Local history

For thousands of years people have marked the passing of time with pageants, parades and festivals. Many, like Christmas and Easter, are associated with religious beliefs, although even these are probably influenced by pre-Christian celebrations of the changing of the seasons and the need people have to mark the stages of the year. Some are local and distinctive and it is here that Medway has established an international reputation. Any visitor to Medway over the past few years might have encountered Victorian parades, displays of Norman horsemanship, Japanese drumming, folk dancing and traction engines.

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All of these have been part of recent festivals, which have drawn participants from further and further afield. Some are no longer annual events but with the Dickens Festival now past its twenty-fifth year, we can be sure that others will be with us for a long time to come.

The history of the modern festivals in Medway probably begins with the Dickens Festival Pageant in 1951, which was a huge show, extensively scripted and performed in Rochester High Street and the castle gardens. The spirit of this event was revived for the regular summer Dickens Festival, which began in 1979, the year the Charles Dickens Centre was opened in Rochester. A Christmas Dickens Festival joined the summer event in 1988 and indeed is still with us today in the guise of a more general winter celebration with Dickensian trimmings.

The Sweeps Festival, one of the largest gatherings of folk and traditional dancers in the world, takes its inspiration, name, and May date from the holiday given to boy chimney sweeps in the bad old days. The Jack-in-the-Green (an ancient symbol used to mark the coming of summer) is “woken up” on Blue Bell Hill at dawn on 1 May and is in attendance throughout the festival, which sees Rochester filled with groups of musicians and dancers in traditional costumes.

In Gillingham over the past few years, the Will Adams Festival has given a chance to Medway residents and visitors to celebrate and learn more about the area’s links with Japan. Traditional Japanese crafts, music and martial arts are enjoyed by those who go along, all to help acknowledge the relationship begun by Adams more than 400 years ago.

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