Lloyd May, Jessica
(2025)
The Randwick Wap: community, identity, and folk custom from the early-eighteenth to late-twentieth century.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
This thesis examines the historical practice, interruption, memorialisation, and revival of the Randwick Wap, a local folk custom in Gloucestershire, from its earliest known documentation in 1703 to the end of the twentieth century. Through close analysis of archival, textual, visual, and oral sources, the study examines how the Wap was shaped by both internal community dynamics and external perceptions, including moralistic and folkloric interpretations. By focusing on the Wap as a long-running and intermittently dormant tradition, this research offers a detailed case study through which to explore broader questions about the role of folk custom in community identity, historical memory, and cultural change. It highlights the evolving meanings attached to the custom, from a site of political expression and communal catharsis to a nostalgic symbol of Merrie England and rural identity. This thesis shows how traditions are constructed, adapted, and reimagined in response to shifting social and cultural contexts. The revival of the Wap in the 1970s is analysed not as a straightforward reinstatement, but as a creative act of cultural negotiation that balanced historical memory with contemporary values. Particular attention is paid to the role of individual agency, especially the influence of key figures, and local community members, in recording, interpreting, and reviving the custom.
This research argues that even highly local customs cannot be understood as isolated practices. Instead, they function within a dynamic traffic between local experience and national narratives, revealing the complex ways in which folklore is both shaped by and contributes to wider cultural and political formations. Voices of participants are here studied, considering how emotion, memory, and nostalgia operate within tradition-making processes. In doing so, the thesis contributes to interdisciplinary debates in folklore studies, cultural history, and heritage studies, and offers a model for how close studies of local traditions can reveal the layered relationships between memory, identity, and performance over time. It argues that the Wap’s enduring relevance lies in its function as a dynamic and negotiated expression of community identity, one that invites reflection on the fluidity of tradition and the power of local agency in shaping cultural heritage.
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