The Mayor of Bartlemass

On the first Monday after St Anne’s Day, 26 July, Newbury held a mock election of the Mayor of Bartlemass at the Bull and Dog public house. The dinner was chiefly bacon and beans, so the day was known as the bacon and bean feast. In the procession a cabbage on a pole was carried instead of a mace, with other mock emblems of civic dignity and plenty of rough music, and a justice and other officers were chosen at the same time. The correspondent who described it said nobody in the town could remember its beginning.