British village traditions worth planning a trip around
Some of Britain's oldest living customs still play out in its villages, and anyone can turn up and watch. Flaming tar barrels, antler dances, gurning championships and wells dressed in flowers, here are eight traditions worth building a trip around.
1. Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
Reindeer antlers carried through a Staffordshire village in a dance thought to be over a thousand years old, one of the oldest surviving folk customs in Europe.
See it on Villagly →2. Ottery St Mary Tar Barrel Rolling
Locals hoist barrels of flaming tar onto their shoulders and run through the crowded streets of this Devon town on Bonfire Night. Utterly unique, and utterly mad.
See it on Villagly →3. Royal Swan Upping
A royal ceremony on the Thames dating to the twelfth century, in which the King's Swan Marker counts the year's cygnets from traditional rowing skiffs.
See it on Villagly →4. Egremont Crab Fair and World Gurning Championships
A Cumbrian fair chartered in 1267 that still ends with the World Gurning Championships, where competitors pull the ugliest face they can through a horse collar.
See it on Villagly →5. Saddleworth Rushcart Festival
A towering cart piled with rushes is hauled through the Pennine villages by dozens of morris men, a revived harvest custom on the Yorkshire and Lancashire border.
See it on Villagly →6. Bakewell Well Dressing
Wells dressed in intricate pictures made from flower petals, seeds and clay, an ancient Peak District thanksgiving for water and Derbyshire's summer signature.
See it on Villagly →7. Ambleside Rushbearing
Every first Saturday of July, Ambleside's children carry rush-and-flower bearings through the Lakeland town to the church, a custom from the days of earthen floors.
See it on Villagly →8. Winster Wakes Morris Dancing
Winster is one of a handful of English villages with its own unbroken morris tradition, danced through the Derbyshire streets each wakes week.
See it on Villagly →