During carnival week in Bonsall, a village in Derbyshire, visitors find lines of old-fashioned underwear strung between houses along the high street. It is a deliberate local custom rather than an accident, and it has grown from a single household into a village-wide habit.
- Bonsall’s carnival dates to 1927 and draws thousands of visitors each year.
- The underwear bunting began with one resident before spreading across the village.
- The 2026 event set up the carnival’s 100th anniversary, due next July.
One Household’s Idea
Jeff Phillips, now in his 80s, first put up the bunting more than 30 years ago. He and his late wife took part in the village’s best-dressed-house competition, and one year, in place of the usual flags, they hung ladies’ corsets and other old-fashioned undergarments across the high street. What began as a bit of gentle mischief stayed limited to his own home for a long stretch afterward, with no one else in the village joining in. For decades the display remained his personal signature rather than a shared event, one house standing out during a week when others decorated in more conventional ways.
How the Custom Spread
The change came about three years ago, when the carnival committee met to decide who should have the honor of opening the week-long celebration and chose Phillips. To mark the occasion, residents were asked to swap their regular bunting for underwear, and the practice took hold across doorways and streets throughout the village. Today the lines carry a mix of bras, briefs, corsets, and pants strung between the houses. Louise Stevenson, the committee secretary, hangs a line of underpants outside her own house and says passers-by often stop to ask about it. She jokes that some assume her husband has gone without for weeks. She has also pointed to one resident’s especially large pair of pants and openly invited others to try to match it, turning the displays into a lighthearted running comparison among neighbors.
Beyond the Bunting
The carnival is not only about the underwear. The week includes a fun run, a nature walk, and other gatherings, and Stevenson describes the village as fond of anything quirky. Visitors passing through often photograph the displays, and she reports that the response from outsiders has generally been warm, with people amused and puzzled in roughly equal measure. This year organizers postponed the usual fireworks until September because of wildfire risk and moved the lantern display along with it. Even with those changes, the underwear stayed up until residents took it down on the Sunday evening, closing out the week as it had opened. The postponements were a reminder that even a settled routine has to bend to circumstances, though the central display went ahead as usual.
Approaching a Centenary
The BBC report is about a local custom in Bonsall and does not describe community calendars elsewhere, including Dumas, TX. In Bonsall, the timing carries added weight because the carnival began in 1927, so next July will mark its 100th year. A display that started with one couple during a house-decorating contest has since become part of the wider event.
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