The Whirly Cakes of LeveringtonI was reminded of this legend on Thursday evening, July 25th when we visited St Leonards Church at the invitation of Paul Barker, a member of the Ely Diocesan Guild of Ringers. The occasion was an outing arranged by the Fenland Family History Society , who had asked Paul to give a talk on the art of bell ringing including demonstrations of how a bell is rung , its history and metallic composition , tuning procedures, ancient and modern. I think we all enjoyed his presentation and the ground floor ringing room provided an ideal theatre for practical illustrations of bell handling, simple call changes and method ringing, whilst an offer of tea and cakes added to the evenings enjoyment.
St Leonards tower contains a ring of six bells, tenor 15cwt, supported by a timber frame installed in 1924. They are not the easiest of bells to ring, a long 80 feet draught of rope, with bells hung high in the tower which is topped by a tall spire featured in the whirly cakes legend. The origin of this story is unknown, it first appearing in an issue of the Gentlemans Magazine of 1789. It concerns an old lady of Leverington who was particularly adept at cake baking. The version I like is as follows. On the Sunday before Palm Sunday she had baked a batch of “whirly cakes” and was just extracting them from the oven when who should appear at her cottage door but “Old Nick” himself, accompanied by a personal whirlwind. Picking up the lady and cakes they flew up, over the apex of Leverington spire and were never seen again. For many years this particular Sunday was known as “Whirling Sunday” and it seems that efforts were made by certain residents to make and market whirly cakes with the added warning “if you did not spend your penny for a whirling cake you would have bad luck for the remainder of the year” Scenes of drunkenness were reported though I imagine many residents enjoyed an excuse to have a good old “knees up”. As late as 1891. Rev. Frederick Carlyon, Rector of Leverington describes Whirling Sunday as a day of pleasure fairs, sports, boxing matches.
There were no supernatural occurrences on July 25th. I believe such things disappeared following the invention of the incandescent “Welbech” gas mantle during the 1870-1880’s plus the later Swan-Edison electric light bulb, both replacing the flickering light of candles, oil lamps or bats wing burners which tended to cast ghostly moving shadows thus giving credence to such stories. In conclusion I think we all, Christine, Janet, Phil , Lawrence and myself enjoyed the evening. As for the whirly cakes, it is nowhere stated what exactly they were. Any ideas readers? John Bennett