Custom · Great Dunmow · Famous
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A side of bacon for any couple who never once regretted marrying.
See it clearly
The Market Place is a public street. The trials run only in leap years; the official site gives the next as Saturday 15 July 2028. The original chair is kept at Little Dunmow priory church, which has no regular opening times (National Churches Trust), so check before you go.
Great Dunmow: married a year and a day, never once wished you weren't? Prove it here, and win a side of bacon.
Dunmow tradition says that in 1104 a lord of Little Dunmow and his wife, disguised as poor folk, asked the prior for a blessing after a happy year of marriage, and were rewarded with a flitch of bacon. The prize for a marriage without a quarrel or a regret became famous; Piers Plowman and Chaucer mention it. The first recorded claimant came in 1445. After the priory's day, the custom moved to Great Dunmow in the 1850s, helped by Harrison Ainsworth's novel. Today a mock court with a judge and counsel for and against hears couples every leap year, and winners are carried shoulder-high in the Flitch Chair. Winners swear the oath kneeling on pointed stones in the Market Place.