About Mayfield Bonfire Boyes & Belles
Mayfield Bonfire Boyes & Belles is one of the oldest and most distinctive village Bonfire organisations in East Sussex.
The earliest record currently identified by the society for an official Mayfield Bonfire Society dates to 1892, although Bonfire activity in the village has a much longer history.
What makes Mayfield particularly distinctive is the date and purpose of its celebration.
The annual procession is held on the third Saturday of September, close to the anniversary of 24 September 1556, when four Protestant martyrs were burned at the stake in Mayfield.
Their memory remains at the heart of the modern celebration.
The Mayfield Martyrs
On 24 September 1556, during the reign of Queen Mary I, four Protestant men were burned at the stake in Mayfield after refusing to renounce their beliefs.
The society identifies them as John Hart, Thomas Ravendale and two others believed to have been Nicholas Holden and an unnamed currier.
A memorial to the martyrs stands near Colkins Mill Church.
Their story is not simply a historical footnote to Mayfield Bonfire. It determines when the modern celebration is held and provides one of its most recognisable traditions.
The Four Burning Crosses
At the front of the Mayfield procession are four burning crosses, one for each of the Protestant martyrs executed in the village in 1556.
The crosses create a powerful visual link between the modern procession and the event it commemorates.
Interestingly, this tradition is not as old as the society itself.
Long-serving society President John Lewis, who joined the Boyes and Belles in 1950 and later served as Chairman for 25 years, recalls that the burning crosses were introduced during his chairmanship. He was also involved in restoring the fireworks and wreath-laying after those traditions had previously been dropped.
That is an important reminder that Bonfire traditions continue to develop rather than remaining completely unchanged from generation to generation.
Black and Turquoise
Mayfield's striped colours are black and turquoise.
They provide the familiar society identity worn by members alongside the various costumes seen within the procession.
The society's own historical material also records Mayfield's connection with smuggling.
It identifies Gabriel Tomkins as the leader of a powerful local company of smugglers and says he claimed to be moving an extraordinary 11 tons of tea and coffee a year.
That gives Mayfield an interesting local connection with the smuggling history reflected more widely in striped Bonfire dress.
More Than 5,000 Torches
Mayfield's procession is remarkable for its scale.
The society describes it as more than a mile long, with around 5,000 burning torches, and believes it to be the longest in Sussex apart from the Lewes Grand United Procession on 5 November.
Around 1,000 people in costume can take part across three massed processions, accompanied by marching bands and drumming groups, while approximately 5,000 spectators may come into the village to watch.
For a village the size of Mayfield, those figures demonstrate the extraordinary scale of the celebration.
Making 5,000 Torches
Those thousands of torches do not appear by themselves.
Mayfield Bonfire Boyes & Belles organises working parties throughout the year to prepare them.
The society says volunteers can help drill around 30,000 holes for the 5,000 torches required for the celebration.
It is the kind of statistic that reveals the enormous amount of repetitive, practical work hidden behind a procession lasting only part of one evening.
Torch making is just one of many jobs undertaken by members and volunteers alongside fundraising, administration, procession planning and the eventual clean-up.
Almost Lost in the 1980s
Mayfield Bonfire Boyes & Belles has not always enjoyed the large membership suggested by the modern procession.
John Lewis remembers membership falling to only around 15 people during the 1980s, compared with more than 40 in the 1950s.
In 1986, just John Lewis and Norman Bell cut all of the torch sticks between May and September.
The survival of the celebration through that period is a particularly good example of how a very small number of determined volunteers can keep a village tradition alive until new generations become involved.
Mayfield Bonfire 2026
The 2026 Mayfield Bonfire celebration takes place on Saturday 19 September.
The date follows Mayfield's established tradition of celebrating on the third Saturday of September, close to the anniversary of the martyrdoms on 24 September.
Thousands of spectators are expected to watch as the Boyes and Belles, visiting societies, bands and drummers fill the village with flaming torches.
With much of Mayfield's historic centre closed to traffic for the evening, the procession takes over streets including the High Street, Tunbridge Wells Road, Fletching Street and East Street.
A £15,000 Village Celebration
Despite the huge spectacle, Mayfield Bonfire is organised by volunteers and has to be funded locally.
The society estimates that staging the celebration costs around £15,000 each year.
That includes fireworks, 5,000 torches, road closures, security, communications, bands, sound equipment, toilets and the post-event clean-up.
Fundraising therefore continues throughout the year rather than beginning shortly before September.
Fundraising Throughout the Year
Mayfield Bonfire Boyes & Belles organises a wide variety of community events to meet those costs.
Recent activities have included quiz nights, bingo, a music festival and Bonfire Open Gardens, where villagers open private gardens to visitors to help fund the annual celebration.
Members also take part in other village events.
In 2026 the Boyes and Belles joined Mayfield's May Fair and attended the Mayfield Primary School Summer Fair, while regular monthly social gatherings help maintain the society outside the Bonfire season.
The society also organises a Senior Citizens' Christmas lunch, adding another community activity to its year-round programme.
Membership and the Boyes and Belles
Members of Mayfield Bonfire Society are traditionally known as the Bonfire Boyes and Belles.
The organisation welcomes both members and volunteers, recognising that not everybody wants to process in costume.
Some help with torch making and fundraising, others work behind the scenes on the celebration itself, while members who want to process can join the society's walking group and represent Mayfield at other events throughout September, October and November.
The society also runs regular social gatherings at the Rose and Crown, helping maintain the friendships and community connections that keep the organisation active between celebrations.
Remembering 24 September 1556
Mayfield's celebration has an unusually strong connection with a specific event in the history of its own village.
The earliest known official Mayfield Bonfire Society dates from 1892, but the modern celebration looks much further back to the four men executed in Mayfield on 24 September 1556.
Their memory determines the position of Mayfield Bonfire on the calendar and is carried physically through the village in the form of the four burning crosses at the head of the procession.
Around them has grown one of the largest village celebrations of the season: a procession more than a mile long, approximately 1,000 costumed participants and an extraordinary 5,000 flaming torches.
Yet behind that scale is the same vulnerability shared by much smaller societies. In the 1980s, membership fell to around 15 people, and in 1986 just two members were responsible for cutting every torch stick required for the celebration.
The fact that thousands of torches now fill Mayfield's streets each September is therefore not simply a continuation of history. It is the result of successive generations of Mayfield Bonfire Boyes & Belles choosing to keep that history alive.