The rush-bearing wake at Runcorn and Warburton

At Runcorn and Warburton the yearly rush-bearing wake was kept in grand style in Chambers’s day. Rushes, sometimes a whole cartload, were bound onto a cart and cut level at each end, and on the Saturday evening men sat on top holding garlands of artificial flowers and tinsel. The cart went round the parish behind three or four horses in ribbons, with little bells round their collars, attended by morris dancers in fancy dress and a man with a great bell at his waist who collected money in a ladle. The party danced at the public houses on the way to church, where the rushes were left and the garlands hung up until the next year.