In ancient times in England — before the church and Parliament banished the pagan tradition in 1644 — young unmarried men and women went off into the woods to cut down a tree to set in the ground for ...

The practice has its roots in ancient pagan traditions that were persecuted by the Puritans.

UK artist Linett Kamala was astonished to see a maypole in a Jamaican hamlet – a colonial relic, but one bringing joy. So she reinvented the tradition by ditching English folk tunes and adding bass ...

Maypole dancing on May Day to welcome the spring is a long-held tradition, and these pictures show dances across Oxfordshire, ...