Scuttlebrook Wake takes place on the Saturday following Dover’s Games. Its main features are a street procession with the Bretforton Silver Band providing music and the Campden Morris Dancers drawing the trolley bearing the Queen elect, followed by decorated floats and those who have dressed appropriately for the occasion. In the Square the new Queen is crowned by the retiring Queen, followed by dancing by local children and by the Campden Morris Men. After the dancing, the band leads the parade to the Almshouses, and the parade is then brought back to Scuttlebrook where the Queen officially opens the Street Fair. The activities of the afternoon provide a joyful, colourful and memorable occasion for local residents and visitors.
Scuttlebrook Wake has a long history. It was a traditional Whitsun Club Wake. At the foot of the 1818 poster for Dover’s Meeting, after mentioning a Main of Cocks, a theatrical performance, Ordinaries, Balls, Consorts each day and a Stewards Ball on the Friday evening, it adds: ‘On Saturday a Wake will be held in Campden and all Diversions as usual.' The Wake is named after the Cattlebrook or Scuttlebrook which used to run as an open stream down Leysbourne, the north end of the High Street, until about 1831 when it was covered over with a pump erected to serve local inhabitants.
The present Scuttlebrook Wake has been celebrated in its present form since 1938 when the first Scuttlebrook Wake Queen was crowned. Festivities were interrupted by the war but the Wake was revived in 1948. Five local girls and one boy are chosen each year as Queen, Attendants and Page. The final occasion for the Queen and
Attendants is to appear at the official opening of Robert Dover’s Cotswold Olimpick Games on the Friday evening a year later. The Queen oversees the lighting of the bonfire. On the following day she crowns her successor.
Scuttlebrook Wake
- Sunday, 16 January 2011 21:28
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Last Updated on Monday, 21 February 2011 22:24
