May Day celebrations in England
The “lusty month of May” marks the start of the British summer, and May Day itself has long been associated with fun and fertility rituals. Towns and villages across England let their hair down to celebrate with their own set of idiosyncratic May Day folk traditions.
Here are five great places to celebrate May Day in southern England, enjoying the revelry and witnessing balmy Britain in action.
1. Offenham
The village maypole is one of the best-known symbols of May Day in many parts of Europe, creating a focal point for all day’s Maypole dancing and festivities. The tallest and most famous of England’s six remaining permanent maypoles can be found in Offenham in Worcestershire, where it points 64 feet skywards and remains at the heart of the village’s traditional May Day activities, which include Morris dancing and the Crowning of the Queen of May.
The Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset; photo credit: Hardo (CC BY-SA 2.0)
2. Cerne Abbas
If you can drag yourself out of bed before dawn, at 5:15 on 1st May it’s tradition for the Wessex Morris Men and various neo-pagans and other spiritual types to descend on the quaint Dorset village of Cerne Abbas. First they collectively dance on the Cerne Abbas Giant, a 55-metre (180 ft) naked figure and fertility symbol carved into the chalk hillside just above the village. Next the dance forms a kind of procession moving downhill into the village where further festivities take place in the square from around 7:00. The promise of a hearty breakfast at a local pub is enough to keep revelers going.
3. Padstow
Down in Cornwall, Padstow’s lively annual ‘Obby-Oss’ May Day festival features another fascinating May Day tradition: the parading of large hobby horses through the streets. Said to be one of the oldest fertility rites in the UK, this internationally-renowned tradition involves revellers dancing with two competing Oss (horses) through the streets, accompanied by accordion players and a procession of costumed followers. Those supporting the ‘Old ‘Oss in white and red, and those supporting the Blue Ribbon ‘Oss in white and blue. In Somerset, a similar event centred around the hobby horse tradition takes place in the coastal resort of Minehead over the May Day weekend.
4. Oxford
In Oxford, many of the city’s students descend on Port Meadow, a large area of common land beside the River Thames, the night before May Day for an outdoor all-night party. The next day just before dawn there’s Morris dancing to welcome in the new day as crowds shift towards Magdalen Bridge. When dawn breaks the atmosphere calms and the crowds become quiet as the choristers of Magdalen College sing a medieval Eucharist hymn from the college tower to welcome in the morning. Afterwards, crowds tend to disperse to enjoy a much-deserved breakfast or even dive into one of the pubs with special early licences for the day.
5. Locksbottom to Hastings May Day Motorcycle Run
For the past two decades, around 20,000 bikers have visited Hastings every May Day bank holiday Monday as part of this well-established annual bike ride. Drawing a whole array of different motorcycles and riders from far and wide, it starts in Locksbottom in Kent before traveling 50 miles down to the Sussex coastline to visit the seafront at Hastings.
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This selection of places to celebrate May Day in England was brought to you by David Gregory whose blog The Pasty Muncher enjoys witnessing balmy Britain in action.