Only In England – Ottery St Mary Tar Barrels. 5th Nov

Tom (founder) and I headed up last Monday to what is a classic, world famous, yet small town event in England. I have heard of a few of these around the UK (check the Gloucester cheese rolling (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nm7eIfcZKVA – , and they are always seem like epic events (not short of madmen) – long may they last.

Basically the town of Ottery was packed to the brim with people watching the Men’s, Women and Children’s tar barrels events. The barrels are filled with tar/paraffin and set alight, before teams hoist them onto their shoulders to charge/sprint up and down the small streets splitting the throngs as they go. To the untrained eye, it seemed that the person carries the flaming barrel does so until their shoulders are on fire, before they hand it over to the next guy. I think it originates from warding off evil spirits. The noise was intense, I nearly got taken down a few times, and I have never seen anything like this before in my life….only in England. (posted by Ernie).

This entry was posted on Friday, November 9th, 2007 at 5:28 pm and is filed under General.