The sun may have been out today, but it was raining pennies in the sunshine at Honiton's quirkiest traditional event.

Crowds gathered at 12 noon on Tuesday (July 30) outside The Holt, the weather was hot and now the schools had broken up for the summer holidays, there were 100s of people in the crowd scrabbling around to collect the pennies.

Town Crier Dave Retter arrived with his 'garlanded pole' to mark the start of the Honiton Hot Pennies event. After declaring Oyez, Oyez, and announcing that 'no man shall be arrested during proceedings' and raising the pole, the ceremony then began with the landlords of The Hot tossing pennies to the awaiting crows.

The crowd then followed the garlanded pole up the high street to Manor House, home to the staff of WBW solicitors who also emptied their office of 2p coins to the crowd.

Then it was onto the former assembly rooms, home to Peter Betteridge in the middle of the high street. After declaring another 'oyez' the pole is up' and God Save the King, it was the turn of Peter Betteridge and Chilcotts Auctioneers to toss pennies to the crowd.

You can watch the full ceremony on the Midweek Herald's Facebook page. 

The 45-minute event ended with the pole being passed from street level, through the second-floor window of The Three Tuns Inn, where Dave Retter and the Landlords tossed coins to the crowd. 

Speaking after the event, Town Crier Dave Retter told the Herald: "It was another successful hot pennies and the sunshine came out for us as well which was nice. Its also nice to see how excited the children are that this 13th-century tradition takes place and they can be a part of it.

Its a tradition in the town dating back to the 13th century, Honiton’s hot pennies ceremony celebrated its 800th year in 2023.

The reason for the garlanded pole dates back to the first event, so that everyone would come to Honiton for the fair which followed the ceremony, without the fear of being arrested.

Nowadays, the pennies thrown are merely warm, but the tradition of the pennies being 'tossed' hot was because the affluent people who threw the coins took great delight in seeing the peasants burn their fingers while picking them up.