Clipping the Church, Lady Day and Carling Peas
Clipping the Church
Clipping the Church is not an ecclesiastical manicure but a mass embrace of the actual building. This dance-like ceremony was commonplace at certain times of the year up until the early part of the 20th century and is basically a human chain around a church to symbolise their love for the place and the parish. Easter, Shrovetide and a church’s paternal feast day were usually the favoured times for this, and there are still some flourishing examples ...
On Shrove Tuesday at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, the event starts at dusk when participants play Thread the Needle, a dance involving a double line of players weaving in and out of arches formed by the uplifted arms of the leaders. After this they rush into the churchyard, join hands and surround (or clip) the church. At South Petherton, Somerset, a similar procedure takes place with the participants clipping it three times. Other well known examples are at Painswick, Gloucestershire, and at Radley in Berkshire, where the custom was revived in 1965 after a 200 year gap.
Lady Day
25 March is Lady Day, which celebrates the Annunciation of the Virgin (i.e. the Archangel Gabriel’s revelation that the Virgin Mary would bear Christ) and a date cleverly fixed nine months before Christ’s birth on 25th December. Up until the 18th century, this day was regarded as the start of the new administrative year (thus causing great confusion with historians) and remains one of the four Quarter Days when quarterly rents are paid.
There was a popular saying:
If Our Lord falls in Our Lady’s lap,
England will meet with some mishap!
Carling Peas
The fifth Sunday in Lent (the second before Easter) is Passion or Care Sunday, which refers to the care, or sorrow, of Our Lord’s Passion. In the North of England it is more commonly called Carling Sunday and the day on which Carlings are served for dinner and publicans are expected to provide free portions of them with their customers’ beer.
Carlings are grey parched peas which are soaked overnight on Friday, boiled on Saturday and served on Sunday. They can be eaten hot or cold, seasoned with salt, pepper and sometimes vinegar, fried in butter and even soaked in beer or mixed with sugar and rum! Just why these peas are the order of the day - or, indeed, why they are called Carlings at all - is uncertain, but a legend in Yorkshire has it that a ship called the Carling was wrecked on this day in the 1880’s and its cargo of swollen grey peas was washed ashore in Filey Bay and made into a local delicacy.
Another legend on Tyneside states that dining a famine in the area, a pea-laden boat was blown up the Tyne by a furious storm and its arrival saved the locals from starvation. Whatever the reason, Carlings in Northumberland have a most practical use: that of divining matrimonial matters. Groups of youngsters sit around a plate of these ‘bullets’ and pick them up one after the other to decide who will be the first to marry. The person who picks up the last pea is the dubious winner.
This page is part of our Beginners’ Guide: British Folk Customs From Plough Monday to Hocktide.
