Elaborately decorated floats (or "devices") were created by the different Sunday Schools and paraded around the town with the children finally congregating on Sconce Hills for games and refreshments.

Some of the devices were truly exceptional (as this week's picture shows) and were rendered all the more remarkable when one considers that they were merely temporary constructions dismantled within a few days of the event.

Running parallel with the non-conformist Sunday School festivals were the Anglican Schools' lantern parades which despite possessing a somewhat lower profit were no less valued by their participants.

Local author Rosemary Robb has recalled her memories of taking part in the Church lantern parades in the late 1930s.

They were always held she recalls on the last Thursday before the summer holidays although preparations had been taking place for many weeks beforehand.

Children saved their pocket money to buy the brightly coloured paper chinese lanterns from Page's toyshop on Cartergate. After attending a service at the Parish Church the procession with brightly coloured banners marched through the town to Sconce Hills where the children ran races and watched their various Sunday School teachers compete in a game of hockey.

As dusk fell children teachers and parents assembled outside the park to await the arrival of the British Legion brass band.

As the first notes were heard in the distance candles were lit and placed inside the lanterns instantly illuminating the scene with colour.

The procession moved slowly back through the town where as Mrs Robb recalls: "Townspeople crowded the pavements and aunts uncles grannies and cousins hung precariously out of bedroom windows to get a better view....at last we reached the market place where we all sang the hymn 'Glory to Thee my God this Night' before standing stiffly to attention for the National Anthem."

The day ended as the Parish Church bells rang out and the children made their way home to bed. Another custom connected with the Parish Church in Newark is the ringing of the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Bell.

In times past the bell was rung to call people to the annual Shriving Service where in preparation for Lent money from local charities was given out as alms to the poor and elderly.

The church service is no longer held but the tradition of ringing the Pancake Bell continues. By tradition it is the youngest member of the Parish Church bell ringers who tolls the Pancake Bell (No 2 in the ten bell peal) for ten minutes at 11am on Shrove Tuesday.

In contrast to the church-based customs discussed so far I will close by mentioning two rather more secular customs which were once prevalent in the district.

A particular pastime once eagerly observed in the village of Eakring was that of a mass football match in which all the villagers are said to have taken part.

The "Eakring ball-play" (as it is termed in the Victoria County History of Nottinghamshire) took place on Easter Tuesday each year being originally a means of determining who amongst the residents had a talent for playing the game.

The game would extend over a number of days and such a firm hold did it maintain in the village that the villagers would even kick the ball to and from church on Sunday.

Sadly today the Eakring ball-play is no longer with us but for those who may be interested in witnessing such a spectacle for themselves a mass football match is still played each year in the village of Ashbourne in Derbyshire.

Finally in this brief summary of obscure local customs it is perhaps worth devoting some space to an event once indulged in by local naturalists known as sugaring.

In Nottinghamshire in the late 19th Century this pastime was particularly well established in parts of Sherwood Forest being regularly organised on summer evenings to collect specimens for entomological study.

Armed with a pot containing treacle and rum a band of insect-hunters would sally forth into the darkened forest. Others carried bottles containing cyanide of potassium and a fine meshed net with which to scoop up their quarry.

As they came across moths and other insects feasting on the intoxicating mixtures daubed on the trees it was but a simple task to net them and despatch them to the poison bottle.

Writing of the sugaring ritual in 1894 one local naturalist found the ethereal atmosphere of the forest so pervading that he was moved almost to poetry: "The wood is deathly still; a religious awe makes the trappers speak in whispers; a white-winged ghost flits by in the gloom; now the moonlight strikes the glinting birch bark; presently something hard is kicked in the path perchance a a hedgehog that has rolled itself into a prickly ball for defence.....no-one has ever felt the full charm of the forest who has not seen it on such a night."

ABOVE: A bygone Newark custom: a most elaborate "device" from one of the annual non-conformist Sunday School festivals pictured on Sconce Hills. This fine depiction of a rustic summer house was produced by the Methodist New Connexion Sunday School on Barnbygate in1905.