From horsehair pancakes to obscure sports and school slang, some (unusual) traditions have endured for decades at independent schools, writes Katie Hughes
“There was a good crowd of spectators when the cook arrived to take careful aim?, wrote Westminster schoolboy Lawrence Tanner in his diary of February 1909. The result was an excellent throw ?right out in the open”.
Lawrence is referring to Westminster School?s ?Greaze?; a Shrove Tuesday ceremony that saw the school?s cook flipping a pancake (made partly of horsehair) over a high bar, into a sea of boys below. The pupil who grabbed the biggest piece won a guinea from the Dean of Westminster Abbey. 
A ritual that dates back to at least the 1750s, the Greaze (in modified form) is still going strong today. And it?s just one of many enduring, often unusual, traditions seen in some of the UK?s oldest independent schools. High days and holidays
Go to Eton College in Berkshire for the ?Fourth of June? and you?ll find pupils and staff skipping lessons to celebrate George III?s birthday. Boys wearing flowered boaters and 18th century naval dress process along the river in rowing boats; standing to salute Eton, Queen and country. Complemented by cricket and picnics, all this is a fine commemoration of the monarch with whom the school had a special relationship. 
Above, Eton celebrates St Andrew’s Day with the Wall Game
As the weather turns colder, Eton celebrates St Andrew?s Day with the Wall Game; unique to the...