maypole dancing | >Re-PHOTO

May Queen in Chislehurst – 2006

May Queen in Chislehurst – 2006. Chislehurst has maintained the tradition of crowning the Chislehurst May Queen on the first Saturday of May each year since 1923 and last Saturday held its ceremony to crown its 2025 Queen. I was busy elsewhere this year, but spent an enjoyable day photographing the event on Saturday 6th May 2006. Here is the post I wrote back then (with the usual minor corrections) with a few of the pictures – and links to more on My London Diary

Chislehurst May Queen Ceremonies

Chislehurst, 6 May 2006

May Day celebrations were traditionally times (known as Beltane) when the New Year and Spring was celebrated, and young men and women danced together, and a Queen of the May was chosen to lead the event. Cromwell banned them as sinful pagan events, and although they came back with the restoration in 1660, in most places the traditions slowly died out or were made more formal.

There was a revival of interest in old customs in the Victorian era, with various ‘Merrie England‘ events being organised. Some schools had maypoles and learnt the dances and many Sunday Schools had their May Queens who often took a leading part in Whit Walks.

In 2005 I photographed the Hayes Merrie England And London May Queen Festival, which began in 1913 and is probably the largest as well as the oldest continuing event of its type (Brentham had its “gaily dressed maidens” dancing around a maypole in 1906, but it isn’t clear if there were festivals in all of the early years. Certainly there appear to have been none in 1927-30.)

Chislehurst got its first May Queen in 1923, when the organisers of the Merrie England Festival at Hayes, which had been going for around 10 years, asked Agnes Everist to organise a new ‘realm‘ with her daughter Olive as the May Queen. Agnes continued to organise the ceremonies until 1945, when the ceremony was delayed until June to be a part of the World War II Victory Celebrations. Her grand-daughter and Olive’s daughter Beryl was May Queen that year, but sadly Agnes died 2 days later.

The Everist family continued to organise the festival for some years, but others then took over. Any girl five or over who lives or has grandparents who live in Chislehurst can join the retinue. They then work their way up the ranks, with the oldest girl of the year of joining having the choice of being Queen or Prince. Several months of twice-weekly rehearsals are required, and as well as the festival they also perform at other events over the year.

*The retiring May Queen puts the crown on the new May Queen’s head*

The procession is led by a Banner Bearer, and each of the ‘realms’ that takes part in the Hayes festival is also identified by a distinctive colour. The May Queen and Prince walk under a hoop garland held by two of their retinue, while others hold the Queen’s train. Before the crowning, the retiring Queen and Prince are at the head of the procession with the Queen and Prince elect in the middle, but after the crowning they change their places. Also in the procession are three attendants carrying the basket of flowers, the crown on a cushion and the sceptre and scroll. At the rear of the group is a decorated cage or lantern on a pole.

*The new May Queen and Prince take their place under the hoop garland for the return procession*

Chislehurst is one of the few may queen societies that still dance round the maypole properly, and they performed 4 different dances during the event with surprising precision.

*And the May Queen cuts the cake with the Prince*

At the end of the day the various groups marched off down the road for tea and cakes in the Methodist hall, along with a little more ceremony. I stayed until they had cut the cake, then had to run to the station to catch my train home.

You can read more about the May Queen tradition and London May Queen in particular in the preview of my book, London May Queens. The book is available as a PDF or more expensively in print

You can find out more about the Chislehurst May Queen Society at their web site. There are more pictures from the 2006 event, including the other local groups that take part in the event on My London Diary.

Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos

All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.

London Crowns 100th May Queen

London Crowns 100th May Queen – Hayes, Kent.

On Saturday 12 May 2012 I went by invitation from the family of the 100th May Queen to photograph her crowning on Hayes Common. Earlier I had photographed and written about the festival and other May Queen Festivals. Below is the text from my report on the event in My London Diary, with just a few minor corrections along with a few of the pictures. You can find more pictures on the web site.

The Merrie England and London May Queen Festival was started by Joseph Deedy, usually described as a ‘Dulwich schoolmaster’ in 1913, and moved to its current location on Hayes Common soon after. Surprisingly it continued throughout both world wars, although in a somewhat truncated version, with no procession around the village. It was also felt that holding the ceremony in the open air would present too tempting a target for the enemy, and so it was moved from the common to the parish church. But continue it did, and every year since 1913, one girl has been crowned as the London May Queen, making this year’s Festival and Queen the 100th.

Whitelands College in London started its May Queen festival rather earlier in 1881 at the prompting of John Ruskin, and this still continues at the college (now part of the University of Roehampton) although since the college now admits men, some years they have a May King in place of a queen. Talking to one of the organisers of the event yesterday I learnt that Deedy had worked at Whitelands – contrary to the published information on him, including that I retold in my own book and PDF on the festival. [You can read a little more about this book on >Re:PHOTO which also has has an e-pub link.) Copies of this and my other Blurb books are usually available to UK addresses more cheaply direct from me.

*The London May Queen sits in her carriage*

The ceremonies take place in a large roped off arena on Hayes Common, with the May Queens and their groups from various places on the fringes of south east London taking their places around it in alphabetical order. Each group has its own colour for the dresses and its own flower, and girls who may join as young as three make their way up through the various roles in the group until, if they remain long enough, they become the May Queen of their local realm. After this they can move on to join the London May Queen group, and again take the various roles by seniority until finally – usually when they are around 16 – they become London May Queen. As well as taking part in May Queen activities, May Queens and their groups also appear at various charity events in their local areas.

I arrived just as the procession around Hayes was starting, with the uncrowned queen in a lightweight carriage pulled by Sea Cadets with the Prince of Merrie England walking beside her and preceded by a bagpiper. Behind her were the members of London May Queen, including the Joy Bells celebrating Music, Company, Life, Beauty, Flowers as well as the Fairy Queen, Bo-Peep, Robin Hood and several others.

Behind them came the May Queen realms in alphabetical order – Beckenham, Beddington, Bletchingly, Bromley Common, Caterham, Chislehurst, Coney Hall, Downe, Eden Park, Elmers End, Green St Green, Hayes, Hayes Common, Hayes Village, Orpington, Petts Wood, Shortlands, Wallington, Warlingham and West Wickham. In the heyday of the event in the 1920s and 30s there were as many as 100 groups, and the event made the national newspapers and the cinema newsreels.

Little Sanctum - London Crowns 100th May Queen — *At Hayes Parish Church for Little Sanctum*

At the parish church, the London May Queen group made their way into the churchyard for a short service written by Deedy which he called ‘Little Sanctum’, before joining back on the end of the procession around the village and back to the common.

There the 100th May Queen was crowned and the further pageant witten by Deedy performed, ending with the May Queen being led around the arena by BoPeep and scattering flowers towards the seated May Queen realms.

Many of the younger girls were quite tired by the walk around the village and were busy eating ice cream and sandwiches, which revived them considerably, and after the Chislehurst May Queen group had given a demonstration of ribbon dancing, all of the Merrie England children – including a few young boys who mainly take part as pages – came and took part in a lively circle dance around the large maypole.

All that was left was for the May Queen to draw the tickets for the raffle which helps to cover the expenses.

London Crowns 100th May Queen

You can read more about this and other May Queen ceremonies in London both in reports of the various events on My London Diary and from my book mentioned above. I had hoped that this would be followed by a major exhibition and a more scholarly work illustrated by my pictures but as yet this has not been possible.

The Sultan’s Elephant, Buddha’s Birthday & May Queens

The Sultan’s Elephant, Buddha’s Birthday & May Queens – Satiurday May 6th was another varied day for me.

The Sultan’s Elephant – Westminster

“Just why does it take so many people to drive an elephant when one elephant can do it on its own?” was the question that came to me while watching the Sultan’s Elephant making its ponderous way around central London. The 12 metre high mechanical elephant, along with the Little Princess was constructed by French company Royal De Luxe and appeared to have around 20 drivers as well as a cast of under-employed actors.

And, as I commented, “it did occur to me to ask why the Arts Council was spending so much of our money on guys who wanted to play with big toys.” Rather than art it seemed to me to be “more or less a larger version of model railways to me, or perhaps even more a simplistic version of a computer game fantasy made manifiest” and little about art. “More Disneyland.”

Buddha’s 2550th Birthday – Leicester Square

A quarter of a mile to the north, celebrations were taking place in Chinatown of Buddha’s 2,550th birthday, organised by London Fo Guang Temple, one of two UK branches of the Taiwanese Fo Guang Shan Order who have a temple in Margaret St in a rather nice Grade II listed former Parish School and Church House designed by William Butterfield and built in 1868-70.

The festival was continuing over two days, but I only stayed for around an hour, photographing a colourful procession which included two lions and the Mayor of Westminster.

Chislehurst May Queen Ceremonies – Chislehurst

Chislehurst is around ten miles from the centre of London, in Kent until brought into Greater London on the edge of the London Borough of Bromley in 1965. Fortunately trains from Charing Cross go there in around half an hour, which makes it a popular commuter town, and took me there, where I had been invited by the organisers of the Chislehurst May Queen to photograph their May Queen Ceremonies.

Traditionally May had been a time when the New Year and Spring was celebrated, when young men and women danced together and often rather more, and a queen of the may was chosen to lead the event. Oliver Cromwell banned the celebrations as sinful pagan events, and although they came back after the restoration the events slowly died out or became more formal.

As I noted: “There was a revival of interest in old customs in the Victorian era, with various ‘Merrie England’ events being organised. Some schools had maypoles and learnt the dances and many Sunday Schools had their may queens who often took a leading part in Whit Walks.“

I became interested in these continuing events in 2005, going to photograph the Merrie England and London May Queen Festival at Hayes, Kent (also in LB Bromley.) It was the start of a project that led to my self-published book London’s May Queens (ISBN: 978-1-909363-06-9) and almost to a major museum exhibition, plans for which fell through at the last hurdle.

Book Preview

The book preview contains an essay on the history of London’s May Queens and a number of photographs from various May Queen events. Although print copies of the book are expensive you can purchase a reasonably priced PDF version.

But putting the pictures from this first event I photographed in 2005 on-line attracted a great deal of interest, particularly among the families involved, and led to me being invited to other events such as this at Chislehurst, who were particularly keen that I should photograph their proper maypole dancing.

*Last year’s Queen crowns the new May Queen*

As I explain on My London Diary, “Any girl five or over who lives or has grandparents who live in Chislehurst can join the retinue. They then work their way up the ranks, with the oldest girl of the year of joining having the choice of being Queen or Prince. Several months of twice-weekly rehearsals are required, and as well as the festival they also perform at other events.” From the various ‘realms’ such as Chislehurst, the girls then move on to become a part of the London May Queen group. The Chislehurst group is now open to both boys and girls.

Chislehurst first took part in the London May Queen festival in 1923, ten years after it was founded by Dulwich schoolmaster Joseph Deedy in 2013 – there is more of the history in my book. Their festival involved other groups in the area and seemed very much a community festival. It ended with a tea for the May Queen group in the Methodist church hall, and I waited for the May Queen to cut the cake with the help of her ‘Prince’ before leaving to catch the train back home.

I’m pleased to see that the Chislehust May Queen Society is still continuing – and has a Facebook group and a web site. They will be crowning their 99th May Queen tomorrow, as usual on the first Saturday of May.

More on all these events on the May 2006 page of My London Diary.