A 100 years on: Mothering Sunday at Coddington near Newark 2013 a brief report

“Thank you God for the love of our mothers;

Thank you God for their care and concern;

Thank you God for the joys they have shared with us;

Thank you God for the pains they have borne for us;

Thank you God for all that they give us:

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.Amen”

On Sunday the 10th March, the parish church of Coddington celebrated the 100th anniversary of the re-foundation of Mothering Sunday by Constance Smith. The history of its revival can be read here, but I thought it was worth recording the custom as it was enacted within the church of its rebirth, 100 years after its revival was first mooted.

The church was packed with some of the congregation even having to sit in the bell tower, or on some of the older pews to the side! The service included ‘Our Sorry Prayers’, hymns ‘This is the day’ and ‘Tell out my soul’ and a bible reading ‘John 10 25-27’. The talk used the children to find the words around the church and used these to discuss the important qualities of mothers (as well as saying dads could be the same!)

The church service led by the Rev William Thackrey and the curate Rev. David Anderson and notable features of the service was the delightful touching tribute to mothers made by the children of Coddington primary school, and then their clyping of the church. This is done in a number of churches, including some Nottinghamshire churches, although usually this is done outside,  the horrendous wintry weather meant it was more sensible to clyp the inside of the church. The origins of this custom are obscure but it is associated with Mothering Sunday in Staplehurst in Kent. Some authorities have tried to link the custom to pagan origins but certainly the idea of embracing the mother church is wholly appropriate to the theme of the celebration. Whilst clyping a special hymn ‘We love the place O Lord’ was sung to recognise the importance of the church. The children in this circle then processed through the vestry and into the chancel where the vicar and curate awaited holding trays of primroses; free gifts for their mothers. With a final hymn and blessing the congregation were given a bookmark commemorating Constance Smith and Simnel cake. This is of course an old food traditionally associated with the custom of Mothering Sunday. Its creation put down to an argument between Sim and Nell how to cook it; one boiling and one baking.

Overall the ceremony was an uplifting and joyful celebration of the importance of motherhood.

 

The author is preparing a book on calendar customs and folklore any correspondence on the matter greatly received rossparish@hotmail.com

A Nottinghamshire calendar – August – A month of Carnivals, processions and hopefully good weather!

August is another month in the year bereft of many customs; this was because it was the time for the harvest to begin, but more of that next month. However, in more recent years because of the weather (or usually hope for it) and the school holidays events have developed. The precursor of this was the Sunday school outings which were very popular in the 19^th century and involved games and a picnic.

The most traditional based, if not traditional sounding, of these is Nottingham’s Pagan Pride. A new event, of only five years, but firmly based around the older and pagan tradition of commemorating Lammas which was a harvest celebration focused around the 1^st August. The colourful appearance of hundreds of neo-pagans celebrating their faith is a welcome addition to the calendar as they process from the market square to the Arboretum.

However, there is an older Nottinghamshire tradition associated with Lammas. An account reads:                                                                                                                                         

“A novel, service was held at Selston, a mining village in England, recently. At one time Selston was fairly rich in charities, but about one hundred years ago they were allowed to lapse. Some of the charities consisted in the distribution of bread to the poor on Lammas, or Loafmass day……..This distribution took place from a tombstone in the parish churchyard. In order to revive this custom the rector held a similar service, when loaves presented by the parishioners were given away from the same tombstone, and in order to enhance their value and the interest attached, a silver coin was baked in the loaves.”

This is possibly a unique and certainly unusual custom, which sadly has since lapsed and there is no local knowledge of it. Interesting, its association with a grave suggests it may have originated as a form of sin eating a way of passing on the sins of the deceased a common pre-Reformation funeral custom mutated into the wake.

A more colourful affair is Nottingham’s Caribbean Carnival. This has run since 1974 and as such is, after the famous Notting Hill Carnival, the oldest in Europe. It originally was undertaken by the St. Kitts community of the Meadows in Nottingham. It continued, spasmodically through the 1980s and 1990s due to funding problems. The Carnival was cancelled in 1998, due to security and safety aspects but this prompted the City Council to get help from outside sources such as Tuntum Housing Association, who helped to create an infrastructure to help re-form the Carnival and it was revived the following year. The Carnival consists of a parade of mass bands and colourful costumes which snakes vibrantly through the city to the Forest recreation ground where there are stages and a fun fair.

A more traditional procession is to be seen at Egmanton on the weekend nearest to the 15^thof August. This is the pilgrimage to Our Lady of Egmanton. This has been held since 1919 and consists of Mass and an outside afternoon procession of the effigy of Our Lady and benediction. It has been a popular pilgrimage for members of the Anglo Catholic movement and on its Golden Jubilee in 1979; the High Mass was undertaken by the Lord Bishop of Southwell, the Rt. Revd. John Denis Wakeling.

The fine weather meant that feasts and wakes were often undertaken in August especially with parishes with St. Mary as their patron. Radcliffe Feast was moved from August 20^thto the day of Our Lady of Assumption as the old date fell in harvest time. Whilst, Papplewick Feast was on the first Sunday after their Sheep fair, which the last Tuesday in August. Today events such as  Nottingham’s Riverside and Bleasby Festival continue this trend of August fairs….and the hope of a fine August Bank Holiday Monday!

Edited and extracted from the forthcoming book A Nottinghamshire Calendar Pixyledpublications

Interested in customs – http://traditionalcustomsandceremonies.wordpress.com

http://anottinghamshirecalendar.wordpress.com

Reblogged from http://nottinghamhiddenhistoryteam.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/a-nottinghamshire-calendar-august-a-month-of-carnivals-processions-and-hopefully-good-weather/

Midsummer in Nottinghamshire

 Across the country, the period was associated with wells, bonfires, rents and associated charities often being associated with St. John’s Day.

Only one account of a midsummer bonfires exists, that of Wollaton, where there is an account of 8d money being paid by the steward:

‘for bred and ale the benefyre on Mydsomer evyn”

According to an article in the Nottingham Evening Post in 1974 people had recently started ascending Parson’s Hill in Bingham on the night for food and fun, I would be interested if this custom still survives. Festivities were often associated with wells.   At Beauvale’s Robin Hood’s Well it was common practice on Midsummer Eve for local people to dance on a lawn space around it in the woods. When the site was turned to a pheasant reserve, the lawn was allowed to grass over and the dancing ceased.  A similar tradition is associated with Welham’s St. John’s Well, of which Piercy (1828) in his The History of Retford in the county of Nottingham notes:

“Here was, until lately, 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.”

Being a quarter day, as rents being paid on this date, it is not usual to find that quit rents were paid, in particular the giving of a rose. Newstead Priory have a grant of 8 acres just before the entrance to the priory with right to enclose the same, for which they are to render a rose at the exchequer at Midsummer Patent rolls (1437) and for woods in Carlton Gervase de Clifton gave a rose, which was a common motif and survives in London with the Knolly’s Rose and on and off in Leicester as well. Being a rent day, charities and doles were also established. Epperstone’s Pepper’s Charity took money from rents and gave to poor on this day. Blyth’s Croft Charity gave 40s worth to the poor, Mr Hempstall’s Dole left £100 money for six women and six men in Farndon and Holme Pierpoint Clayton’s dole of £10 and 10s in sixpenny loaves.   

A notable survival of this period of rents and sales survives, albeit not always on the 24th is the Laxton Grass sales, the grass of Sykes being used to make hay are sold to ‘anyone who puts smoke up a chimney in Laxton’ therefore all tenants of the Laxton Crown Estate. It is said that it was bought on the longest day but paid for on the shortest day!                           

The final custom is perhaps the most interesting, of which Deering (1751) in Nottingham via Vetus et Novanotes:

“by an ancient custom, they keep yearly a general watch every Midsummer Eve at night, to which every inhabitant of any ability sets forth a man, as well voluntaries as those who are charged with arms, with such munitions as they have; some pikes, some muskets, calivers, or other guns, some partisans, holberts, and such as have armour send their servants in their armour. The number of these are yearly almost two hundred, who at sun-setting meet on the Row, the most open part of the town, where the Mayor’s Serjeant at Mace gives them an oath, the tenor whereof followeth, in these words: ‘They shall well and truly keep this town till to-morrow at the sun-rising; you shall come into no house without license or cause reasonable. Of all manner of casualties, of fire, of crying of children, you shall due warning make to the parties, as the case shall require. You shall due search make of all manner of affrays, bloudsheds, outcrys, and all other things that be suspected, &c. Which done, they all march in orderly array through the principal parts of the town, and then they are sorted into several companies, and designed to several parts of the town, where they are to keep the watch until the sun dismiss them in the morning. In this business the fashion is for every watchman to wear a garland, made in the fashion of a crown imperial, bedeck’d with flowers of various kinds, some natural, some artificial, bought and kept for that purpose, as also ribbons, jewels, and, for the better garnishing whereof, the townsmen use the day before to ransack the gardens of all the gentlemen within six or seven miles about Nottingham, besides what the town itself affords them, their greatest ambition being to outdo one an- other in the bravery of their garlands. This custom is now quite left off. It used to be kept in this town even so lately as the reign of King Charles I.”

There are a number of references to this practice in Borough records. In 1557-9 12d was given to Damport for going about with his drum on St. John’s Night and St. Peter’s before the watch and 16d for:

“for 2 gallandes wyn that ye wach had on Mydsomer nyght”

Another 8d in 1529-30 for a:

‘pottye of Malse that was dronke at the crosse on Cobcryste Day’

The custom died out by the 1700s it appears, but has been revived at Chester with a midsummer parade on the nearest Saturday which is the closest in spirit to Nottingham’s.

Such are some of the Nottinghamshire customs of midsummer, sadly now largely forgotten so perhaps it’s time to revive them – light a midsummer bonfire, dance around your well and offer sometime for let with a rose payment!

 Ross is still researching calendar customs and traditions of the county. Click on the following links if you are interested in such customs.

Traditional Customs and Traditions

A Nottinghamshire Calendar

re-posted from

http://nottinghamhiddenhistoryteam.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/midsummer-in-nottinghamshire/

Hemswell May Day – A Lincolnshire May Day

The older fox from the top of the Maypole

A cursory glance of a book on Calendar customs will find no mention of the Hemswell May Day. This is a shame for although the present celebration is not of a great vintage, it is claimed that Hemswell maypole dancing celebrations in the world dating significantly back to 1660, the year of the Restoration. However, the earliest record of the Maypole is from the street name first recorded in 1841.It is noted that the weathervane was added in 1859, Gutch and Peacock (1908) in their work on Lincolnshire folklore notes:

“Hemswell Maypole. — On a recent visit to the neighbourhood of Gainsborough, I went to Hemswell, a village at the foot of what is termed ‘ The Cliff,’ in the northern division of the county of Lincoln. In the centre of the village I was surprised to see a Maypole. The pole proper stands between two stout posts about fifteen feet high. Near the top of them a strong iron bolt is passed through the whole. The posts are fixed firmly in the ground, while the pole between is loose at the bottom, but kept in place by a second transverse bolt near the ground, which is drawn out when the pole is wanted to be lowered; which is done by getting a ladder and fixing a rope high up on the pole, by which it is pulled down, swinging on the top transverse bolt as on a pivot. It is steadied by another rope at the bottom. When decorated it is raised to its place again by pulling the bottom rope, and it is fixed by reinserting the lower transverse bolt.”

The authors do not appear to describe any use of the Maypole and the earliest record of its use being pictures of the early 1900s. It is known that it was lowered and repainted in 1919 by the village carpenter, a Charles Love at the cost of 25/-. However, by the time Rudkin (1936) describes it, the correspondent appears to suggest such events were a thing of the past:

“Feast week was in Maytime (ie Mayweek first week in May) and there used to be stalls all in the street round the maypole. There was ‘good-stiff’ stalls and sweetmeat stalls and aunt sally a rare fine show it was!As a little ‘un I remember it and id 4d to spend so I spent it all in halfpence – and I did buy a lot with that 54d! We danced at nighttime round the Maypole, but only ordinary round dances, none of those dances with ribbons attached to the pole – I never heard tell of that being done pers Mrs H of Hemswell.”

She is more emphatic in the County Magazine (1934-6), as Rudkin notes:

“Hemswell is our only village that can boast of a Maypole still in position..but all traditions about dances or other doings are now dead in the village itself.”

Allen (1994) in her work The Hemswell Maypole notes however and a Mr. Senior in 1977 could remember a youth climbing it to put some briads on it. Allen (1994) suggests that the attempt was unsuccessful as he could not recollect any dancing. It appears if a Mrs Edith Bamford is correct with her recollection in 1986 when 87 that the tradition of Maypole dancing was kept alive by the school having a portable maypole. Certainly photographs from the 1950s show this. Despite this repairs were made in 1957 and 1964. It appears probable that the custom was revived in 1976 when the Lincoln Folk Dance society asked if they could use it.  They brought their own braids and a May Day was established and now dancing and a small fete is held around the Maypole area and parish hall on the May Bank Holiday.  The braids due to the difficulty of reaching the top of the pole are set mid way up.  Now the children wear a special costume with boy’s smocks patterned to denote their work and girls with long cotton skirts, aprons and fen-bridle style cotton bonnets.  Over the years Allen (1994) notes:

“Sometimes a May Queen has figured in the celebrations; the Lincolnshire Morris Men have often joined us, and other visitors have included the Lincoln Folk dance society, the Tatterfoals, and Dukes Dandy Clog Dancers, all bringing their particular brand of tradition.”

The Hobby Horse and the rider

One of the most interesting aspects of the day is a hobby horse – more horse like than others, which collects money and appears from all accounts to be a familiar feature although it is isolated from the dancing and appears to not to be associated with a Morris team. He wanders around with a note asking for money for his stable – the village hall! One wonders the origin of it, of course Obby Oss are associated with three West Country May events and certainly Rudkin refers to one in nearby towns of Grimsby where a sadly colourful defunct May pole day records: 

“And there was also Robin Hood, the Friar, the fool, the dragon and the Hobby Horse, all robed in character.”

Such a cavalcade of characters may suggest similar disguises where undertaken at Hemswell, but only the Hobby Horse remains, a person completely covered with a  sheet with a horse’s head on top carved out of wood..

From the revival in the 1970s this quiet local celebration has continued. In 1992 when the pole was weathered for 5 years previous and a new brass fox placed on the top of its 17^th feet, ensuring perhaps at least another 100 years of May days…so long may this remote location celebrate the May with their very own Maypole.

A lost Lincolnshire Ascension Day well dressing

As Tissington and Bisley prepare for their famous Ascension Day well dressings, it is worth examining other Midlands well dressings and Welton just outside of Lincoln had one which has been largely forgotten. The curiously named Old Man’s Spring and five wells in the village were the source of a local well dressing custom which has been largely forgotten and unknown outside of the county. I discovered some information for my Holy wells and healing Springs of Lincolnshire and thanks to correspondence with the parish council and research in an number of books some details can be made. A correspondent of Sutton (1996) in her Lincolnshire Calendar a resident of Welton notes:

“The custom of well dressing was an annual event which took place on Ascension day. Five wells in the village were dressed including one in the churchyard, one in the grounds of the vicarage, two in West Carr and one in spring cottage in Sudbeck Lane. The origin of the source being ‘old man’s head spring’ in Welton Cliffe (Westhall Farm) The dressing of the wells took a different format to that of neighbouring counties, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. In Welton each area surrounding the well was marked with an arch formed from a tree branch and decorated with lilac and laburnum. A linen, white calico cloth on which was depicted a text taken from the bible was put into each arch; this was put up by the men in the village early on Ascension Day morning. The ceremony began with a service in Saint Mary’s Church followed by a parade to the decorated beck in the churchyard. Each well was then dressed in turn and a prayer said and a hymn sung. The local Sunday school children took part in the ceremony by placing wild flowers at each well.”

It is unclear how old the custom was when described but details lend to the idea that it was probably brought to the village by the incumbent vicar. However, well dressing is not unknown in the county and two notable springs were dressed on Ascension Day in Louth, particularly that of St. Helen’s Well which according to Gutch and Peacock (1908) was:

“formerly ornamented with flowers and branches on Holy Thursday… It still took place in the first three decades of the eighteenth century, but the oldest inhabitants of the town have now no traditional recollection of it.”

The earliest record that can be found is in Sutton (1996) records two references in the local parish magazine, one in 1910 which reads:

 “On Ascension Day we again propose to continue the custom of ‘Well dressing’ as an act of thanks-giving to Almighty God for the blessing of bountiful supply of pure water to Welton. Celebration of Holy Communion 8 am; Well dressing service 2pm; Procession to the wells 3pm; Public and Day school Tea 4.30pm; Children’s concert and Prize distribution 6.30 pm We pray to God to favour us with fine weather for the festival”.

Clearly the event was a busy and popular one but sadly, the colourful and last survivor of a more widespread Lincolnshire tradition ended in 1924, perhaps when the vicar moved on! One wonders why the spring head itself was not dressed until it reached the church yard; perhaps this was a conscious attempt to Christianize the site, does the Old Man have a pagan connotation? Alternatively, it may have been that the spring head was too inaccessible!  There do not appear to be any direct traditions associated by this spring head. But I was told that during a whooping cough epidemic in the village in the 1900s, mothers took their prams containing the infants and stood them in the beck, believing that the germs would be carried away, with the flow of the fresh water! Perhaps this suggests a healing tradition. Today the spring itself arises around a large concrete culvert and indeed appears to bubble up more around it through some stones to the side than this channel. The spring quickly forms a pool and flows downwards towards the village and Ascension Day goes by without note for its wells and springs.  

Please will you let one of playmates…come and play with us? A Childhood playground game of North Nottinghamshire

Noted contributor to local notes and queries, Thomas Ratcliffe records in 1864 a North Nottinghamshire childhood game, he does not give its name and I have been unable to find reference to it elsewhere.
The authority on the subject, Opie and Opie (1959) does not include it, but it is an interesting ‘ritual’ being as it does introduce the children to the aspects of courtship if rather now rather unfashionable and sexist to say the least.

The children divide into two parties-boys and girls. The girls seat themselves in a row on the ‘green grass’ with one of them called the “mother” being the point of communication between the boys and girls and sits in the centre. The boys stand in a row facing the girls and hold hands and begin to pace three or four paces forward and backward, reciting to a tune:

“Stepping o’er the green grass,

Thus and thus and thus (with suitable action).

Please will you let one of your playmates (Stapleton adds daughters?),

Come out to play with us?”

To the request, the “mother” says ‘No’. The boys (all the while keeping up the rhythmical motion) reply to this refusal:

“We will give you pots and pans,

And we will give you brass,

And we will give you anything,

All for the pretty lass!”

To this the “mother” again says ‘No’ and the boys continue:

“We will give you gold and silver,

We will give you pearl,

And we will give you everything,

All for a pretty girl!”

The “mother” cannot now refuse, so her answer is ‘yes’. A boy chooses his girl and then the all join hands and dance around in a circle chanting:

“She shall gallop and she shall trot,

She shall carry the mustard pot.

All around the chimney pot. With a hi! Ho! Hum!”

After dancing for some more they begun the game again. It would be interesting to know whether a form of this rhyme still exists or existed within more recent times in the county and the author would be interested to know of this or other such childhood rhymes.

The author is preparing a book on Nottinghamshire folklore. Any correspondence on this matter is greatly received.