Mothering Sunday

Next: Sunday 7 March 2027

The fourth Sunday of Lent, three weeks before Easter, when people once went home to their mother church and their families.

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The year from Thursday 12 November

Nothing listed for this period yet.

Folklore from the old calendars

Fig-pie Wake at Draycott-in-the-Moors No longer kept StaffordshireDraycott-in-the-Moors and its neighbouring villages kept Fig-pie Wake on Mid-Lent Sunday, when friends came visiting to eat fig pies.
Going a-mothering Still kept EnglandOn Midlent Sunday, the fourth in Lent, young people in service or apprenticed away went home to see their parents, especially their mothers, taking a cake or a trinket as a present.
Loins of veal on Mid-lent Sunday No longer kept HerefordshireIn Herefordshire Mid-Lent Sunday was kept by every rank, with children of all ages coming home to dine with their parents on loins of veal.
Mothering cakes at Bristol No longer kept GloucestershireA Bristol reader told Hone in 1827 that Mothering Sunday was kept scrupulously in the city and, he believed, all over the west of England, much as Twelfth Night was kept in London.
Pease for the king’s household on Mid-Lent Sunday No longer kept EnglandA roll of the household expenses of Edward I for 1290 records a penny spent on pease on Mid-Lent Sunday.
Shrewsbury simnels Still kept Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, ShropshireIn Shropshire and Herefordshire, and above all at Shrewsbury, rich simnel cakes were made in Lent and at Easter and Christmas.
Simnel Sunday crowds at Bury No longer kept LancashireOn 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.