Castleton Garland Day Castleton Garland Day Castleton Garland Day or Garland King Day is held annually on 29 May (unless that date falls on a Sunday, when the custom is transferred to the Saturday) in the town of Castleton in the Derbyshire Peak District. The Garland King, on horseback, and covered to the waist in a heavy, bell-shaped floral garland, leads a procession through the town. The date of the custom coincides with Oak Apple Day and it is said to commemorate the restoration of King Charles II in 1660. By the 1960s, it had become received wisdom that the celebration was a
Royal Oak Royal Oak The Royal Oak is the English oak tree within which the future King Charles II of England hid to escape the Roundheads following the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The tree was in Boscobel Wood, which was part of the park of Boscobel House. Charles told Samuel Pepys in 1680 that while he was hiding in the tree, a Parliamentarian soldier passed directly below it. The story was popular after the Restoration, and is remembered every year in the English traditions of Royal Oak Day. Numerous large slipware dishes (known as 'chargers') depicting the Boscobel Oak, were made