Hundreds of people joined the annual August Bank Holiday ‘Horns on Horns Road’ procession this morning.
Led by Stroud Red Band, the revellers wearing homemade horns on their heads made their way down a busy Horns Road, mingling with Yard Sale buyers and sellers, to the Crown and Sceptre pub where the Red Band performed a set, before setting off to play at the Old Cemetery Chapels of Rest on Bisley Road.
Jeremy Green from Stroud Red Band told Stroud Times: “This is the eighth year that we’ve done Horns on Horns Road. There’s one year that we missed when we did Horns on Daisy Bank, that was during COVID when we couldn’t stand close enough to play in procession. But this is the eighth year and so, you know, heading up for 10.
“The band will assemble here at 11:45 and there’ll be a little speech of introduction to explain the tradition. And then we’ll process along there playing tunes. It will probably take us about 15, 20 minutes. There’ll be another little weird speech of welcome at the other end.
“We’ve got a special weird choir, the Cryptids Choir, who will sing a few weird songs. and then we’ll play a short set and then we’ll go up to the Chapels of Rest.”
Why play at the Chapels of Rest? “I don’t know they invited us, so you know, we’ll play at the opening of a paper bag,” explained Jeremy.
“We’ll certainly play anything that we get invited to. And the exciting bit is whether we manage to go up to the chapels [whilst] playing because it’s steeply uphill the whole way, or if we just give ourselves a break and walk up there and then start playing and see how long we can go for as well.”
Pictures by Matt Bigwood
