Wroth Silver Ceremony
Every St Martin’s Day (11 November, or the preceding Saturday, if it falls on a Sunday), there is the Wroth Silver Ceremony (http:// www.wrothsilver.org.uk/) at sunrise on Knightlow Hill in Strettonon-Dunsmore in Warwickshire. It is arguably the oldest continuing ceremony in Britain, thought to date back to Saxon, or even to ancient British times. There were once similar ceremonies carried out in other parts of Britain, but only this one has survived. The earliest known written reference to it was in 1170, when it was mentioned as “ongoing”. The Feast Day of St Martin of Tours – known as old Hallowe’en since the calendar change of 1752 – was when autumn wheat seeding was completed, and the annual slaughter of fattened cattle produced “Martinmas beef”. It is associated with end-of-year celebrations. One legend holds that St Martin was martyred with a mill wheel, so it became bad luck to turn a wheel of any kind on that day, which is a bit unfortunate, because most of us got there by car! It became a time when tenancies were renewed, rents paid and labourers engaged.
A couple of weeks beforehand, the Rugby Advertiser announces that the ceremony is going to take place. Although attendance at the ceremony is free, the breakfast afterwards requires buying tickets from the hostelry hosting it. This used to be the Dun Cow pub, which dates back to the 18th century, but in recent years it has been held at various nearby venues, as the Dun Cow is now derelict following a fire. This year it was in the Queen’s Head in nearby Bretford. A lot of us met there at 6am for refreshments, including the traditional hot milk and rum. Then it was off to the ceremony, which starts at 6.45am (sunrise, not that this was very evident this year, what with the rain). We all parked outside what had been the Dun Cow and then walked the few hundred yards along the A45 London Road to the field where the stone is. His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch has stewardship of the ceremony. Formerly it was the Crown, but Charles I transferred it to one of the Duke’s ancestors. This was legally contested in the reign of Charles II, but the court ruled in favour of the Duke’s ancestor.
The stone had been cleaned out and covered by a blue plastic sheet. When the ceremony was due to start, the sheet was removed, the Duke’s steward faced east and read out various parish names which make up Knightlow Hundred (a hundred was a local government district in past times) and how much money they owed. A representative from that parish then threw the amount owed into the Wroth Stone, saying, “Wroth Silver” as they did it. In former centuries, the representative had to go three times around the mound before doing it, but that practice stopped about two centuries ago.
Failure to pay meant either a fine of either 20 shillings for every penny not paid, or forfeiting a white bull, with red nose and ears of the same colour, bulls of that description being descendants of the indigenous cattle of ancient Britain. Another Warwickshire legend is that of the dun cow (there are a few pubs named after her), which may have been based on one of these cattle. They were quite ferocious compared with present-day domestic cattle. My parish owed a halfpenny, so I and some other people chucked in more than enough. I didn’t notice any parish failing to pay; if there was no one from that parish, someone else threw in. The Wroth Stone itself is the remains of an old wayside cross destroyed a few centuries ago. The grade two listed base is still there and that is where the money is deposited. The stone is on top of a tumulus, which is probably the grave of an important person most likely from Saxon times, although some say either an ancient British chieftain or a Roman general. In the 18th century there were four fir trees at each corner, said to represent four knights who were slain nearby.
Once dawn had broken, it was back to the Queen’s Head in Bretford for breakfast and speeches. We all got served our cooked breakfast, along with traditional hot milk and rum to toast the speeches. There was a toast to His Grace and the speeches were by the Lady Mayor of Rugby, His Grace’s steward and various other notables, some of whom have been attending for decades. The tenant of the field where the stone is located received his shilling for looking after the stone. Someone gave a talk about the ceremony itself and a local poet read a poem that he had written about it. There was also the opportunity to purchase a book, Wroth Silver
Today by William Waddilove and David Eadon (ISBN: 0950918512). Each of us was also given a clay churchwarden pipe. I smoked mine with some tobacco provided – the first time that I had smoked tobacco for about five years. After the ceremony we all had a group photograph outside, which appeared in the following week’s
Rugby Advertiser (http://www.rugbyadvertiser.co.uk/news/recordturn-out-for-ancient-ceremony-inryton-1-8244180).
What was the ceremony’s purpose? There are various ideas. Some say this it might be feudal; for instance, Ward Money, paid in lieu of military service. People have tried to find the answer by looking at the etymology of the words; one problem is that spelling was rather casual in years gone by, although the consensus does seem to be that the etymology is Anglo Saxon. The prevailing idea is that in Saxon times the area was largely covered in the Forest of Arden (now largely gone, but existing and being replanted in places). Apart from the occasional surviving Roman road – like the Fosse Way nearby – moving livestock around was pretty difficult, so the Wroth Silver was paid as a sort of protection and right of way tax.
Anyone can attend: you don’t have to be a resident of the hundred. I will probably attend again. This year there was over 100 attendees. The lowest number in living memory was six, during World War II, which was understandable – but the fact that they still did it proves that you cannot keep a good, ancient ceremony down! Gary Stocker By email