Sweeps Festival

This celebration held on May Day weekend can only be described as “the only typical English Day�?of the year.

The annual Sweeps Festival brings an extravaganza of colour, music and atmosphere, attracting thousands of visitors to Rochester.  The festival owes its roots to age old traditions.  Sweeping chimneys was a dirty but necessary trade nearly 300 years ago.  It was hard work for the sweeps and even harder toil for the chimney boys.

The Sweeps annual holiday on May 1st represented a much welcomed break and they celebrated it with a procession through the streets accompanied by the Jack-in-the-Green.  This seven  foot character is traditionally woken at dawn on May Day from his slumber on Bluebell Hill and then travels to Rochester to start the festivities.

The celebrations were vividly described by Charles Dickens in his “Sketches by Boz�?

With the passing of the Climbing Boys Act in 1868 making it illegal to employ young boys to clean inside chimneys, the tradition gradually waned and finally died.  The celebrations in Rochester stopped in the early 1900’s.

It was revived in the 1980’s by historian, Gordon Newton, who, as well as being the Festival Director, plays melodeon for several Morris dancing teams.  His Morris team, the Motley Morris, are custodians of the Jack-in-the-Green.  Gordon researched the sweeps�?tradition and in 1981 organised a small parade, featuring a group of Morris dancers.

The Festival has now further grown in popularity and attracts many thousands of revellers, keen to either dress up and take part in the Sweeps Parade or to simply watch and take in the atmosphere.

Dance teams from throughout the UK perform a variety of styles of dance while bands and musical groups perform at various venues, playing music from folk to guitar to traditional singing styles. At the end of the day, the music continues late through the evening in many of Rochester’s public houses. 

http://www.historic-uk.com/DestinationsUK/Rochester.htm