Celebration at sweeps

Sweeps festival is celebrated by a range of Morris dancers and entertainers who come from all over the country to dance throughout the three-day festival.

Morris dance goes back to 1448. It is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers, usually wearing bell pads on their shins. 

Morris dancers cannot perform without suitable music and each village has its own variants of the tunes. Some of the music were from the late mediaeval period, while others were popular tunes from the 18th and 19th centuries

Sweeps Festival 

Rochester

Rochester Sweeps Festival is celebrated on May Day weekend. It resembles fun, joy, happinness and fertility.

The festival dates back to nearly 400 years and it was the only holiday for chimney sweeps  where they could actually leave their joy, dance and have some fun.

Sweeping chimneys  was a a very hard work for the sweeps and chimney boys so that day was very significant to them

The festival was revived in 1981 by local businessman and historian Gordon Newton.