Lent Crocking

Shrove Tuesday · Dorset and Wiltshire

No longer kept

In Dorset and Wiltshire boys went shroving in small bands, armed with the year’s broken crockery. Their leader knocked at each door and, grinning under the brim of his old hat, recited a rhyme begging bread and cheese, fat bacon or doughnuts. If he was sent away, his followers let fly at the door with their potsherds. Chambers links it with an old Shrovetide licence for breaking down doors in sport.

Sometimes he gets a bit of bread and cheese, and at some houses he is told to be gone; in which latter case, he calls up his followers to send their missiles in a rattling broadside against the door.

From Chambers's Book of Days, vol. 1, p. 239. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Ludlow Rope-pulling No longer kept ShropshireOn Shrove Tuesday the Ludlow corporation handed a thick rope, thirty-six yards long, out of a window of the Market Hall at four o'clock.
Holly Boy and Ivy Girl No longer kept KentLate in the eighteenth century a Kentish village kept a Shrovetide custom in two halves.
Threshing the Hen No longer kept Cornwall, WalesA hen that had not laid before Shrove Tuesday was counted useless.
Barring Out the Master No longer kept CumberlandAt Fasten's Even the scholars of the free school at Bromfield claimed an old right to shut their master out for three days.
The Ba’ of Scone No longer kept PerthshireChambers knew of no place where Shrovetide football was played with more energy than Scone, near Perth.
The Pancake Greaze Still kept LondonAt eleven on Shrove Tuesday a verger of Westminster Abbey with a silver baton led the school cook, in white apron, jacket and cap, into the schoolroom carrying a pancake.

Lent Crocking

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