The barrels in Ottery St Mary’s Guy Fawkes Night tradition are soaked in tar.
The Devon town’s Tar Barrels ceremony is traditionally held around 5 November, the date associated with the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Barrels are set alight outside local pubs and carried through the crowded town centre by participants, creating one of Britain’s most dramatic Bonfire Night spectacles.
The custom is generally traced to the 17th century, although its precise origin is uncertain. It may have developed from wider fire festivals intended to ward off evil spirits, rather than directly commemorating Guy Fawkes. The tar is what gives the barrels their intense, sustained flames; oil, pitch and wax are plausible-sounding alternatives, but they are not the traditional substance named in accounts of the event.
The ceremony is also highly local. Traditionally, only people born in Ottery or long-term residents may carry the barrels. The event includes separate children’s, youths’ and women’s processions before the final men’s barrel run, and a total of 17 barrels are lit outside each of four pubs.