Whitworth Rushcart procession and celebrations

Date published: 02 September 2019

The annual Whitworth Rushcart celebrations took place on Sunday afternoon (1 September 2019).

The procession left Whitworth Museum at 1.00pm and travelled along Market Street to The Riverside, featuring numerous traditional morris dance troupes, including the famous Britannia Coconutters and the Whitworth Morris Men, led by the Rushcart itself.

This year, regular dancers were joined by Rivington Morris and Bradshaw Mummers. The Bradshaw Mummers are a street theatre group performing traditional and contemporary plays based on the medieval mumming traditions and Rivington Morris are a women’s morris team who also participated in the rushcart parade in Littleborough earlier this year.

Despite the parade being hit by rain for the first time in a long while, the spirits of all who attended refused to be dampened.

The car park of The Riverside hosted stalls, entertainment and performances from Whitworth's Samba Dance, the Whitworth Rushcart Men and the Britannia Coconutters, plus the Whitworth Vale and Healey Youth Band.

St Bartholomew’s Church provided traditional hot food and the indoor Riverside bar offered a real ale ‘Grogan’s Delight’ in memory of the late Jimmy Grogan, Honorary Townsman of Whitworth.

An arts and craft fair, featuring a variety of artisan stalls, could also be found indoors in the Riverside main hall.

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; in recent times the week-long festivities have passed into history however the popularity of the Rushcart itself in Whitworth is strong. 

The Rushcart now takes place on a Sunday afternoon each September, rather than its traditional Friday night slot, and has become more family-focused.