PENNIES FROM HEAVEN

While the origins of this hazardous tradition have been lost to the sands of time, the hot pennies are still flying in the small Devon town of Honiton every year, reveals Pat Kinsella

- Pat Kinsella

For centuries, the small market town of Honiton in east Devon has been celebrating the Hot Pennies Ceremony, a unique tradition with a bizarre backstory that’s as cruel as it is quirky.

Each year, on the first Tuesday after 19 July, hundreds of Honitonians (and curious visitors) gather beneath the upper-storey windows of the town’s pubs and prominent buildings from where assembled dignitaries throw pennies into the street for collection by the crowd.

But what appears to be a gesture of generosity takes on a distinct sense of sadism when you learn some of the darker details of this ostensibly quaint tradition. Years ago, so the story goes, the wealthy people of the town would heat the pennies up on stoves before launching them into the street, deriving much merriment from the sight of the poor peasants of the parish attempting to pick them up and burning their fingers in the process.

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