For weeks before the Fifth the boys of Purton went to every house begging faggots, with a rhyme threatening to take two if they were refused one, and one hard farmer lost a new pump to the fire. On the night the guy was hoisted on a pole on the village green, shot at and pelted with squibs before the pile was lit, while the bells rang. A piece of Wiltshire bacon was cooked at the fire and potatoes roasted in the ashes, and the public house stayed open nearly all night.
The Purton bonfire
5 November · Purton, Wiltshire
No longer kept
it is a usual custom for a large piece of "real Wiltshire bacon" to be dressed by it, which is taken to the public-house, together with potatoes roasted in the ashes of the bonfire
From Hone's Every-Day Book, vol. 2, cols. 1379-1380. Read the original
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