Skimmington

A 'Skimmington/Squimmington', or more correctly 'Riding a Skimmington' was reportedly a local tradition in the 19th century whereby an aged horse would be loaded with grains and a pair of 'imps' wearing padded clothing, one male, the other female sat on the horse mimicking a quarrel of a married couple and beating each other with implements such as bellows, skimmer or other utensils.

Locally, in the early 1830s, when one of these domestic arguments occurred with more than the ordinary severity, two men (usually "Tawnser" Adams and "Jemmy" Hyland), one of them dressed in a woman's gown and bonnet, rode what was called the "Squimmington." They mounted a horse and with brushes, skimmers, brewer's grains etc., pretended to assault each other, at the same time mimicking the parties who were the subject of their burlesque, by repeating the words which the husband and wife were known to have used in their quarrel with the aim of bringing shame on the original participants.

A real-life example of this actually taking place was when a stable-master by the name of Edward Smith berated his dipsomaniac wife astride a horse owned by James Burton in 1833, Burton being said to take more offence at his horse being used without permission than the actual event. Smith acquired the nickname of 'Skimmer' as a result of this event. More widely, the tradition would appear to date to perhaps the 17th century, when a satirist named Butter described the scene.

In essence, it would appear to have been a rather burlesque affair and led to at least one participant being fined 30 shillings in 1834 in an attempt by the authorities to put the practice down.