A Short Guide to British May Day Customs

The Oldest Party in the Calendar

May Day is one of those British occasions that refuses to sit still. Part seasonal marker, part village fete, part lingering folk memory of fertility rites, it has survived centuries of disapproval, reformation and municipal indifference to become a genuinely eccentric national institution. What makes it rewarding is its stubbornly local character. There is no single British May Day; there are hundreds, each with its own peculiar choreography, and the best of them require an early alarm and a willingness to stand in a field in a coat.

The first of May sits roughly halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, which is why it has long been associated with awakening, renewal and the return of warmth. The Romans had their floralia, the Celts their Beltane, and the medieval English their Robin Hood games and village arbour ceremonies. Much of what survives today was revived, invented or quietly reshaped during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, which is worth remembering when someone tells you a custom is a thousand years old. It might well be — but it might just as easily have been assembled in 1897 by a vicar with strong opinions about pageantry.

Maypoles, Garlands and the Problem of the Weather

The maypole is the emblem most people picture, and the tradition is healthiest in Yorkshire and the Midlands. Barwick-in-Elmet in West Yorkshire raises what is reputed to be the tallest maypole in the country, a great stripped larch that goes up only every three years on Spring Bank Holiday Monday, with a full day of dancing, wrestling and general carrying-on around it. If you want a proper village maypole event, look for those attached to a school, a pub or a parish council rather than a tourist board.

Garlands take other forms. In Castleton, Derbyshire, the Garland Day procession on 29 May sees a garland of flowers — a heavy cone of greenery and blooms — carried on horseback through the village by the Garland King, with a Queen riding pillion behind him. In Abbotsbury, Dorset, children still carry garlands on 13 May, old fishing nets filled with wildflowers, and lay wreaths at the war memorial and the abbey. In Oxfordshire, the church cross at Charlton-on-Otmoor is dressed in a clipped yew garland each May. These are small, quiet, deeply local ceremonies, and they reward the visitor who arrives respectfully and stands at the back.

Padstow and the Obby Oss

If you want the loudest, strangest and most committed May Day in Britain, go to Padstow in Cornwall. The town wakes at midnight on 30 April for the Night Song outside a local inn, then gathers again in the morning for the Day Song and the release of the two Obby Osses — hobby horses with black, circular skirts and snapping jaws, each accompanied by a teaser and a drum. Blue Ribbon and Old Oss circle the town, ducking into doorways and pausing at the maypole in the square. Residents wear white with blue or red ribbons, and the whole thing is taken very seriously indeed. Arrive by mid-morning at the latest; parking fills fast, and the narrow streets become genuinely impassable.

Minehead in Somerset runs a similar hobby horse custom over three days from 1 May, with a Sailor's Horse and a Town Horse parading and calling at houses and gardens. It is less crowded than Padstow and, some would argue, more enjoyable for it.

Dawn Gatherings and Beltane Fires

The gentlest tradition is the dawn one. In Oxford, the choir of Magdalen College sings from the top of the college tower at six o'clock on 1 May, a custom that draws a sizeable crowd onto Magdalen Bridge and into the streets below. Morris sides dance, bells are rung, and by seven the city is quietly getting on with its day. Bring a coat and expect to walk: there is no sensible way to drive into central Oxford at that hour.

For something more theatrical, Edinburgh's Beltane Fire Festival takes place on Calton Hill on the evening of 30 April, with fire, drumming, painted performers and a May Queen. Tickets sell out well in advance, and it is an adults-first event rather than a family picnic.

• Bring layers. A May dawn can be four degrees and horizontal rain.
• Check the date properly. Some customs follow 1 May, others the first or second bank holiday, and Castleton waits until 29 May.
• Book early. Padstow, Knutsford and Edinburgh accommodation goes months ahead.
• Carry cash. Village halls and collection buckets rarely take cards.
• Stand back and watch. Processions pass through narrow streets and need the space.

A Few More Worth the Detour

Knutsford in Cheshire holds its Royal May Day on the first Saturday in May, when the streets are sanded with coloured patterns and a May Queen is crowned before a penny scramble for the children. Rochester in Kent keeps the Sweeps Festival over the early May bank holiday weekend, a raucous revival of the old chimney sweeps' holiday, complete with morris dancing and soot-blackened faces. In Hastings, the Jack in the Green procession features a towering figure of woven foliage accompanied by drummers, marking the spirit of summer's release.

What all of these share is a stubborn preference for doing things the way they have always been done, or at least the way someone's great-grandmother remembered them being done. Turn up, buy a cup of tea, keep your dog on a lead, and let the day unfold at its own pace. That is, more or less, the whole point.