On the first Sunday the new mayor of Abingdon went to church after his election, the people of his street decked their houses with boughs and garlands and strewed the path with rushes. A correspondent signing S. H. rode through the town early one Sunday at the start of October and found them hard at work, with garlands being fixed to the ends of poles.
Garlanding the new mayor’s street at Abingdon
the first Sunday on or after 1 October · Abingdon, Berkshire
No longer kept
it was usual to have this ceremony performed in the street in which the new mayor lived, on the first Sunday that he went to church after his election.
From The Gentleman's Magazine Library, Manners and Customs, p. 190. Read the original
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