A short history of dressing up!
Ever wanted to be Robin Hood, an aeroplane or a giant pig? You're in good company! People have been dressing up for thousands of years, and some of history's most famous faces loved fancy dress. This Halloween, come to an English Heritage site in your best outfit. Raid your wardrobe, or make your own from things at home. But first, pick up some ideas from the past, in this article from Fashion Historian Amber Butchart.
Straw suits and flower crowns
Long before fancy dress parties, people wore costumes to celebrate the changing seasons. In Hastings, Jack o’ the Green still celebrates spring with costumes covered in flowers and leaves. And every January in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, people in handmade straw suits dance through town at the Straw Bear Festival looking like walking haystacks.
Costume inspiration: Stick strips of yellow paper or raffia onto an old hoodie to become a Straw Bear, or make a headdress of paper leaves and flowers.
The king who played Robin Hood
Tudor and Stuart courts staged masques: grand shows full of costumes, dancing and drama, all designed to make the monarch look brilliant. Henry VIII, famous for his many wives, also loved dressing up. In his first year on the throne, he surprised his wife, Queen Catherine of Aragon, by bursting into her room dressed as Robin Hood, with his nobles as his Merry Men, complete with bows and arrows.
Costume inspiration: Robin Hood needs just a green top, a hat with a feather and a swag bag full of money you’ve stolen from the rich to give to the poor (you can fashion one from an old pillowcase).
Masked Balls and Ghostly Royals
In the 1700s, masked balls became all the rage. Guests hid behind masks so nobody knew who they were, which made for mysterious and mischievous parties. In 1842, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert threw a costume ball for 2,000 guests. They dressed as medieval royals Edward III and Queen Philippa, copying outfits from their tomb statues at Westminster Abbey.
Costume inspiration: Make a mask on a stick for a great disguise, or create a cardboard crown, add a cloak made from old sheets and stand very still, like you’re made of stone.
Pigs, Fauns and Aeroplanes
By the 1920s, everyone wanted to dress up. Magazines suggested homemade costumes, from Victorian flower posies to aeroplanes, then a very new invention. In 1937, photographer (and later costume designer) Cecil Beaton snapped guests at a party dressed as a faun (a half-goat creature), a shepherdess and a pig. Beaton himself even changed costume four times that night.
Costume inspiration: Pink clothes, paper ears and a pipe-cleaner tail make an easy pig, or make some cardboard propellers and stick them to a headband to become an old-fashioned plane.
Spooky season
Halloween probably began with Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival when people believed the worlds of the living and the dead blurred - no wonder costumes get spooky at this time of year. It’s likely that trick-or-treating grew from ‘souling’, when people went door to door singing for cakes and apples.
Costume inspiration: Wear your cloak and carry a basket to go ‘souling’, or add cardboard pointed teeth for a Dracula look, perfect for visiting sites like Whitby Abbey!
Halloween half-term
Gather your little monsters for a ghoulishly good day out at our sites this half-term.
Join the Great Pumpkin Party as we celebrate the season with interactive storytelling and spooky games, as well as a themed trail and seasonal selfie spot around the sites. And it wouldn't be Halloween without costumes, so don't forget to come dressed for the occasion!
- 1066 Battle of Hastings, Abbey and Battlefield, East Sussex
- Audley End House and Gardens, Essex
- Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens, Northumberland
- Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire
- Brodsworth Hall and Gardens, South Yorkshire
- Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight
- Dover Castle, Kent
- Eltham Palace and Gardens, London
- Framlingham Castle, Suffolk
- Kenilworth Castle and Elizabethan Garden, Warwickshire
- Pendennis Castle, Cornwall
- Scarborough Castle, North Yorkshire
- Stonehenge, Wiltshire
- Whitby Abbey, North Yorkshire
- Wrest Park, Bedfordshire
