Wybunbury Fig Pie Wakes

June 2026 - Wybunbury in Cheshire, not a place many will have heard of, not a place you could really drive through to get from A to B, to make you notice it either; a nondescript village perhaps - as pretty as it may be - but a village with an excellent bit of English Eccentricity about it, come the middle of June.

But let’s get an important detail out of the way first as people can get a bit tetchy, by all accounts, if you mis-pronounce it and you’ll make yourself look a bit foolish in the process. Don’t be going for any of that Why-bun-berry nonsense, the place is pronounced Win-bree, and that’ll be then end of it !

Now, let’s get on with it.

The thick end of 200 years ago, the Bank Holidays, as we know now them, were known as ‘Wakes’ and they were, more often than not, linked to church festivals, as is the case here. The day of the patron Saint of the local church, was a big event then and the wakes could often last for a full week, which is pretty much all the time you got off in the year. The church in Wybunbury was, and still is, dedicated to St Chad, so in early March, the revelry began, until it started to get a bit boisterous and the frivolity became an excuse for misbehaviour, with someone even losing their life because of it. By the 1920’s the fun had gone out of it all, things died off, and the wakes were no more.

Fast forward to the mid 90’s and the Chairman of the Wybunbury Tower Preservation Trust came across some documents telling tales of those happenings seventy-odd years previously and hatched a plan to revive the wakes, as a way of providing much needed funds to keep the Tower intact. It soon went what we would now call viral and time became of the essence when it was realised that there was only one person left in the village that had experienced the original wakes and could tell the tales in person. Not only that, but she had the original recipe for Fig Pie.

But what’s all this about a tower, I hear you ask. Well, the tower is the only remaining part of the original St. Chads church, but in the 70’s it was decided - for the fifth and final time - that rebuilding a church on land that was considered unstable and not able to withstand the weight was unfeasible, so in 1978 they built a new one half a mile down the road which is very much there to this day, still dedicated to St. Chad and even includes some of the original stones, a number of the stained glass windows, the rood screen, and the Delves brasses relating to Rafe Delves and his wife Katherin of Doddington, the most prominent and aristocratic family in Cheshire in the 1500’s.

Even though the church itself couldn’t be saved, the tower was and it stands to this day and is now the local tourist attraction, guarded over by the Preservation Trust. 500 year old towers though need to be maintained, hence the re-introduction of the Fig Pie Wakes.

Like all of these events, it’s now grown and grown and now you can enjoy tours of the historic leaning church tower, musical performances, 1920’s style, Craft stalls, steam engines, and classic cars, and if you get a bit peckish, there’s plenty of places to get a burger and the like, with a couple of pubs able to sell you a fine pint of ale to wash it down with.

The highlight of the day however is the Fig Pie Race, where contestants roll a homemade fig pie down Main Road, starting at the top by The Swan Inn. The pie that travels the furthest holds the title of Champion Pie-Roller title for the year.

There are three different classes, under 10s, under 16s and adults are all watched over by Stormtroopers in case of a little mischievousness aimed at getting a competitive advantage. I have no idea where Stormtroopers came from, by the way, but they did and the kids loved them (as did many a grown up, but there you go). May the force… as they say.

Now, I did make many an enquiry of as many people as I could as to why it’s a ‘fig pie’ and not an apple pie or even a pork pie, but nobody knew, or it was such a closely guarded secret that they had been sworn to and they weren’t telling, enough to say that it’s always been a fig pie and always will be a fig pie.

It’s not just any old fig pie mind; it needs to be baked to the traditional recipe which has been preserved by generation after generation. This, you may obtain, together with your entry form from Wybunbury Post Office from the middle of May giving you plenty of time to perfect your own individual creation capable of running down hill and further than all the others, and in 2026 it would cost you £5 to enter – plus however much you choose to spend on pastry and figs. Quite how anyone checked that you’d only used the suggested ingredients, I don’t know, as some of the pies looked distinctly inedible and had definitely been built for performance and not to enter Bake Off. Nigella would not have been impressed.

With the road closed off, the competition began with most of the efforts struggling to make it past the 10m mark which hampered many of the later entrants as fig pies cant roll over other fig pies which were now obstacles frustrating many a competitor. The stewards eventually gave in and moved many aside, so that the competition could recommence.

In the end, those 10m attempts were shown to be very much wanting as the winning efforts ended up right at the bottom of the hill and past The Red Lion Pub. One effort performed exceptionally well by taking a left-hand swerve into Wrinehill Road – unheard of by many, but still not enough to fend off Raphael, who won the 6 and under category with an 87.5m roll, Abel, who won the 11 and unders, with a 93.5m roll and Dean who won the adult category, with a massive 119.4m roll – an unbelievable result and worthy of the title ‘Champion Pie-Roller’.

So, now you’ve heard all about it, you can start to plan ahead for next May when the entry forms and recipe sheets become available and you can think about taking Dean’s title off him.

You can find more information on the Wybunbury Tower Preservation Trust and when next year’s competition is by clicking here…

You can see more images from the Wybunbury Fig Pie Wakes by clicking here...