Royton Rant

[leeslover]

Taken from The Bugle, a local history newsletter. Good to know Roytoners were doing their civic duty and battering Gawbies back in the day:

 

 

 

 

Mid Lent Sunday (the 4th Sunday in Lent) was once a much loved ‘holiday’ in Royton. It was even said to have rivalled the Wakes held every August for the number of visitors brought into the town. Nowadays we call it ‘Mothering Sunday’, a hearkening back to the days when apprentices were given a day off to visit their mothers and mother villages, bearing flowers and simnel cakes, a pastry and currant concoction, then popular at Easter. In Royton the day was officially known as ‘Mid Lent’ or ‘Simnel Sunday’ but unofficially as ‘the Rant’ due to the boisterous antics of some of the younger inhabitants. While pubs, other venues, and surprisingly, shops were open to the adults, the youths of the town were wont to show off their belligerence by threatening each other with ‘thin canes’ and shouting ‘close you!’ (an order to stand to attention), or fighting the hated ‘Shaw Gawbies’ on Parapet Hill (rising ground bordering the present golf course off Linkside Avenue and Park Lane). The gangs from Shaw came to ‘steal the rant’ whilst the Royton lads fought to cut down’ th’owd Ash’, a Shaw landmark blown down in a storm in 1887.

The more peaceable townsfolk took in visitors, stocked up on pies and penny muffins, and wandered round the streets with their visitors in groups, catching up on old news. But pride of place was inevitably given to the simnel cakes themselves, the products of much care, and competitions, some so big that they filled an entire display window. The practice was said to have been brought to Royton by a farmer and carrier (waggon driver) from Bury, then famous for its simnels in the l ate 18th century. This man, ‘Old Franklin’ was also a baker and soon his simnels had spawned imitators. Thus the Royton simnel came into being: 'a flat cake of two layers of pastry with anything from half to three-quarters of an inch of currants between. There was a slightly raised edge and very often a frilling of coloured paper. The top of the cake was covered with white icing sugar.’ It was also popular to cut or ‘paint’ a topical design into the icing. A favourite theme was the famous Nipthistle story, the tale of a pea seller who tied his donkey, ‘ Nipthistle’, to a public house railing style of gate, only to find that the mischievous locals had un-tethered his donkey while he was drinking, placed it inside the gate, then re-attached it leaving donkey and cart tied but on both sides of the barrier. The donkey was not much liked as its braying was said to have foretold the death of many of Royton weaver.

Alas, the Rant eventually fell afoul of modern attitudes to boisterousness and an influx of drunks from Oldham and other places. At one time the holiday was extended into Monday by some Fustian cutters and other trades. A newspaper report of 1889 described the Rant as a ‘successful gathering of country folk’, but a newspaper report of 1901 reported that the holiday was dying out ‘thanks to the growing intelligence of the people’

 

Sources: annual newspaper reports 1860-1936 (especially Oldham Chronicle 21 march 1936)

[boboafc]

the Rant eventually fell afoul of modern attitudes to boisterousness and an influx of drunks from Oldham

still the same today in oldham ,nothing has changed for 70+ years

[RoytonBlueLad]

Excellent that