Strewing Rushes at Dorrington

On St Bartholomew’s Day at Dorrington, near Sleaford, maidens in their best clothes used to walk in procession to a small chapel in the parish and strew its floor with rushes. They then went to a piece of land called the Play Garths, left by an inhabitant for the young people of the village, where most of the place joined them for football, wrestling, dancing and other sports. The correspondent added that rushbearing was still kept up in parts of Yorkshire, with a cartload of rushes decked with flowers carried in procession round the place.