Lancashire Sketches / Third Edition

by Edwin Waugh

In the course of the year, there are two very ancient festivals kept up, each with its own quaint peculiarities, by the Heywood people; and commemorated by them with general rejoicing and cessation from labour. One of these is the "Rush-bearing," held in the month of August—an old feast which seems to have died out almost everywhere else in England, except in Lancashire. Here, in Heywood, however, as in many other towns of the county, this ancient festival is still observed, with two or three days' holiday and hilarity. The original signification of this annual "Rush-bearing," and some of the old features connected with the ceremony, such as the bearing of the rushes, with great rejoicing, to the church, and the strewing of them upon the earthen floor of the sacred fane, have long since died out. The following passage is taken from a poem called "The Village Festival," written by Elijah Ridings, a living author, of local celebrity, and is descriptive of the present characteristics of a Lancashire "Rush-bearing," as he had seen it celebrated in his native village of Newton, between Manchester and Oldham:—

When wood and barn-owls loudly shout,
As if were near some rabble rout;
When beech-trees drop the yellow leaf,
A type of human hope and grief;
When little wild flowers leave the sun,
Their pretty love-tasks being done;
And nature, with exhaustless charms,
Lets summer die in autumn's arms:
There is a merry, happy time,
With which I'll grace my simple rhyme:—
The wakes—the wakes—the jocund wakes!
My wand'ring memory forsakes
The present busy scene of things,
And soars away on fancy's wings,
For olden times, with garlands crown'd,
And rush-carts green on many a mound,
In hamlet bearing a great name,[21]
The first in astronomic fame;
With buoyant youth and modest maid,
Skipping along the green-sward glade,
With laughing eyes and ravished sight,
To share once more the old delight!
Oh! now there comes—and let's partake—
Brown nuts, spice bread, and Eccles cake;[22]
There's flying-boxes, whirligigs,
And sundry rustic pranks and rigs;
With old "Chum"[23] cracking nuts and jokes,
To entertain the country folks;
But more, to earn a honest penny,
And get a decent living, any—
Aye, any an humble, striving way,
Than do what shuns the light of day.
Behold the rush-cart, and the throng
Of lads and lasses pass along!
Now watch the nimble morris-dancers,
Those blithe, fantastic antic-prancers,
Bedeck'd with gaudiest profusion
Of ribbons, in a gay confusion
Of brilliant colours, richest dyes,
Like wings of moths and butterflies;
Waving white kerchiefs here and there,
And up and down, and everywhere;
Springing, bounding, gaily skipping,
Deftly, briskly, no one tripping;
All young fellows, blithe and hearty,
Thirty couples in the party;
And on the footpaths may be seen
Their sweethearts from each lane, and green
And cottage home; all fain to see
This festival of rural glee;
The love-betrothed, the fond heart-plighted,
And with the witching scene delighted
In modest guise, and simple graces,
With roses blushing on their faces;
Ah! what denotes, or what bespeaks
Love more than such sweet apple-cheeks?
Behold the strong-limbed horses stand,
The pride and boast of English land,
Fitted to move in shafts or chains,
With plaited, glossy tails and manes:
Their proud heads each a garland wears
Of quaint devices—suns and stars;
And roses, ribbon-wrought, abound;
The silver plate,[24] one hundred pound,
With green oak boughs the cart is crowned,
The strong, gaunt horses shake the ground.
Now, see, the welcome host appears,
And thirsty mouths the ale-draught cheers;
Draught after draught is quickly gone—
"Come; here's a health to everyone!"
Away with care and doleful thinking,
The cup goes round; what hearty drinking!
While many a youth the lips is smacking,
And the two drivers' whips are cracking;
Now, strike up music, the old tune;
And louder, quicker, old bassoon;
Come, bustle, lads, for one dance more,
And then cross-morris three times o'er.
Another jug—see how it foams—
And next the brown October comes;
Full five years old, the host declares,
And if you doubt it, loudly swears
That it's the best in any town—
Tenpenny ale, the real nut-brown.
And who was he, that jovial fellow,
With his strong ale so old and mellow?
A huge, unwieldy man was he,
Like Falstaff, fat and full of glee;
With belly like a thirty-six[25]
(Now, reader, your attention fix),
In loose habiliments he stands,
Broad-shouldered, and with brawny hands;
Good humour beaming in his eye,
And the old, rude simplicity;
Ever alive for rough or smooth,
That rare old fellow, Bill o' Booth![26]

The other is a famous old festival here, as well as in the neighbouring town of Bury. It is a peculiarly local one, also; for, I believe, it is not celebrated anywhere else in England except in these two towns. It begins on Mid-Lent Sunday, or "Simblin-Sunday," as the people of the district call it, from the name of a spiced cake which is prepared for this feast in great profusion, and in the making of which there is considerable expense and rivalry shown. On "Simblin-Sunday," the two towns of Bury and Heywood swarm with visitors from the surrounding country, and "simblins" of extraordinary size and value are exhibited in the shop windows. The festival is kept up during two or three days of the ensuing week. In the Rev. W. Gaskell's interesting lectures on the "Lancashire Dialect," the following passage occurs relative to this "Simblin-Cake:"—"As you are aware there is a kind of cake for which the town of Bury is famous, and which gives its name in these parts to Mid-Lent Sunday—I mean 'symnel.' Many curious and fanciful derivations have been found for this; but I feel no doubt that we must look for its true origin to the Anglo-Saxon 'simble' or 'simle,' which means a feast, or 'symblian,' to banquet. 'Simnel' was evidently some kind of the finest bread. From the chronicle of Battle Abbey, we learn that, in proof of his regard for the monks, the Conqueror granted for their daily uses thirty-six ounces of 'bread fit for the table of a king,' which is called simenel; and Roger de Hoveden mentions, among the provisions allowed to the Scotch King, at the Court of England, 'twelve simenels.' 'Banquet bread,' therefore, would seem to come very near the meaning of this word. I may just observe in passing, that the baker's boy who, in the reign of Henry VII., personated the Earl of Warwick was most likely called 'Lambert Simnel,' as a sort of nickname derived from his trade."[27]

The amusements, or what may be called the leisure-habits, of the factory population in Lancashire manufacturing towns are much alike. Some are sufficiently jaded when their day's work is done, or are too apathetic by nature to engage heartily in anything requiring further exertion of body or mind. There are many, however, who, when they leave the factory in the evening, go with a kind of renovating glee to the reading of such books as opportunity brings within their reach, or to the systematic prosecution of some chosen study, such as music, botany, mechanics, or mathematics, which are favourite sciences among the working people of Lancashire. And even among the humblest there are often shrewd and well-read, if not extensively-read, politicians, chiefly of the Cobbett school. But the greatest number occupy their leisure with rude physical sports, or those coarser indulgences which, in a place like Heywood, are more easily got at than books and schools, especially by that part of the people who have been brought up in toilful ignorance of these elements. The tap-room is the most convenient school and meeting-place for these; and the tap-rooms are numerous, and well attended. There, factory lads congregate nightly, clubbing their pence for cheap ale, and whiling the night hours away in coarse ribaldry and dominoes, or in vigorous contention in the art of single step-dancing, upon the ale-house hearth-stone. This single step-dancing is a favourite exercise with them; and their wooden clogs are often very neatly made for the purpose, lacing closely up to above the ankle, and ornamented with a multitude of bright brass lace holes. The quick, well-timed clatter upon the tap-room flags generally tells the whereabouts of such dancing haunts to a stranger as he goes along the streets; and, if he peeps into one of them, he may sometimes see a knot of factory lads clustered about the tap-room door inside, encouraging some favourite caperer with such exclamations as, "Deawn wi' thi fuut, Robin! Crack thi rags, owd dog!" The chief out-door sports of the working class are foot-racing, and jumping matches; and sometimes foot-ball and cricket. Wrestling, dog-fighting, and cock-fighting are not uncommon; but they are more peculiar to the hardier population outside the towns. Now and then, a rough "up-and-down" fight takes place, at an ale-house door, or brought off, more systematically, in a nook of the fields. This rude and ancient manner of personal combat is graphically described by Samuel Bamford, in his well-known "Passages in the Life of a Radical." The moors north of Heywood afford great sport in the grouse season. Some of the local gentry keep harriers; and now and then, a "foomart-hunt" takes place, with the long-eared dogs, whose mingled music, when heard from the hill-sides, sounds like a chime of bells in the distant valley. The entire population, though engaged in manufacture, evinces a hearty love of the fields and field sports, and a strong tincture of the rough simplicity, and idiomatic quaintness of their forefathers, or "fore-elders," as they often call them. In an old fold near Heywood, there lived a man a few years since, who was well known thereabouts as a fighter. The lads of the hamlet were proud of him as a local champion. Sometimes he used to call at a neighbouring ale-house, to get a gill, and have a "bout" with anybody worth the trouble, for our hero had a sort of chivalric dislike to spending his time on "wastrils" unworthy of his prowess. When he chanced to be seen advancing from the distance, the folk in the house used to say, "Hellho! so-and-so's coming; teen th' dur!" whereupon the landlord would reply, "Nawe, nawe! lev it oppen, or else he'll punce it in! But yo'n no casion to be fleyed, for he's as harmless as a chylt to aught at's wayker nor his-sel!" He is said to have been a man of few words, except when roused to anger; when he uttered terrible oaths, with great vehemence. The people of his neighbourhood say that he once swore so heavily when in a passion, that a plane-tree, growing at the front of his cottage, withered away from that hour. Most Lancashire villages contain men of this stamp—men of rude, strong frame and temper, whose habits, manners, and even language, smack a little of the days of Robin Hood. Yet, it is not uncommon to find them students of botany and music, and fond of little children. Jane Clough, a curious local character, died at a great age, near Heywood, about a year and a half ago. Jane was a notable country botanist, and she had many other characteristics which made her remarkable. She was born upon Bagslate Heath, a moorland tract, up in the hills, to the north-east of Heywood. I well remember that primitive country amazon, who, when I was a lad, was such an old-world figure upon the streets of Rochdale and Heywood. Everybody knew Jane Clough. She was very tall, and of most masculine face and build of body; with a clear, healthy complexion. She was generally drest in a strong, old-fashioned blue woollen bedgown, and thick petticoats of the same stuff. She wore a plain but very clean linen cap upon her head, loosely covered with a silk kerchief; and her foot-gear was heavy clouted shoon, or wooden clogs, suitable to her rough country walks, her great strength, and masculine habits. Botany was always a ruling passion with old moorland Jane. She was the queen of all flower-growers in humble life upon her native ground; especially in the cultivation of the polyanthus, auricula, tulip, and "ley," or carnation. Jane was well known at all the flower shows of the neighbourhood, where she was often a successful exhibitor; and though she was known as a woman of somewhat scrupulous moral character—and there are many anecdotes illustrative of this—yet she was almost equally well known at foot-races and dog-battles, or any other kind of battles; for which she not unfrequently held the stakes.

There used to be many a "hush-shop," or house for the sale of unlicensed drink, about Heywood; and if the district was thrown into a riddle, they would turn up, now and then, yet; especially in the outskirts of the town, and up towards the hills. These are generally sly spots, where fuddlers, who like ale for its own sake, can steal in when things are quiet, and get their fill at something less than the licensed price; or carry off a bottle-full into the fields, after the gloaming has come on. Of course hush-shop tipplers could not often indulge in that noisy freedom of speech, nor in those wild bursts of bacchanalian activity vulgarly known by the name of "hell's delight," of which licensed ale-houses are sometimes the scenes; and where the dangerous Lancashire ale-house game, called "Th' Bull upo' th' Bauk," has sometimes finished a night of drunken comedy with a touch of real tragedy. The most suitable customers for the "hush-shop" were quiet, steady soakers, who cared for no other company than a full pitcher; and whose psalm of life consisted of scraps of drinking-songs like the following, trolled out in a low chuckling tone:—

O good ale, thou art my darling,
I love thee night, I love thee morning,
I love thee new, I love thee old;
I love thee warm, I love thee cold!
Oh! good ale!

There is an old drinking-song just re-published in "The Songs of the Dramatists," which was printed in 1575, in Bishop Still's comedy of "Gammer Gurton's Needle," though probably known earlier. Fragments of this song are still known and sung in the north of England. The burden runs thus in a Lancashire version:—

Back and side, go bare, go bare,
Fuut and hond, go coud;
But bally, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it's yung or owd!