On Mid-Lent Sunday thousands of people poured into Bury from all over the district to eat simnels, and shops and public houses stayed open in defiance of the law. W. M. Brookes of Accrington wrote in 1866 that clergy of every denomination had protested in vain, and that on a fine Simnel Sunday the streets were packed solid. He insisted that the gathering in one town on one day to eat the cakes was peculiar to Bury, and that the Monday after was often a holiday too.
Simnel Sunday crowds at Bury
Mothering Sunday · Bury, Lancashire
No longer kept
On a fine "Sunday," it is a mild expression to say that one could easily walk upon the heads of the crowds for several streets.
From The Gentleman's Magazine Library, Popular Superstitions, p. 27. Read the original
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