Learn about the The Canterbury Plum Pudding Riots with Quiz Trails

We love sharing the Kent history we discover! Discover more about one of our fantastic Kent towns – maybe Sandwich or Tenterden or Sevenoaks? Here’s a Christmas story from Canterbury …

The Canterbury Plum Pudding Riots of 1647

On Wednesday, 22 December 1647 Canterbury's town crier proclaimed the suppression of Christmas Day under the ruling of a new Puritan government. Celebrations and mince pies were banned, and it was to be treated as any other working day during which shops must open. A shop keeper was put into the stocks for refusing to open and a large crowd gathered on Christmas Day to demand a church service, to be able to decorate doorways with holly bushes and to keep the shops shut. This crowd – under the slogan "For God, King Charles, and Kent" – then descended into violence and a riot, with a soldier being assaulted, the mayor's house attacked and the city under the rioters' control for several weeks until they were forced to surrender in early January. The good people of Canterbury weren’t having their Christmas cancelled!

Order online at www.quiztrail.co.uk