Appleby Horse Fair
Appleby, Westmorland
Week of second Wednesday in June

Appleby Horse Fair is the largest traditional horse-fair of its kind still flourishing. It is also the largest annual gypsy gathering in the country, and takes place in early June, the focus being the big sale day on the second Wednesday of the month. For weeks beforehand the gypsies begin to arrive from all
over the country, bringing their horses, ponies, caravans and trailers. There are' harness races preceding the Wednesday sale day to enliven the proceedings and an abundance of showmen and fairground hucksters to take advantage of the gathering.

The fair has taken place in early June since 1751, but before then an April Charter Fair was established in 1685. Certainly, many more people go to the fair than those who are interested in buying or selling horses.

Hawick Common Riding
Hawick, Roxburghshire
Thursday of first full week in June

The climax of Hawick's common riding, spread over two days, is the 'Cornet's dash' up Vertish Hill. This is preceded by a number of practice ride-outs, when the Cornet is accompanied by two previous office holders, known as the Left- and Righthand men.

The Comet's dash is said to commemorate a victory over English riders at Hornsholme (or Hornshole) in 1514, and he carries a flag said to be a replica of the one brought back at the time. There is a Hawick song recounting the Hornsholme victory, which is sung at the riding, and at one stage in the past the Cornet is said to have climbed the memorial to 1514. Also, it is said, the Cornet's Lass used to buss the flag before handing it to the provost to hand back again to the Cornet.

Langholm Common Riding
Langholm, Dumfriesshire
Last Friday in June

The Langholm Common Riding festivities begin at about 5 o'clock in the morning, when the Langholm Flute Band marches round the town playing a reveille. At about 6.30, an hour later, the Langholm Classic Hound Trail begins, in the hills above the town, drawing followers from all round the borders. The Common Riding ceremony itself begins at 8.30, with the arrival of the Cornet to take charge of the Town Standard. Accompanied by his Right- and Left-hand men, he leads a cavalcade of some 200 riders to a charge up the Kirkwynd, with the standard streaming above his head. Then he leads the riders to various points outside the town, where there are 'fair cryings', prodamations and the cutting and turning of sods. At about lunchtime the cavalcade arrives at the race-track at Castleholm, where the Cornet leads his followers in a ritual lap of honour. Here, there are athletics and displays of Highland dancing.

In the procession, four large emblems are carried on poles: a flowery crown, a giant thistle, a heather-clad spade and a large barley-bannock with a salt-herring across it, nailed to a wooden platter, all of which have some symbolic meaning in the riding. The colours adopted for the rosettes worn by the riders are those of that year's Derby winner, apparently harking back to an occasion when a Langholm horse won the race.

In 1759 the Court of Session in Edinburgh decreed that certain lands round Langholm, which proudly dubs itself 'the Muckle Toon , belonged 'inalienable to the community', and cairns and troughs were set up to mark the boundaries. The first Common Riding was initiated in 1816, which makes it one of the newest of the many border Common Ridings.

Lanimer Day
Lanark
Thursday of first full week in June

Lanimer Day, from land-mark or land-march day, is part of Lanark's week-long festival and falls on the Thursday. A large party of townspeople set out for a perambulation of the marches, an inspection of the boundary stones marking out the land given to the burgesses by David I in the l2th century. A company of horsemen convey the Lord Comet with the town's standard to the parish kirk for the 'shifting of the standard'. The Lord Cornet, a respected public figure chosen for his contribution to the town's welfare, makes his report and hands over the standard to the incoming Lord Cornet, who promises to keep it 'unsullied and unstained' for the ensuing year. After a colourful procession through the town to the racecourse, there is the ancient race for the 'Burgh Spurs', confined to march riders.
 In 1140, the Royal and Ancient Burgh of Lanark received a charter from William the Lion, and the annual riding of the marches was for centuries a festive occasion. Because of a feud between the people of Lanark and a local laird, the custom was for a time held without any attendant display. It was restored in 1851, with all its customary ceremonial, and has flourished ever since.

Lot-meadow Drawing
Yamton, Oxfordshire
Week following 29 June

The Yarnton Lot-meadow Drawing ceremony is now the surest remembrance of a custom which was of the utmost importance to the tenants of the surrounding countryside. The day after the auction of the lots in the meadow, which takes place in the Grapes Inn, the 'meadsman' summons the tenants to a corner of the meadow itself for the disposal of the lots. Each lot of the meadow has a name, endowed by a tenant in the past. These are variously: Gilbert, White, Harry, Boat, William of Bladon, Parry, Walter Geoffrey, Water Molly, Freeman, Green, Bolton, Dunne and Rothe; there is another, belonging to the church in perpetuity, called the Tidals. The meadsman has a bag containing thirteen cherry-wood balls, known as the mead balls, and each one bears the name of one of the lots. These are drawn individually from the bag, and the current possessor of the named lot is given the first strip in the meadow, the others following as their names appear.

Thus each tenant had a different strip each year, ensuring that they all had an equal chance of acquiring a richer or poorer part of the meadow, as the case might be. After the draw, each lot was carefully paced out, marked with a stake, and the new tenant's initials cut in the turf after being exposed with a cut of the scythe. The hay was mown shortly afterwards, each strip being easily identifiable by its owner.

The lot-drawing and distribution of the plots was a practice that hails from Anglo-Saxon times in the 6th and 7th centuries. Machinery has done away today with the common effort of mowing that used to take place, when the whole pasture of some eighty-one customary acres had to be mowed in a day, and men came from the surrounding countryside to help with the mowing. At one time, the lot meadow mowing was the occasion of a feast, or unofficial fair, with a race for a garland at the end of the day and much merrymaking. The festivities were dampened somewhat after 1817, when there was much disorder and a man was killed. It was that, and the use of agricultural machinery, that has made the custom now little more than a pleasant old-fashioned ritual.

Midsummer Day Ritual
Stonehenge, near Amesbury, Wiltshire
24 June

Latter-day Druids conduct a dawn service at Stonehenge on Midsummer's Day. The sun rises exactly in line with the altar and hurl stones, and the Druids foregather in the darkness to be there so they can observe the sun precisely as it rises on the horizon. Many others have beer, congregating at Stonehenge in recent years, so much so that there is now a large police presence to prevent any damage to Britain's most famous prehistoric monument.

Stonehenge, about which books are constantly being written, was built as a sun temple about 2600 BC, and it is thought that it was continuously used as a place of worship up to about 1400 BC. The present Druid revival began in 1740 after the publication of William Stukeley's Stonehenge, a Temple Restor'd to the British Druids.