May Day at Lynn

A correspondent told Hone that at Lynn the children raced to be first up on May morning, and those out early sometimes nailed up the doors of sleepy friends through the latch. The Lynn garland was two hoops crossed on a staff, tied round with flowers and evergreens, hung inside with festoons of blown birds’ eggs and ribbons, with a dressed doll seated in the middle. It was carried round the town by children blowing cows’ and bulls’ horns, to the despair of their elders, and in the evening hung across a court or lane for throwing balls over. The largest was the garland of the St James’s workhouse children, who collected money in a locked tin. Two new maypoles had been put up in 1682, but they had long gone.