'Lady Day' is a quarter day in the British calendar, buton which date of the year is 'Lady Day'?
Lady Day Lady Day In the western liturgical year, Lady Day is the traditional name in some English speaking countries of the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March), known in the 1549 Prayer Book of Edward VI and the 1667 Book of Common Prayer as "The Annunciation of the (Blessed) Virgin Mary" but more accurately (as currently in the 1997 Calendar of the Church of England) termed "The Annunciation of our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary". It is the first of the four traditional English quarter days. The "Lady" is the Virgin Mary. The term derives from Middle English, when some
Lady Day and onto new fields was often this day. As a result, farming families who were changing farms would travel from the old farm to the new one on Lady Day. After the calendar change, "Old Lady Day" (5 April), the former date of the Annunciation, largely assumed this role. The date is significant in some of the works of Thomas Hardy, such as "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and "Far from the Madding Crowd". The logic of using Lady Day as the start of the year is that it roughly coincides with Equinox (when the length of day and night is