Organisers reveal rushcart date
WHITWORTH Rushcart celebration will take place on Sunday, September 2, organisers have announced.
The procession will leave from Whitworth Museum, North Street, Whitworth, at 1pm.
Featuring numerous traditional morris dance troupes, including the Britannia Coconutters and the Whitworth Morris Men, the Rushcart will travel north on Market Street, arriving at The Riverside at about 1.20pm.
From 1.15pm until 4.30pm, the car park of The Riverside will be cordoned off for stalls, entertainment, and performances from morris dancers and Whitworth Vale and Healey Youth Band.
St Bartholomew’s Church will be providing traditional hot food, and the Riverside bar will be open, where a real ale named ‘Grogan’s Delight’ in memory of the late Jimmy Grogan, Honorary Townsman of Whitworth will be on sale.
There will also be an arts and craft Fair, featuring a variety of artisan stalls in the Riverside main hall.
The Whitworth Rushcart is one of only four such celebrations which still take place in the UK, the others being in Sowerby Bridge, Littleborough and Saddleworth.
Whitworth’s cart is unique in that it is the only one in the UK to be covered in local heather that is in bloom at this time of year, collected by
the Whitworth Rushcart Men from the moors above Darwen before the event.
Rushcarts in the other areas are covered with rushes or tatters of cloth.
Whitworth’s Rushcart history goes back hundreds of years; initially the celebration was linked into the cutting and collection of rushes to be strewn on the bare earth or stone flagged floor of the church as a form of insulation for the winter to come, taken to the church on the cart. Out of this grew a celebration which was enjoyed by the whole community.
In the 1970s and 1980s the Rushcart was the highlight of the Whitworth Fair week, but in recent times the week-long festivities have passed into history.
The Rushcart now takes place on a Sunday afternoon each September rather than its traditional Friday night slot, and has become more family-focused, attracting 1,500 visitors annually.