The Big Picture
A kickabout in Dorset on Shrove Tuesday in 1939
Local freemen maintain a Shrove Tuesday tradition on the streets of Corfe Castle, 1939
Britain retains a myriad of unusual traditions, lovingly passed down through successive generations and carried out with tremendous spirit. One such ritual lives on in the Dorset village of Corfe Castle, in which members of the Ancient Order of Purbeck Marblers and Stonecutters play football in the streets following their annual general meeting on Shrove Tuesday. Historically, the freemen and their new apprentices would dribble the ball several miles up the road to Ower Quay, helping to preserve the route along which quarried stone was transported and later shipped.