Hare Pie Scramble and Bottle Kicking
Hallaton, Leicestershire
Easter Monday

There is a curious two-part custom that takes place on Easter . Monday at the Leicester village of Hallaton. The first part is scramble for hare pie and the second, and much more robust, is the bottle-kicking. Half the hare pie (though this has traditionally been made of beefsteak) is distributed and eaten outside the church, and the remainder is scrambled for by children and others, keen enough for the fray.

The villagers then proceed carrying the 'bottles', which are in fact small wooden barrels bound with iron hoops, to Hare Pie Bank. Two of the barrels are full of beer and one of them is empty. One of the barrels is thrown into a dip in the ground and the bottle-kicking commences, with the native Hallatonians against the rest, chiefly from the neighbouring parish of Medbourne. The goals are variously said to be a stream, a hedge or parish boundary, and when one has been scored with one barrel, another is brought into play. After the game, the players return to the conical market-cross, which the winners scale and from whence they drink their success from the barrels.

An early description of the origin of the custom is given in the Annual Register of 1800, under the heading of 'Antiquities' which shows it as back some considerable time before then: 'A piece of land was many years ago given, the rents and profits of which the rector for the time being was to receive for his own use, on condition of providing two hare pies, a quantity of ale, and two dozen penny loaves, to be scrambled for on Easter Monday annually, after divine service and a sermon preached.'

Much of the tradition surrounding the events seems to have fallen by the wayside, such as the large procession with a band and a man bearing a pole on the top of which a hare was mounted, but the two customs themselves are very much alive

Marbles Championship
Tinsley Green, near Crawley, Sussex
Good Friday

It is claimed that marbles has been played at Tinsley Green for hundreds of years, though the current championship games, which take place on Good Friday, hark back to its revival in 1932. The game is basically quite simple. There is a sand-covered cement ring, six feet across, on which there are placed forty-nine marbles. The object is to knock as many of these out of the ring as you can by projecting your shooting-marble, or tolley, into their midst. The tolley is placed in the crook of your first finger and fired by the thumb, without moving the hand, which is held outside the ring. Teams compete in turn, and the highest scorers from each then play individually for the British Marbles Championship.

Some say that competitive marbles goes back to 1600, and certainly Notes and Queries in 1879 says that: 'From time immemorial, marbles playing has been popular in Sussex; in some parts of the county Ash Wednesday, as well as Good Friday, has been known as "Marbles Day".' And in 1934 the Daily Mail reported the third annual marble match between Surrey and Sussex, saying that in the old days, 'marbles was the favourite sport in Sussex'.

Oranges and Lemons Service
St Clement Danes, Strand, London WC2
weekday near 31 March

On or near 31 March every year at St Clement Danes in the Strand, the Oranges and Lemons Service takes place. This is a children's service, attended by the pupils of St Clement Danes primary school. They read the lesson, recite the famous nursery ' rhyme and, on occasions, play the tune on handbells. At the conclusion of the service, each one is presented with an orange and a lemon from a table outside the church (if dry). The nursery' ' rhyme, which begins with the lines:

Oranges and lemons
Say the bells of St Clement's

was first recorded in Tommy Thumb's Poetry Song Book in about 1744, sung to the tune familiar to every child in the country. When the bells were restored to St Clement Danes in 1920, after they had been silent since 1913 when their timbers were found to be dangerous, the vicar decided to inaugurate the service for children. On 31 March that year, he distributed the oranges and lemons for the first time, which he persuaded the Danish community in London to donate. This continued until 1940 when, during the Second World War, the church was nearly destroyed by bombing. In 1957 the church was restored as a memorial to the RAF, and the familiar carillon now rings out at 9 o'clock, at noon and at 6 o'clock in the evening.

The Danish association is unclear, though it is said that Harold Harefoot, son of King Canute, was buried here in 1040, and there was at some stage a massacre of Vikings in the vicinity.