“The English have an immense fascination with trivial factoids (pub quizzes, etc). This is just one version of an ‘anorak' (i.e. twitchers, bell-ringers, etc). These people do not exist in other countries the way they do here - but perhaps, in the case of trainspotting, there is a relationship between this obsession and the development of rail travel and the national rail network. Otherwise, there are some really bored/boring people in England.” (ICONS reader)

Trainspotting

Let us first concentrate on Britain’s most well-known ‘anorak’ hobby - which has to be trainspotting surely. Of course there are plenty of trainspotters all over the world scribbling away in their trusty notepads even as you read this, but trainspotting has definitely been embraced by the British with an almost unrivalled fascination and vigour.

Plus there is evidence pointing towards the world’s first ever trainspotter being a British 14-year-old, John Backhouse from Country Durham. The ‘Backhouse Letter’, written in October 1825 by a young John, is a key item in the National Collection housed in the National Railway Museum’s new interactive Archive & Research Centre Search Engine. As the letter contains the world’s first child’s drawing of a train, it is considered to be the world’s first example of trainspotting.

However, to those who are not fans of hanging about on station platforms come rain or shine in their very best waterproof anorak - sharpened pencils stuffed in the pockets, note pad at the ready - trainspotting is probably one of the least desirable ways of spending leisure time imaginable.

But as long as the passenger train has existed, there has been a devoted body of men and women that have passionately followed its path across the English countryside. The first rail enthusiasts were progressive thinkers - recognising the potential of the railways to change the world, and the opening of the first permanent steam locomotive railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway on September 27 1825, marked a seminal moment in world history.

Gardening

Ok, gardening is not an especially eccentric hobby, but our all-consuming, burning passion for it arguably is. We are unequivocally a nation of garden lovers and for the greenest of fingers - gardening is more of a full-on obsession than a hobby. We explore why we are so devoted to our patches of green and pleasant land – however big or small – as part of our English garden icon. Click here to dig a little deeper…

Weird & wonderful

Our country plays host to a staggering number of weird and wonderful ceremonies, customs and games – the more eclectic the better. Furthermore, the World Marble, Conker, Pooh-Sticks, Pea-shooting, Coal carrying, Nettle-eating, Biggest Liar in the World (honestly, really) Championships are held here.

“English folk love being daft. All over England there are daft events that go on. People have daft hobbies and enjoy just being daft. Where else in the world do they celebrate eccentricity and silliness as much as England?”  (ICONS reader)

As well as *well-dressing, cheese rolling, * elver-eating, haystack racing (and that’s just in the county of Gloucestershire), England boasts a veritable feast of bonkers fun and games that includes snail racing, turnip-throwing, flat cap flinging, shin kicking, black pudding throwing and even – a clear sign of our times – mobile phone throwing.

As is usually the case with the more off-the-wall world championships and bizarre competitions, the roots of many of these unusual events can be traced back to the local pub – no surprise there really! Plus many of these traditions are celebrated on and around the Spring Bank holiday. 

* Elvers are baby eels, however their stocks are rapidly decreasing so this custom is rightly a thing of the past.

* At its simplest, well-dressing is the art of decorating springs and wells with pictures made from local plant life. It is a form of water worship and the dressing can take hours to complete. Villagers often work through the night to finish in the early hours of the first festival morning, and some dress their wells in secret.

To truly get to grips with the ins and outs of England’s eccentric entertainment and fascination with quirky fun, join us on a whistle-stop tour through some of our more idiosyncratic pastimes…

Cooper's Hill Cheese Rolling

Where else in the world would you find a bunch of people chasing a Double Gloucester down a hill and calling it entertainment? It may not have quite the same visceral glamour as bull running in Seville, but cheese rolling, as any past participant will be happy to explain to you, is pretty dangerous too, actually. Cooper’s Hill is ridiculously steep, the surface extremely uneven, and should you manage to remain upright on your own account there is always the hazard of being run over by an errant cheese. With cheeses making speeds of up to 70mph that is no joke…

“I've seen Cooper's Hill. It's a precipice. Only in England will people risk life and limb in pursuit of cheese.” (ICONS reader)

The famous spring May bank holiday annual race has been an essential part of the local Cheltenham and Gloucester calendar for more than 200 years, and may even date back to Roman times.

Fancy rolling your own Double Gloucester? Visit: www.cheese-rolling.co.uk for details. To discover more about the quirky event Cheese Rolling in Gloucestershire' by Jean Jeffries is the only book written on the subject.

Double Gloucesters plummeting down Cooper’s Hill is not the sole highlight of Britain’s cheese rolling calendar. The Stilton Cheese Rolling Festival is a big annual event for the small Cambridgeshire town of Stilton. Click here for details.

Conkers

For many of us, the appearance of horse chestnut seeds, their shiny russet colours enclosed in a green spiky case, are a sign that autumn has arrived in England. But that doesn’t tell the full story of our fondness for conkers for they are also a reminder of childhood memories of conkering – collecting the tree’s harvest for use in a schoolyard game that dates back to the mid-1800s.

“Can anybody say that they have NEVER played a game of conkers in the autumn? It is games and pastimes like this that make England a truly wonderful place. Conkers are an iconic nut and is an iconic nutty game.” (ICONS reader)

Half the fun of readying yourself for a good conker game is squirreling about for the toughest, hardest, biggest, shiniest nuts you can find. Some swear by soaking them in vinegar to harden the shell up, but fiddly pre-battle rituals aside, once your conker has had a hole pierced through the centre of it, a piece of string threaded through and then knotted – you are ready. When battle commences, the next step is to try and smash your opponent’s conker to smithereens using your own.

The game used to be played using snail shells, the term "conker" deriving from a 19th-century word for them. Ashton in Northamptonshire is home to the World Conker Championships (conceived in 1965) – which are usually held during the month of October. For more info about this year’s event visit Ashton Conker Club’s official website.

Pooh sticks

Testament to the power of Walt Disney, soon after Winnie-the-Pooh appeared on the big screen, the World Pooh-Sticks Championships were born. Christopher Robin and Pooh-bear would have been proud…

Hosted at Days Lock Island in Oxfordshire, the delightfully quirky event attracts visitors from all over the world – most of whom come complete in fancy dress. There are individual and team championships, with the latter seeing six people drop coloured sticks at precisely the same time, from both bridges at the lock, and watching (like hawks) to see whose stick travels downstream fastest.

Initiated by lock keeper Lynn David, the incredibly popular event is now organised by the Rotary Club of Sinodun www.rotary-ribi.org and continues to raise funds for the RNLI. www.rnli.org.uk

A quintessentially English game it may be, but in 2007 the Japanese team won both the individual and team events, and the 2008 event has entries from America, Latvia and even New Zealand. Click here for details.

Shin kicking

While it may be widely favoured in playgrounds the world over as a useful form of retribution, shin kicking - an ancient and little-known form of recreation, has largely gone unnoticed as an organised sporting activity.

However the bizarre ‘sport’ has been practised on Dover's Hill, near Chipping Campden, since the early 17th Century, and the shin kicking competition remains the highlight of the Cotswold "Olimpick" Games to this day.

The “Olimpick” Games - an annual sporting fair developed in honour of the ancient Games of Greece – is host to a plethora of other eccentric sporting activites such as singlestick, jumping in sacks and sledgehammer throwing.
More than 2,500 people turned up to watch the Olimpicks in 2004, which feature other rural challenges such as tug-of-war, putting the shot and Spurning the Barre, a Cotswold version of tossing the caber.

Although a lot less aggressive than earlier shin kicking contests, where hardcore players were said to have hardened their shins using hammers in preparation for the main event and wore iron-capped boots, modern day shin kickers wearing the traditional white smocks of shepherds, still incur a fair few bruises in the hope of being crowned shin kicking champion.

A stickler, the ancient name for a judge or umpire, keeps it all in hand though, and today’s players are allowed to stuff their trousers with straw and must wear soft shoes. Click here for more info.

Swan-upping on the River Thames 

This annual swan-marking procession along the River Thames, carried out in traditional boats and costumes, dates back to medieval times. Since the 12th century the British crown has claimed ownership of all unmarked mute swans (which were originally prized as a luxury banquet food).

These days, the Queen only exercises ownership rights over a short stretch of the Thames and its tributaries, where the Dyers' and Vintners' Livery Companies also retain swan rights.

As cygnets come of age (two months old), Her Majesty's Swan Marker and a party of skilled lightermen embark in six wooden skiffs, bedecked in colourful traditional costume, into the river at Sunbury to embark upon a five-day row upriver to Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

The boatmen’s objective is to carefully lift the swans into the boats for inspection and tagging. In recent years the conservation aspect of this traditional work has loomed ever larger, as increasing river traffic and angling have left birds entangled in fishing line or damaged by collision. Fortunately, these pressures have been counterbalanced by public efforts and the hard work of swan-rescue volunteers - resulting in the swan population stabilising in recent years.

An event born out of necessity as opposed to overt eccentricity, but nonetheless indicative of our fondness for upholding historical traditions - complete with original costumes and suitable pomp and ceremony.

Click on The Royal Windsor website for more information.

Black Pudding Throwing 

Fair enough black pudding may not be to everyone’s taste but in Lancashire it is a regional delicacy. But regardless of this, the mixture of congealed pigs' blood, fat and rusk encased in a length of intestine masquerading as a sausage, is unceremoniously hurled at a wall by locals and visitors alike once the Black Pudding Throwing Championships pull into the town of Ramsbottom.

Once the “Golden grid” is in place, the aim of the game is for competitors (young and old) to attempt to knock a pile of Yorkshire puddings with three throws of the black pudding. The winner is simply the person to dislodge the most Yorkshire puddings.

This bizarre historic tradition is 150 years old and attracts spectators and competitors from around the world. It's thought that the contest is a revival of old clashes between the people of Lancashire and those from Yorkshire, during which Lancastrians hurled black puddings at their counterparts from the white pudding county of Yorkshire. Click here for details.


The Biggest Liar in the World competition

In the 19th century (allegedly), the famous (apparently) Victorian Will Ritson (1808-1890) was a popular publican who lived at the head of the Wasdale Valley in the glorious Lake District.

The story goes that Ritson loved nothing more than regaling his customers with enthralling stories about the local area and folklore. Not only was the beautiful valley already well-known for having England's deepest lake (Wastwater), the highest mountain (Scafell Pike), the smallest Church (Wasdale Head Church), but Will Ritson achieved its fourth superlative when he became “the world’s biggest liar”.

The popular prevaricator protested his innocence of course insisting that all his tales were true. Especially the one about turnips so big that after the dalesfolk had "quarried" into them for their Sunday lunch, they could be used as sheds for the Herdwick Sheep from the fells…

In an attempt to find a suitable Pinocchio-nosed modern day predecessor for Wasdale’s famous fibber “Auld Will”, this unusual contest is held each year (in November) at the Bridge Inn in Holmbrook. The ultimate reward? The title of "The Biggest Liar in the World" of course.  Oh and free drinks for the rest of your life…Click here to see if we're fibbing...