, south of Stroud. Cheese rolling takes place there on the first Sunday in May. After being blessed, three cheeses are rolled, anticlockwise around
Well Dressing
The custom of well-dressing is popular all over Derbyshire. The wells are dressed with large framed panels decorated with elaborate mosaic-like pictures made of flower petals, seeds, grasses, leaves, tree bark, berries and moss. Well-dressings are beautiful and delicate and take a lot of work to make, and yet they only last for a few days.
The Well Dressing above was created by
Junior children from the School contribute to the Brackenfield Well Dressings every year.
If you visit their Well Dressing pages, you will see photos of how they made the above picture.
Straw Bear Festival
At Whittlesey, on the weekend following Plough Monday the first Monday after Twelfth Night ) a straw bear is paraded around the town attended by a host of dancers and musician from all over the country. The bear is a man covered from head to foot in a straw costume.
During the 19th century Straw Bears - men or boys clothed in a layer of straw - were a familiar Plough Monday .
Takes place Whittlesey,
Haxey Hood - 6 January
THE HAXEY HOOD is a bizarre ritual carried out each Twelfth Night (Old Style Christmas Day) in the
At 2 p.m. the church bells are rung and down the street in procession comes the "Lord" and his eleven "Boggins" together with the "Fool". The "Lord" wears a red coat and top hat covered with flowers and he carries a stick made from thirteen willow wands and bound thirteen times. At the church gate the "Fool", standing on an old mounting block, makes his traditional speech of welcome to the waiting crowd.
The "Lord" then leads his officials and the people to the highest ground in the parish where the "Boggins" form a large circle. He then calls on a distinguished visitor to throw the first "hood" in the air.
Maypole Dancing
Maypole Dancing is the great tradition of May 1st.
On May Day, teams of dancers perform intricate patterns whilst circling the pole. The ribbons interweave as they make their way down the pole with a very decorative result.
Sweeps Festival
Sweeps Festival,
(Spring Bank
This occurs in the first weekend in May. A May Day Celebration.
The festival owes its roots to age old traditions. Sweeping chimneys was a dirty but necessary trade nearly 300 years ago.
Sweeps Festival is said to be the largest gathering of Morris Dancers in the world. Notably, the only true English day where you can join in and listen to the music.
Tar Barrel Burning
The custom of men welcoming in the New Year by carrying pans of blazing tar on their heads is still kept alive in Allendale, Northumberland, on New Year's Eve. The "carriers", dressed in fancy costume, balance on their head the end of a barrel filled with inflammable material. The procession is timed to reach an unlit bonfire shortly before midnight, then each man in turn tosses his flaming "headgear" on to the bonfire, setting it ablaze. On the stroke of twelve, all join hands and dance around the fire, singing Auld Lang Syne.
Guy Fawkes night (5th November),
Ottery St. Mary is internationally renowned for its Tar Barrels, an old custom said to have originated in the 17th century. The annual event involves people racing through the streets of the town, carrying flaming wooden barrels of burning tar on their backs.
Up-Helly-Aa
Thought to be
Every winter they make a model Viking Longship. On Up-Helly-Aa night, at the end of January, the Shetlanders dress up in Viking clothes and drag the ship through the town to the sea. They sing Up-Helly-Aa songs before tossing their burning torches onto the ship and creating a massive bonfire. They do this because the Vikings put their dead men in ships and burned them.
Hurling the Silver Ball
A Handball Game
Hurling is one of the oldest forms of a ball game and still takes place at St Ives in
The game is played in the town's streets and on the beach. The game starts at 10.30 am and the person holding the silver ball at noon wins.
Bread and Cheese Throwing
Whit Sunday Evening
After the evening service at the church in St Briavels, Gloucestershire, baskets full of bread and cheese are thrown from a wall near the old castle. Everyone scrambles to grab as many pieces of food as they can.
Blessing the Throats Ceremony
St Etheldreda's Church,
February 3rd St Blaise's day
Two candles are tied together, lit, and touched on to the necks of people suffering from sore throats.
St Blaise saved a child from choking to death on a fishbone and so is patron saint of throat sufferers.
Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie Scramble
Easter Monday - Hallaton in Leicestershire. The story goes that a woman was saved by a hare running across the path of a bull on Easter Monday hundreds of years ago. As a token of her appreciation, she bequeathed a piece of land to the rector. The sole condition to this bequest was that the rector have a hare pie made to be distributed to parishioners together with a large quantity of ale every year.
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