On St Andrew’s Day the labourers of Eastling and the neighbouring Kent parishes gathered with guns, poles and clubs and spent most of the day roaming the woods with loud shouting. They claimed to be hunting squirrels, and killed a few, but took hares, pheasants and partridges too and broke down hedges on the way. The day ended in the alehouses. Hone quoted it from an account of the parish as a yearly diversion.
Squirrel hunting on St Andrew’s Day
30 November · Eastling, Kent
No longer kept
On St. Andrew's day, November 30, there is yearly a diversion called squirrel-hunting in this and the neighbouring parishes
From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 1, col. 1539. Read the original
Get a copy: Amazon · Bookshop.org · AbeBooks
We may earn a small commission if you buy through these links.
Questions and comments