LANARK LANIMER DAY
An ancient celebration held within the Royal Burgh of Lanark on the Thursday between the Sixth and Twelfth days of June annually since the year 1140.
 

An Ancient Festival holden annually at Lanark on the Thursday falling between the 6th and the 12th day of June since the year 1140

A 'lang pedigree' is a comfortable thing to own and the Lanimers, 'ancient and yeirlie' in 1588 when the ex-Vicar John Weir was a bailie may make us complacent about their enduring qualities. They are so old that we may think of them as unchanging from age to age, set in a mould not to be broken and as regards their prime purpose that is exactly true. The Lanimers are the Land-marches and we have always inspected the March stones although their number has diminished.

In other respects many changes have taken place; in the arrangement of events and in the manner of the performance. Little more than a hundred years ago the Shifting of the Standard, the Perambulation and the Riding of the Marches all took place on Lanimer Day. They threw baps or rolls in those days from the windows of the Clydesdale Hotel to the crowd in the court-yard below; a crowd hungry after their happy exertions. The Town Council paid.

The Lanimers in our day are by no means dry but we are temperate compared with some of our predecessors, for in 1736 the Council drew attention to 'the great disorders committed by sundry persons, as drinking at the doors of the magistrates and others before and after the riding of the said marches'. The Council forbade the bringing of liquor to or before the doors, upon the street, and warned the riders 'not to expect the same coming from them'. Penalty, £5 scots.

But the Magistrates were kindly men, indulgent during the Lanimer season and they did not seek for convictions; perhaps because they too were jolly in their own quarters. One young man however went too far and achieved a sort of record. In 1615 Hugh Mowat, apprentice in the law-office of William Mowat, Town Clerk, signed as a reputable witness the formal report composed by the Clerk, in the late afternoon. Later, in the evening, he and Robert Hastie appeared before the Magistrates for 'trublens' (breach of the peace). They were fined 20/- each and forbidden to wear whingers (short swords) in future, a punishment equivalent in our day to the permanent loss of a driving licence for every young fellow of spirit wore a whinger.

Only one Standard-bearer has disgraced himself since 1670 by failing to return the standard 'unsullied and unstained'. In 1760 the Treasurer was told to pay James Simpson, tailor, 7/6 sterling 'for repairing the town's flag and putting thereto new knops and cords and mending the other parts thereof which were spoiled by the negligence of George Dalziel. Standard-bearer, last Whitsunday Thursday, 1759'. George was no sportsman; he should have paid for the repairs. The Dalziels were brewers and the Standard-bearer, we suspect, was not an abstainer. Of course they were incomers, not genuine Lanarkians but their place of origin need not be mentioned.

The date of Lanimer Day was always recorded in the Burgh Records, till nearly 1800, as being Whitsunday Thursday, the Thursday after Whitsunday which is the seventh Sunday after Easter. Easter can be as early as 21st March and as late as 25th April, involving 36 possible days, according to the date of the full moon. It follows that the range of possible dates for Whitsun and Whitsunday Thursday is also one of 36 days.

Thus in 1592 Lanimer Day was on the 16th of May; in 1614 it was on the 14th of June while in 1615 it was on the 30th of May. They knew their Table of Moveable Feasts in those days when Mr. Birnie, the minister, was a loyal supporter of the King and his Bishops. A hundred years later in 1713, the Lanimers were held on Whitsun Thursday 'as usual' but in the following year the entry is 'on the last Thursday of this instant (May) as usual'. Whitsun Thursday was now defined as being the last Thursday in May, in any year; the tail now wagged the dog. The range of dates now could not exceed one week, instead of the former thirty-six days and that was the rule till 1752. In the rest of the world Whitsunday Thursday might occur in the month of April but in the Royal Burgh it was invariably in the last week of May. Lanimer Day and Whitsunday Thursday were different words for the same thing and the outside world could hold its Moveable Feasts when it liked.

In 1752 Parliament in London reformed the calendar. A small error every year over a long period of time had amounted by 1752 to eleven days so it was announced that Wednesday, 2nd September, 1752 would be followed by Thursday 14th and many people were deeply disturbed thinking they had been robbed of eleven days of life. In Lanark to maintain the status quo, and perhaps to retain the usual sunny days, the date of Lanimer Day was made eleven days later, in June instead of May, but with a range of seven days as before. That made no difference to the Town Clerk who wrote, year by year, in the Records that the Land Marches would be examined on Whitsunday Thursday as usual, his final entry to that effect being in 1794 long after Whitsunday Thursday, Lanark version, had parted company with the official one in the Church Calendar. Perhaps the new minister, Mr Menzies had dropped a hint.

We no longer pursue Magistrates, Deacons and riders with flagons of liquor. The jovial dinners, rare feasts in a spare-living age are a dim memory. When our fore-fathers ran a race it was on a shaggy part of the moor, an adventure course made interesting by marshes, soggy peatland, whins and other natural obstacles. Now we prefer a flat course on smooth turf. We parade our birks in genteel fashion, as symbols of something forgotten in the past. We do not compete in our hundreds, as enthusiasts or vandals, for the honour of carrying the heaviest branch or young tree from the lands of Jerviswood. But principally, since 1893, we have by the addition of the Queen and her Court and the Pageants and Tableaux added colour, gaiety, music and the happiness of childhood to the ancient ceremony.

Luckily our predecessors knew more about the weather and sunshine than they did about the Moveable Feasts.

A.D.R.