CustomFamous
May Morning
Sing up the sun.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Tall 15th-century college bell tower by the bridge
- Legend from
- College custom
- Best time
- 1 May, 6 am
- Tone
- Light-hearted
Six a.m., first of May. Thousands in the street go quiet, and voices drift down from the top of a tower.
At six o'clock on the morning of 1 May, crowds pack Magdalen Bridge and the High Street in Oxford and fall silent. On top of Magdalen College's Great Tower, 172 steps up, the college choir sings the Hymnus Eucharisticus, a Latin hymn written in the 17th century by a Fellow of Magdalen, to greet the sunrise. The college says the ceremony goes back about 500 years. Then the bells ring out, morris dancers take to the streets, and the city celebrates the start of summer.