Oak Apple Day Tower Captain throws the old branch down from the top of the tower and a new one is hauled to the top. Everyone is then invited to the vicarage gardens for refreshments and a barbecue. Up to 12 noon villagers wear a sprig of "red" (new) oak and in the afternoon wear a sprig of "Boys Love" ("Artemisia abrotanum"); tradition dictates that the punishment for not doing this results in being stung by nettles. Oak Apple Day Restoration Day, more commonly known as Oak Apple Day or Royal Oak Day, was an English public holiday, observed annually on 29 May,
HMS Royal Oak (1664) Dutch during their Raid on the Medway in 1667. HMS Royal Oak (1664) HMS "Royal Oak" was a 100-gun first rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched in 1664 at Portsmouth Dockyard. "Royal Oak" was built by John Tippets, Master-Shipwright at Portsmouth 1660-8, who later became Navy Commissioner and subsequently Surveyor of the Navy (Knighted 1672). Historian Brian Lavery quotes an entry in the "Calendar of State Papers, Domestic" series (the records of the English, and later, the British, governmental proceedings, dating back to the reign of Henry VIII; also known as the "British State Papers", and