Sweeps - normality returns
Rochester Sweeps Festival 2022. The 40th year that the event has taken place. Of course this should have happened two years ago but Covid-19 struck two months before and all the plans for the 2020 festival had to be cancelled, and due to continuing restrictions 2021 was just not even considered.
The festival originally set out to be a morris dance festival with sides coming to Rochester from all over the UK to celebrate the coming of spring, the start of the dance season, and (loosely) follow the tradition set out by Charles Dickens in Sketches by Boz where chimmney sweeps processed with the ‘Jack-in-the-Green’, an 8 foot high walking bush whose origins are somewhat lost or mistranslated. Some say the Jack is based on the Green Man foliate heads found in churches and cathedrals across Europe (and Rochester Cathedral has more than its fair share if you know where to look), others say it was the sweep’s cheap version of the tradition of milkmaids processing with their ladles attached to their clothing to celebrate the better quality milk coming from cattle going out to pasture. Over the years though the festival has changed. The morris sides still come but not in the same numbers (there are now more similar festivals and the cost of travel doesn’t help), but the festival has grown to become more of a traditional music festival and one where food, drink, and a fun day out are easily available for the incoming punter.
Alongside the festival this year is an art installation in the cathedral. The Leaves of the Tree by Peter Walker is a reflective memorial to the coronavirus pandemic and is made up of 5000 steel leaves, all with the word HOPE cut out from them. Appearing as the fallen leaves of autumn they symbolise the hope for the future - a new spring.
