The Gill-Bushes dole on All Souls’ Day

2 November · Torpenhow, Cumberland

No longer kept

Every year on 2 November the rent of a field called Gill-Bushes was given out to the poor of Blennerhasset in Torpenhow church. Richard Bouch had left the close for that purpose by his will of 1713, and the rent came to about a pound and sixteen shillings.

the rent of which to be distributed every 2d day of November, in the parish church of Torpenhow, by the feoffees and their heirs

From Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, vol. 2, p. 357. Read the original

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Folklore from the old calendars

Tindles at Findern No longer kept DerbyshireAt Findern in Derbyshire the boys and girls went every year on the evening of All Souls' Day to the common and lit a number of small fires among the furze, which they called Tindles.
The Shropshire soul-cake heap No longer kept ShropshireAubrey wrote that in his time, in Shropshire and elsewhere, a high heap of soul cakes was set on the board on All Souls' Day, lying one upon another like the shewbread in the pictures of old Bibles.
Old Hob No longer kept CheshireA correspondent told Hone of a Cheshire frolic called Old Hob, in which a man carried a dead horse's head covered with a sheet to frighten people.
Soul-mass cakes No longer kept Herefordshire, LancashireOn All Souls' Day in Lancashire and Herefordshire the well-off used to hand out oaten cakes, called soul-mass cakes, to the poor.

The Gill-Bushes dole on All Souls’ Day

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