| Where: | Stroud, Gloucestershire - Museum in the Park (and formerly town centre & Subscription Rooms) |
| When: | Formerly Second Saturday in January but late February 2025 |
| Time: | 1.30 -4 pm at Museum in the Park |
Wassailing is a traditional luck-bringing custom dating back at least a few hundred years; the word has its origins in the Old English toast “waes hael” meaning Good Health. Wassailing is currently enjoying a much overdue revival to brighten up the dark days after Christmas, and there are many events around the country, mainly in January but not invariably so. At Stroud, the modern revival of wassailing was a rapidly growing phenomenon for a few years based upon the ancient traditions of the locality – it only began in 2014 yet soon attracted hundreds of performers and even more spectators. You can expect singing, morris dancing, drama and a parade of beasts including local character the Broad, a hobby-horse-like bull figure with horns, peculiar to the district. When we visited The Broad chased the wassailers when they demanded entry to the Sub Rooms following a singing session outside, before all were invited in to share beer and cake. There are a few traditional carols associated with wassailing and Stroud has its very own version (see the website link for words and music); Stroud also has a special decorated wassail bowl, which is used for collecting donations, so don’t be tempted to take a swig. During the evening, the festivities formerly continued at the Sub Rooms, based on traditional Twelfth Night entertainments including more mummers plays, music, singing, a ceilidh,King Bean and Queen Pea and maybe a drink or two…but the scaled back event is afternoon only.
Helpful Hints
It was cancelled in 2023 and has been revived in a modified form in 2025 -it should be in the afternoon of Saturday February 22nd at the Museum in the Park. The event was announced near to the revised date so I’ll be checking for 2026 to see if the date shift carries on or if it reverts to January.
Click here for the event listing for 2025: https://www.facebook.com/events/1009043364608547/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22home%22%7D%2C%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22attachment%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D
In addition, on selected dates through December and into January, the Wassailers may be visiting local venues to perform plays, songs and music which follows the Gloucestershire tradition of visiting wassails, where the entertainers visit the audience rather than vice versa (see website for details).
It is advisable to arrive early as the town gets very busy and parking may be a challenge. Wassail booklets were available at Tourist Info office in the Subscription Rooms if you got there soon enough when we went(supplies were limited) and they included the words for the wassail songs.
For the full schedule of events and timings, you normally need to visit the event’s own website (link below but it doesn’t appear to have been updated recently).
Click here for the event website: http://stroudwassail.com
and here for the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/stroudwassail/
Many thanks to Robin Burton for all the helpful information and 3 photos!
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