Pace Egging: Traditional Cracking Easter Fun!

Have you heard of Pace Egging? 

 As it is coming up to Easter, we thought that we would bring you a suitably ‘egg themed’ blog post looking at a very ancient tradition seen throughout Northern England at this time of the year-Pace Egging.

I must admit, that up until only recently, I had not heard of the notion of ‘pace egging’. It was only by chance, when clearing through some old emails, that I saw it had been posed as an enquiry to our Archives, and so I thought what a perfect opportunity now, for us to take a look at the origins of this ‘cracking’ Easter tradition. So, what is ‘pace egging’?. Your first thought might be something involve chasing rolling eggs down an English hillside in a remote idyllic village, we regularly chase cheeses and barrels of beer, so why not eggs!. 

Decorating Pace Eggs

Let us start with the word ‘Pace’, which in this case has no relationship to speed, truth being it comes from the Latin ‘Pacha’, which means Easter. The Old English translation Pasch meaning Pesach or Passover. The tradition originates from as far back as the time of The Crusades and has been carried out in several counties including Lancashire, Yorkshire and Northumberland. Eggs would be decorated by wrapping them in onion skins and carefully boiling (this gave their shells and appearance of mottled gold). The eggs were sometimes covered in flowers and leaves, before boiling, to leave a pattern on them. Decorated eggs may then be eaten for breakfast on Easter Sunday, kept as decorations or given to those taking part in the Pace Egging event. In more recent times, eggs are hard boiled and painted. Traditionally, children would compete to see who could roll their egg the farthest down a Paiss-braes (hills), or other grassy slopes.

Easter eggs, Elsene, Belgium (2007) (Attribution: Waelsch)) (CC BY-SA 3.0) (Wikipedia)

Pace Egg Plays 

Pace Egg Plays were performed in Northern England as part of the Easter tradition, but having once been common, they died out following the first World War, when many of the men who took part in the plays, were killed in action. However, during the twentieth century, the plays were revived in the areas of Lancashire and West Yorkshire. Pace Egg plays took the tradition of medieval mystery plays, involving a mock combat between the hero and villain in which the hero is killed and brought back to life, often by a quack doctor. They were performed by Pace Eggers, who sometimes received gifts of decorated eggs from villagers. Performances took place in in their surrounding villages and the performers often decorated their faces with masks, wore animal skins, ribbons or coloured paper, and sometimes carried wooden swords. 

Pace Egg Play, Upper Caldy Valley (Wikipedia)

Egg Rolling

In Lancashire, there are annual egg rolling competitions at Holcombe Hill near Ramsbottom and Avenham Park in Preston, where egg rolling has been a tradition for hundreds of years.  

Other traditional egg rolling sites include the castle moat at Penrith, Bunkers Hill in Derby, Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh and on Penshaw Hill in Tyne and Wear at Penshaw Monument. In Scotland, ‘pace-eggin’ is traditional from Shetland to the Borders although the day upon which it was held, varied with location. 

 Egg Rolling on distant shores

The tradition of egg rolling is also practiced elsewhere throughout the world, with each nation having their own version of the game. In the United States, the Easter Egg Roll is an annual event held on the White House Lawn each Easter Monday for children and their parents. The event is hosted by the President of the United States and the First Lady and is a tradition that dates back many years.

Egg rolling on the White House South lawn, 1929 (Wikipedia)

We hope that this quick insight into a local Easter tradition has got you ‘egg-cited’ for Easter and for the wonderful heritage and traditions that we are able to celebrate at this time of the year.

Happy Easter!