Statue of Pan in Painswick, Gloucestershire

The Cotswold village of Painswick has an interesting past. In the 18th century a nobleman named Benjamin Hyett took up residence outside the village and decided to create an annual procession dedicated to the Greek god of nature, Pan, in which a statue of the deity was carried through the village from the church to the woods. Once amid the trees, the villagers would indulge in Dionysian revelry. The tradition has since died out.