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A Hot Cross Bun has been hung in the window of the Widow's Son in London's Docklands every Good Friday since the early 19th century.

The story goes that the collection commemorates a poor widow who originally lived on the site now occupied by the pub. Every Good Friday she baked a Hot Cross Bun in expectation that he son, a sailor, would return home. He never did. When the pub was built one of the terms of the lease was that a sailor should hang a bun each year in memory of the widow's devotion.

Hot Cross Buns are a relic of the pre-Christian era, the church taking pagen rites and adapting them. They are descendents of small cakes made in celebration of spring and the goddess Eostre. Both the Greeks and Romans had similar spring cakes. Their cross was a symbol of the sun, a circle bisected by two right angle lines. This cut the bun into four quarters representing the four seasons.

[Photo Andrew Barrow]