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Here
are some pictures of public houses in the Withington area,
with historical notes. For fuller details of the history
of those in Withington village, see the
Village
history.
Click
on pictures to expand the images, which may be then
further magnified.
The
Rush Cart Procession
The
Rush Cart procession is recounted in Kenneth Whitaker's A
History of Withington: "This took place on St.
Oswald's day, the fifth of August. The rushes, which
Withington provided to strew on the floor of the Parish
Church at Didsbury, were piled onto a large waggon and
escorted with mime and dancing. The procession was held
for over six hundred years, surviving well into the
nineteenth century. In later years the rush cart was made
up at Mee's Farm, at the rear of the 'White Lion'.
Sometimes the date 1603 was designed in marigolds on the
cart. Fletcher Moss suggested that this date indicated
when a cart was first used to carry the rushes. Before it,
men or pack horses would have been used."
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