The Puddings Are Wrapped in Tights and Thrown Underarm at a Plinth Twenty Feet Up in Ramsbottom

The World Black Pudding Throwing Championships are held on Bridge Street in Ramsbottom, outside The Oaks, on Sunday 13 September from eleven in the morning. One listing gives a finish of four in the afternoon and another six, so the end of it is a moveable thing.

Competitors throw underarm from a marked spot, a golden drain grate known as the oche. Each entrant gets three black puddings and every one is wrapped in a pair of women's tights so it holds together in the air.

The target is twelve giant Yorkshire puddings on a plinth twenty feet up, set as four stacks of three. Whoever dislodges the most wins. There are adult and junior heats and no pre-registration; entry is a pound or two, paid on the day.

The Stubbins Village Community Trust runs it. This year's proceeds go to Ramsbottom Pantry and Bury Hospice, with a target of 1,500 pounds against the thousand or so raised in past years.

The modern contest was revived in 1984, a pub landlord is said to have revived it once before that in 1839, and the folklore ties it to the Wars of the Roses, when Lancastrian and Yorkist troops supposedly ran out of ammunition. That last part is a story rather than a record.

Ged Flanagan won last year and Harry Ogden in 2024. In August PETA asked the organisers to switch to vegan puddings and offered to pay for them. Paul Jenkins, who runs the event, declined, saying vegan puddings are already available at competition weight and size but there are no plans to drop the traditional ones.