EXPLOSIVE BEER MUGS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 77, 24 January 1947, Page 2

EXPLOSIVE BEER MUGS

CEREMONY AT VILLAGE The “Fenny Poppers,” a battery of six guns which are the proud possession of the picturesque Buckinghamshire village of Fenny Stratford, have been fired annually on St. Martin’s Day for more than 150 years. In more recent years they have been used also to mark days of national festival thanksgiving or mourning. The guns are officially said to resemble “myxoedtmatous quart pots with hypertrophied handles.” To you and I they look like large beer mugs made, of gunmetal. Each weighs 20 pounds and is seven inches high. The bore is six inches long with a calibre of 1§ inches. Charged with 4 ounces of powder and detonated by the application of a red-hot rod to the touch hole, they produce a most satisfactory bang. Inadvertently aimed in the wrong direction one year, the charge peppered the fence surrounding the local inn and also the leg of a small boy hanging thereon to watch the fun. In 1905 there was another incident. Then the vicar, a jovial man, secretly introduced a couple of genuine seige pieces into the proceedings with the result that practically every window in the parish was shattered. The firing is followed by a dinner, when a very good time is had by all.