On 13 May each year the children of Abbotsbury, Dorset, used to carry garlands from house to house around the village, hoping to receive gifts, in more recent times money.  This custom has been mentioned elsewhere on this website; see posts of 1 June 2012 and 24 April 2014.

The custom was first described by John Hutchins in his History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset (1867), and at one time garlands were carried in at least eight other local villages, but in these the custom died out at various dates between c.1890 and 1946.

In the 1920s it seems that about eight garlands were prepared in Abbotsbury each year.  More recently two garlands were carried, one composed of garden, and the other of wild, flowers (though it was sometimes to distinguish which was which), and although the garlands were carried by children, in recent times they were made by adults.  It appears that the decline of the Abbotsbury garlands started in 1981 when Abbotsbury school closed and the children became detached from the preparation of the garlands.

In 1983 a group of about eight children carried each garland around the village starting at 5.30p.m.  The reaction of the people whose houses they visited varied: some simply gave a donation without taking any interest in the garland, others closely examined the garland, and some were prepared and waiting to be visited.  A woman who had recently moved into new house in the village lectured the children severely and refused to give them anything unless they could prove that the proceeds would be donated to a worthwhile charity.  Elsewhere donations varied from a few pence to a couple of pounds. The knocking on doors continued for about three hours, after which the collected money was shared between the children.

Thirteen years later, in 1996, the procedure was similar, but the garlands would be dumped outside front doors and the door bell rung in the hope that someone would answer, but only about half of them were.  The younger children who accompanied the garden flower garland were generally unruly, amusing themselves by swinging on garden gates, decapitating garden flowers and fighting.  The older children, with the wild flower garland, were generally better behaved, but, again, only about half of the doors were opened.

In 2005 two garlands were made for the children to carry around the village, but only 8 children came to do so.

Thus it’s not surprising that early in the second decade of the twenty-first century the custom ceased.

Sources:

Peter Robson, ‘Dorset Garland Days on the Chesil Coast’, in Theresa Buckland & Juliette Wood, Aspects of British Calendar Customs, Sheffield, 1993: 155-66.

Steve Roud, The English Year, London, 2006: 173-4.

Roy Vickery, Garlands, Conkers and Mother-die, London, 2019: 162-3.

Images: photographs taken 13 May 1996, and kneelers, worked in the 2020s, St Nicholas Church, Abbotsbury, photographed April 2025.

1 May 2025