Ovington Maypoles

I love a Village Green.

I like the way that it scoops up the space between the road and the houses, the formality of neatly set out dwellings around the grass...the green!

This is a green with a gargantuan spindle of Finnish wood pinned in the middle. Ovington is affectionately known as The Maypole Village, and it's easy to see why!

Puncturing the meticulously manicured grass is The Ovington Maypole; actually, not one but two.

The altitudinous wooden pole has stood here for centuries. Introduced in 1897, it was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee...60 years on the throne!

The maypole has always been 60 feet tall, perhaps a foot for each year of celebration; however, it has had a few understudies before the current maypole took pride of place.

Just after the Second World War, it was replaced by local resident George Kidson, born the year the first maypole was erected.

The Teesdale Mercury reported that he “and a friend, cut down a tall larch tree given by Mr Johnny Herbert of Barforth. There were no chain saws to lighten the task, but they did it in half a day with axes and a big cross-cut saw. Then George dug a ten-foot deep hole for the pole, watched by spectators who marvelled at the speed with which he completed the job!"

In August 1987, he returned to the village to celebrate his 90th birthday and to see his handiwork still standing tall, where the maypole had been designated as a Grade Two listed structure.

Article from The Teesdale Mercury.

Looking up the vertiginous timber, I could see a small fox weathervane.

In 2001, to celebrate the Year of the Artist, English Regional Arts Boards wanted to place 1000 artists across the UK in 1000 different places.

Blacksmith Graham Hopper was commissioned to make a sign for the village of Ovington. He felt that a regular written sign wouldn't be appropriate, as most villages already had signage.

He wanted to create something more original, and worked with school children and residents to devise a piece of art which represented the many years of life and people around the Ovington Maypole.

Made from galvanised steel, Maypole Dancers offers a real sense of movement in metal, which must be a hard thing to recreate.

You can sense the wind blowing through the bunting, the bent backs of dancers and the streamers atop the maypole.

In 2006, the structure needed to be replaced after many years of to-ing and fro-ing around it. It had a short life on the green for nine years, as on the day of 9th November 2015, 60 mile an hour Storm Abigail tore down the 60 foot pole. Snapped off at the base, villagers were agog to see the maypole a gonner in the grass. It was the first storm named by the Met Office and left a devastating trail of destruction across the village of Ovington.

Image from The Northern Echo.

Less than a year later, people in the village had clubbed together, fundraised and through generous donations and a chunk from the parish council, they'd raised enough to bring life back to the green, with a new maypole taking pride of place, with the wood for the maypole being imported from Finland.

Parts of the old maypole were repurposed and reused, being fashioned into benches and dotted around the village green for people to sit and admire the new maypole.

Image from Hugo Fox Ovington Parish Council

All the daffodils that George Kidson planted just after the war still shine through each spring

And an old handbill for the May Day celebrations from 1870 was discovered, which urged people to attend the festivities -

“Pudding-eaters, smokers, turners.

Sages, philosophers, and gurners,

We most respectfully invite you,

to a scene that will delight you.

Let us meet on common level.

Come and join our May Day revel!”

Image from The Northern Echo.