Archive for May, 2011

We suffer the long Winter months up until Easter without a single bank holiday then along comes May and we get two in one month! Perhaps it is as well we wait so that we can enjoy the coming of Spring.

On this day every year we have a community walk around the village boundaries, called ‘Beating the Bounds’. It is a revival of an old medieval custom whereby the boundaries of the parish were re-established. The course around our village is about 10 miles (the agony!) and takes us over fields, through blue bell woods and across the river Avon in a rather small boat!

An English man’s home may be his castle but it’s his garden which is his pride and joy! Our weather, being mild and relatively wet, is conducive to growing a wide variety of beautiful plants. The Summer months are scattered with flower festivals, vegatable growing competitions and the like, but the cream of the crop is the Royal Horticulture Society (RHS) Chelsea Flower Show, the World’s most famous flower show.

Every year in March the quiet town of Clun in Shropshire comes alive with the Green Man Festival. Clun has a Norman castle, a town hall (now a local history museum), almshouses and a 14th century bridge. It is here on the bridge that the battle between the Green Man and the Frost Queen takes place. They are fighting over whether Clun gets a Summer or not. Lets hope he wins!

This three day festival of music, dancing and street theatre takes place over the May Day bank holiday weekend.

The celebration of the 1st May dates back at least as far as the Druids for whom it was the second most important holiday of the year. It was when the festival of Beltane was held. It was thought that the day divides the year into half. The other half was to be ended with the Samhain on November 1. On those days the May Day custom was the setting of new fire. It was one of those ancient New Year rites performed throughout the world. And the fire itself was thought to lend life to the burgeoning springtime sun. Cattle were driven through the fire to purify them. Men, with their sweethearts, passed through the smoke for seeing good luck.

By the Middle Ages every English village had its Maypole. The bringing in of the Maypole from the woods was a great occasion and was accompanied by much rejoicing and merrymaking.

Read the whole May Day story