Here in Lichfield, Shrove Tuesday is celebrated with people dressed up as princesses, pirates or, um, slices of pizza racing along Bore Street as they flip pancakes. Visitors to the city tomorrow may see the old Price of Wales/Chameleon Bar/Feria and think its been boarded up as a precautionary measure in case the shrovetide shenanigans get out of hand but it’s actually just been left derelict for about twenty years.

Somewhere they really do have to take such steps to protect their premises is up the A5 at Atherstone, where instead of pancake racing they play a truly hardcore game of football and have been doing so since 1199. Apparently, once the giant leather ball has been tossed into the crowds onto Long Street there are only two rules. One is that the ball must stay on Long Street. The other is that you can’t kill anyone. I told you it was hardcore (by comparison, the rules of the Lichfield Shrovetide Festivities include mandatory non-slip footwear and that at some point during the festivities the Mayor of Lichfield must be photographed in a spinning teacup on the Market Square).

With this in mind, I am inclined to believe the following anecdote about the good folks of Atherstone. In February 1800, John Massey was executed for murder and his body was gibbeted at Bilstone, near the site where he committed his heinous crime. Eighteen years later, his rotting remains remained on display, and became quite the local tourist attraction for Atherstonians who would pop there for a picnic. Once they’d finished their food, they’d partake in that quaint old pastime of throwing stones at the murderer’s skeleton. Eventually, a grocer called Mr Peach knocked the skull from its boney shoulders and so the group of day-trippers took it back home to Atherstone with them. It seems Peach then presented this sinister souvenir as a gift to his local pub.

I’ve read the skull was lined with silver and turned into a punchbowl. Other versions claim the cranium became a candle holder. Some say it was eventually stolen, others say it’s still kept in a secret safe in one of Atherstone’s ancient inns. If you know anything more, please give me a heads up. Finally, please do accept my apologies if I’ve put you off your pancakes.

Sources:

Coalville Times – Friday 30 November 1956

Loughborough Echo – Friday 25 January 1952