Game balls centuries old and passed down through the generations adorn fireplaces and hang from the ceiling of local pubs. It’s called Shrovetide football, and few things compare to it. But for two days in late winter, locals take to the streets of Ashbourne when the town becomes a living folklore. It’s a place where pensioners spend their golden years gazing through coffee shop windows at elaborately garnished cakes, buying Sunday roasts from butchers named Nigel’s or Mark’s - not the typical High Street chains. It has a population slightly over 8,000 with a pub named after a duke or a dragon on near enough every corner, emblazoned with Union Jack flags. The pagan game of Shrovetide has begun.įor 363 days of the year Ashbourne, Derbyshire, is just another town, a gatekeeper to the Peak District. Then, silence, a fleeting moment that seems to last two lifetimes before a ball is thrown skyward and falls to grasping hands. There’s a roar of applause, a wave of sound loud enough to ripple through the streets as cold breath hangs in the air. “ Long to reign over us, God save the Queen,” chants a choir of thousands on a patch of the English Midlands, their eyes fixated on a single podium.
