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| Plough Monday antics back in the olden days |
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| Saint George slays that pesky dragon in more modern times |
Some of our old Pagan traditions are still going strong in Nottinghamshire thanks to a few dedicated locals. The January Plough Monday plays, dances and festivities date back to Pagan customs and the 2026 performance dates are coming up soon. It's all a good excuse for dressing up and fooling around...!
They traditionally celebrate the upcoming fertility of the land in the new farming year and come just after the winter solstice's end (Epiphany). They echo ancient pagan festivals welcoming the sun's return and the earth's awakening for planting.
Catch them at a pub near you (date and details below) but what exactly are they? Who traditionally gets involved? And what tales of past plays from Nottinghamshire history can we re-discover?
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Newstead Abbey - a tourist mecca since the 1820's
Byron's celebrity-status brought thousands of visitors each year. |
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Sleepy Hollow author Washington Irving
experienced a Plough Monday play
at Newstead in 1834 |
The American novelist Washington Irving, author of Sleepy Hollow, visited Newstead Abbey in 1834.
A wave of "Byron-mania" had hit the abbey after the famous poet's death and Newstead had been swamped with visitors in one of the first cases of mass tourism in history. The modern-sounding term "Byron-mania" was actually coined back in 1812 when the care-worn young Byron's autobiographical poem
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage made him an overnight superstar and a fan-mail target of hordes of obsessive female admirers.
Plough Monday lads at Newstead Abbey in 1834 - by Washington Irving
"Sherwood Forest is a region that still retains much of the quaint customs and holiday games of the olden time. A day or two after my arrival at the Abbey, as I was walking in the cloisters, I heard the sound of rustic music, and now and then a burst of merriment, proceeding from the interior of the mansion. Presently the chamberlain came and informed me that a party of country lads were in the servants’ hall, performing Plough Monday antics, and invited me to witness their mummery. I gladly assented, for I am somewhat curious about these relics of popular usages."
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| Newstead Abbey, the Monk's Wood by Arthur Spooner |
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Newstead's gothic arches, the backdrop for
the Plough Monday play |
"The servants’ hall was a fit place for the exhibition of an old Gothic game. It was a chamber of great extent, which in monkish times had been the refectory of the Abbey. A row of massive columns extended lengthwise through the centre, whence sprung Gothic arches, supporting the low vaulted ceiling.
Here was a set of rustics dressed up in something of the style represented in the books concerning popular antiquities. One was in a rough garb of frieze, with his head muffled in bear-skin, and a bell dangling behind him, that jingled at every movement. He was the clown, or fool of the party, probably a traditional representative of the ancient satyr. The rest were decorated with ribbons and armed with wooden swords.
The leader of the troop recited the old ballad of St. George and the Dragon, which had been current among the country people for ages; his companions accompanied the recitation with some rude attempt at acting, while the clown cut all kinds of antics."
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| Calverton's present day Plough Players |
"To these succeeded a set of morris-dancers, gayly dressed up with ribbons and hawks’-bells. In this troop we had Robin Hood and Maid Marian, the latter represented by a smooth-faced boy; also Beelzebub, equipped with a broom, and accompanied by his wife Bessy, a termagant old beldame.
Plough Monday customs
These rude pageants are the lingering remains of the old customs of Plough Monday, when bands of rustics, fantastically dressed, and furnished with pipe and tabor, dragged what was called the “fool plough” from house to house, singing ballads and performing antics, for which they were rewarded with money and good cheer.
But it is not in “merry Sherwood Forest” alone that these remnants of old times prevail. They are to be met with in most of the counties north of the Trent, which classic stream seems to be the boundary line of primitive customs. During my recent Christmas sojourn at Barlboro’ Hall, on the skirts of Derbyshire and Yorkshire, I had witnessed many of the rustic festivities peculiar to that joyous season, which have rashly been pronounced obsolete, by those who draw their experience merely from city life. I had seen the great Yule log put on the fire on Christmas Eve, and the wassail bowl sent round, brimming with its spicy beverage. I had heard carols beneath my window by the choristers of the neighboring village, who went their rounds about the ancient Hall at midnight, according to immemorial custom."
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Washington Irving, author of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
visited Newstead in 1834 and saw an impromtu Plough Monday play
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"We had mummers and mimers too, with the story of St. George and the Dragon, and other ballads and traditional dialogues, together with the famous old interlude of the Hobby Horse, all represented in the antechamber and servants’ hall by rustics, who inherited the custom and the poetry from preceding generations. The boar’s head, crowned with rosemary, had taken its honored station among the Christmas cheer; the festal board had been attended by glee singers and minstrels from the village to entertain the company with hereditary songs and catches during their repast; and the old Pyrrhic game of the sword dance, handed down since the time of the Romans, was admirably performed in the court-yard of the mansion by a band of young men, lithe and supple in their forms and graceful in their movements, who, I was told, went the rounds of the villages and country-seats during the Christmas holidays." - Washington Irving
Washington Irving and Newstead
January 2026 Plough Monday festivities...
Thursday 8th January 2026
Robin Hood and Little John, Arnold – 7.30 pm
Friday 9th January 2026
Admiral Rodney, Calverton – 7.00 pm
Fox and Hounds, Blidworth – 7.45 pm
The Plough, Farnsfield – 8.30 pm
Black Bull, Blidworth – 9.00 pm
Nag’s Head, Woodborough – 9.45 pm
Saturday 10th January 2026
Green Dragon, Oxton – 7.15 pm
The Railway, Lowdham – 8.00 pm
Woodlark, Lambley – 8.30 pm
Cross Keys, Epperstone – 9.15 pm
Admiral Rodney, Calverton – 9.45 pm
Saturday 17th January 2026
Sherwood Visitor’s Centre, Edwinstowe – 2:00 pm approx.
More details and videos of the old plays here...
Visitor numbers to Newstead - initially, after Byron's death in 1824 and new owner Col Wildman's renovations and encouragement of Byron fans on pilgrimage, numbers were in the thousands per year rising to around 10,000 after steam power and the railways facilitated easier travel. Popular books and railway guides began to appear to fuel this interest in old country houses. Nottingham native William Howitt's 1838 "Rural Life of England" and Joseph Nash's four-volume 1839-49 "Mansions of England in Olden Times" for example.
By the turn of the century the situation had changed with more restrictions in place. "In Nottinghamshire, Newstead Abbey, mecca for thousands in the 1860s, was now open only on the most restricted basis and Lord Middleton's Wollaton Park outside Nottingham 'is not open to the public to walk in as it should be." Post WW2 council ownership opened both these Nottinghamshire houses and their parkland to the public again.
Sources -"The fall and rise of the stately home" by Mandler, Peter; "Byron and Newstead : the aristocrat and the abbey" by Beckett, J. V
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