RESEARCHERS in Bishop Auckland are appealing for information about traditional customs.

The Discovery Centre has received a grant from the Local Heritage Initiative to prepare an exhibition about local customs which will tour County Durham.

In the forthcoming weeks, Echo Memories will be publishing some of the south Durham customs that the centre's researchers have uncovered. But they are also looking for your help.

Do you recall an annual event, occasion or celebration that used to take place, or still does? It may be associated with a family occasion such as a christening, wedding, a birth or death. Or it may be a song or a recipe that was used on a specific occasion.

Midsummer Cushions THE origin of this custom is unknown, but it is ancient and the first midsummer cushions may have been made as an altar to Flora, goddess of flowers.

On Midsummer's Day - June 21 - a high, round, three-legged stool, often found in the taprooms of inns, was covered with an inch-thick coating of clay.

Every kind of flower imaginable was stuck on to the clay base to form a design.

One of these stools was then placed at the corner of each street and in the busiest parts of the main roads of Bishop Auckland.

A pewter plate was placed on an adjoining table and a young maiden was there to collect contributions from passers-by, assisted by an older woman or two who accosted possible contributors.

Each street had its separate stand and the maidens vied with each other in having the grandest cushion.

Later on in the day, the money was used to buy the necessary ingredients for making a Tansey cake.

The Tansey Cake Beat seven egg yolks and whites separately. Add a pint of cream, about the same of spinach juice and a little Tansey juice gained by pounding in a mortar.

Add a quarter of a pound of Naples biscuits, sugar to taste, a glass of white wine and some nutmeg.

Put it all in a saucepan over a fire just to thicken, then put it into a dish lined with paste so it can be turned out, and bake it.

The Tansey cake was served with tea at a meeting place - often the Bay Horse Inn, in Fore Bondgate - and then dancing and festivities carried on into the early hours of the morning.

If you know of any local customs, please send any information, no matter how small, to James Lowther at the Bishop Auckland Discovery Centre, 29 Market Place, Bishop Auckland, County Durham, DL14 7NP, or phone (01388) 662666, or e-mail jlowtherground-work.org.uk.

Next week: Pea Scadding.

Published: ??/??/2002

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.