| Where: | Formerly Charing, Kent at the Church of St Peter and St Paul |
| When: | Formerly Spring Bank Holiday Monday (end of May) |
| Time: | Formerly from 11 am onwards |
The Hooden Horse is the traditional Kent form of the hobby horse and used to be active at Whitsuntide, but was then fixed to the more convenient Spring Bank Holiday instead. After the 11am church service, the horse pranced and snapped at people (including the Vicar) and the local East Kent Morris Men performed in front of the nearby Bishops Palace before moving on the the neighbouring village of Westwell.
Helpful Hints
The church is at the end of Market Place, off High Street.
The event has currently lapsed – if you know any different let me know!
Click here for the East Kent Morris website : http://ekmm.org.uk/NEW/
View this location on the map.
Is there a Hooden Horse event on 2020?
I don’t think so Pene, the custom seems to have stopped just a few years ago (if you see the when/where tables on Calendar Customs starting with Formerly at… it means that the custom used to take place but has lapsed- I keep them on the site so that people can see that they’ve stopped)
However there are still winter hooding customs – check out https://calendarcustoms.com/articles/st-nicholas-hoodeners/ as they’re out and about in the run-up to Christmas and if you follow the link to their own website at http://www.hoodening.org.uk/index.html you’ll find lots more on the custom.
Best wishes,
Averil