Standing Pies and Possets: An Old Fashioned Cumbrian Christmas (a Cultural Landscapes event)
University of Cumbria in Ambleside, Percival Lecture Theatre, Langdale Building, LA22 9BB
Tuesday 1st December 2026
Title: Standing Pies and Possets: An Old Fashioned Cumbrian Christmas
About the talk:
Christmas has always been celebrated in style in Cumbria, it being one of the few times in the year workers got any sort of holiday. The season then, as now, was characterised by eating, drinking and making merry.
The festive season was ushered in on Christmas Eve by the Waits, who ‘played their Christmas tune’ beneath the eaves of Dove Cottage, as Wordsworth relates. And as John Housman wrote in 1800, Christmas would continue with feasting and dancing until after the Twelfth Day with little work done during most of that time.
This seasonal offering from the Lake District and wider Cumbria features Christmas waits, ‘hunsupping’, Men of Misrule, feasting, carols, merry neets and more, from the Early Modern period through to the end of the nineteenth century.
Our speaker: Dr Sue Allan is a cultural historian, writer and folklorist who researches and publishes on Cumbrian customs, traditions and dialect as well as – occasionally – performing folk songs, tunes and dances. Prior to developing her work as an independent scholar, Sue worked in local radio, TV and community arts development in the county, but is probably best-known locally as a freelance arts feature writer for Cumbria Life magazine.
Venue: Percival Lecture Theatre, Langdale Building, at the University of Cumbria's Ambleside Campus. Please note this is an in-person event only.
About the talk:
Christmas has always been celebrated in style in Cumbria, it being one of the few times in the year workers got any sort of holiday. The season then, as now, was characterised by eating, drinking and making merry.
The festive season was ushered in on Christmas Eve by the Waits, who ‘played their Christmas tune’ beneath the eaves of Dove Cottage, as Wordsworth relates. And as John Housman wrote in 1800, Christmas would continue with feasting and dancing until after the Twelfth Day with little work done during most of that time.
This seasonal offering from the Lake District and wider Cumbria features Christmas waits, ‘hunsupping’, Men of Misrule, feasting, carols, merry neets and more, from the Early Modern period through to the end of the nineteenth century.
Our speaker: Dr Sue Allan is a cultural historian, writer and folklorist who researches and publishes on Cumbrian customs, traditions and dialect as well as – occasionally – performing folk songs, tunes and dances. Prior to developing her work as an independent scholar, Sue worked in local radio, TV and community arts development in the county, but is probably best-known locally as a freelance arts feature writer for Cumbria Life magazine.
Venue: Percival Lecture Theatre, Langdale Building, at the University of Cumbria's Ambleside Campus. Please note this is an in-person event only.
Price
Ticket price
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