Rushbearing at Rochdale

Around Rochdale the rushes once carried to strew the church floor had become decorated rush carts, built up with trimmed bundles of rushes, flowers and oak boughs and hung with silver cups and watches. Teams of young men drew them through the streets behind men jingling horse-bells, a band, morris dancers and a great tinsel banner, and rival villages often came to blows. Hone’s correspondent wrote in 1825 that the rushbearings ran through July, August and September. Rush carts are still pulled at rushbearings in the South Pennines.