Also called Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night, Gunpowder Treason Day, the Fifth of November
The bonfires lit across Britain on 5 November to mark the failure of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot. It is a civic and Protestant commemoration, not a pagan rite, though over four centuries it gathered folk customs of fire, food and community at the turn into winter.
TraditionEnglish and British civic commemoration
RegionEngland, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, New Zealand and parts of the Commonwealth
EraFrom 1605; made official by the Observance of 5th November Act 1606
Moon◐ Any moon
DayMars
ElementFire
Difficulty●●○ Moderate
TimeOne evening
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
The working
Check local rules first. Many councils restrict garden bonfires, and an organised community display is often the better choice.
If you build your own, stack the wood on the day you light it. Hedgehogs and other animals crawl into piles built in advance.
Before lighting, check the base of the pile with a torch and lift it gently to make sure nothing is sheltering inside. Light from one side only, so any animal can escape.
Light the fire with adults in charge, keep children well back and keep water close by.
Bake foil-wrapped potatoes in the embers and share parkin or bonfire toffee, as northern English families have done for generations.
As the fire burns, say aloud one thing you are thankful the year has kept you safe from, in keeping with the night's origin as a thanksgiving for a danger that did not happen.
Put the fire out completely with water before you go to bed, and do not leave hot ashes unattended.
Take care: Follow local burn rules, build the fire well away from buildings, fences and trees, never use petrol or accelerants, and keep water at hand. Check for hedgehogs before lighting. Fireworks are best left to organised displays; keep pets indoors. Burning effigies of real, living people is not part of this custom.
Versions across time and place
i
Lewes Bonfire
Sussex bonfire societies · 17th century to present
Lewes holds England's largest 5 November celebration, run by several bonfire societies with costumed torchlit processions, burning tar barrels and huge effigies. It also remembers seventeen Protestant martyrs burned in the town under Mary I. In the 19th century the night was the scene of rioting there and in Guildford before it was organised peacefully.
Uses: Torches, Effigies
Recorded in: Lewes Bonfire (Wikipedia); David Cressy, Bonfires and Bells (1989)
ii
Ottery St Mary tar barrels
Devon custom · Still observed
Residents run through the streets of Ottery St Mary carrying flaming tar barrels on their shoulders on 5 November. It is a local tradition run under strict organisation, not something to copy at home.
Uses: Tar barrels
Recorded in: Guy Fawkes Night (Wikipedia)
iii
Penny for the Guy
English children's custom · Late 18th century to late 20th century
Children made a stuffed effigy called the Guy from old clothes and wheeled it through the streets, asking passers-by for a penny before it went on the bonfire. A 1981 survey found about a quarter of Sheffield schoolchildren made Guys. The begging custom has now almost disappeared.
Uses: Old clothes, Straw or newspaper stuffing
Recorded in: Guy Fawkes Night (Wikipedia)
History
On 5 November 1605 Guy Fawkes was arrested guarding gunpowder under the House of Lords, part of a Catholic plot to kill King James I. That night Londoners lit bonfires to celebrate the king's survival, and in January 1606 Parliament passed the Observance of 5th November Act, making the date a day of thanksgiving. For two centuries it carried strong anti-Catholic feeling, with effigies of the Pope burned from 1625 onward. The Act was repealed in 1859, and the night slowly became the family fireworks evening known today.
Some writers, including James Frazer and David Underdown, suggested the November fires replaced older Halloween or Samhain fires. The historian David Cressy called the idea that the commemoration came from anything other than the king's escape speculative, and Ronald Hutton agrees there is nothing linking the Halloween fires of Wales, Man and Scotland to the English 5 November fires. The bonfire itself, though, drew on the much older habit of lighting celebratory fires.
