Pancake Racing
Pancake Racing
In Olney, Buckinghamshire, there is a local legend about an absent minded housewife who, realising the she was more than a little late starting off for church, dashed the 420 yard journey only to realise that she still had a frying pan in her hand. Whether or not this actually happened, this dash is commemorate annually on Shrove Tuesday by a race which, with occasional lapses and revivals, is supposed to have bee first run in 1445 - some 550 years ago! This is the world famous Olney Pancake Race (http://olneypancakerace.org/).
The traditional format of the race was something like this. The runners, who must be women inhabitant of Olney, donned aprons and head scarves and waited in their kitchens for a bell to ring twice. The first warned them to make their pancakes and the second summoned them to congregate in the village square with their frying pans where the race would begin. The Pancake Bell was then rung and they were off. During the quarter of a mile dash to the parish church, the contestants had to toss the pancakes a minimum of three times, the rules allowing those spilt to be picked up. The winner was the first to arrive at the church door where the Vicar would present her with a bible or prayer book, and the verger would claim kiss and sometimes even the pancake. The runner-up may even get something, too. Then all the pans were placed around the font in the church and a blessing took place. And that was it.
Today it is much the same, only that the pancakes are ready-made and the sponsor of the race will late greet the winner and present her with a nice new set of non-stick cooking pans.
However, the Olney race is far from unique. Winster in Derbyshire also has a race for men, women an children which has been run since 1870, and there are others at Lincoln’s Inn field, London (recent! discontinued and replaced by races in Soho and Covent Garden by street performers and local workers Liverpool, Ely in Cambridgeshire and Bodiam in Sussex. But perhaps most interesting is the one in Liberal, Kansas, USA, which for nearly fifty years has staged a replica of the Olney version - run at exactly the same time - in order to present a direct challenge for the fastest times run.
This page is part of our Beginners’ Guide: British Folk Customs From Plough Monday to Hocktide.
