Wicca began in England, and the Craft as it is kept in Britain has a character of its own: quiet, private, unshowy, and rather less formal than visitors from overseas tend to expect.
There are no Wiccan temples in Britain, no public services and no clergy in any sense a census-taker would recognise. The Craft is carried on in front rooms and spare bedrooms, by people who hold ordinary jobs and are mostly unknown to their neighbours as witches. This page describes how that works in practice, and how it differs from the picture that books and television have made familiar.
Small, private and independent
A British Gardnerian coven typically has between five and ten members. It meets in the home of its High Priestess, or of whoever has a room large enough and neighbours discreet enough. It answers to nobody. There is no national body that governs the covens, charters them or keeps a list of them, and attempts to create one have always been politely declined.
What holds the tradition together is acquaintance. High Priestesses and High Priests know one another, or know someone who knows. They meet at one another's Sabbats, at the pagan conferences held around the country, and at the monthly gatherings in pubs, known as moots, which are the nearest thing British paganism has to a parish hall. News travels, reputations are known, and a seeker who is turned away by one coven for a bad reason will generally hear of another.
One family, two names
In its country of origin the old rivalry between Gardnerian and Alexandrian is a thing of the past. Initiates of the two have been working in each other's circles since the 1970s, a large number of covens descend from both, and many witches describe themselves simply as initiates, or as belonging to the Craft. Where a coven does call itself Gardnerian, as ours does, it is stating its descent and not striking an attitude.
British habits
Visitors from other countries sometimes remark on how understated the Craft is in Britain. A few of the habits they notice are these.
- Few titles. British initiates do not, as a rule, address their elders as Lady or Lord. A High Priestess is called by her Craft name, or by her ordinary name over the washing-up.
- Little paperwork. Lineage is established by word of mouth and personal knowledge, not by certificate. See lineage and initiation.
- The older names for the festivals. Many British covens still say Candlemas, May Eve, Lammas and Hallowe'en or November Eve, as Gardner's own books do, and call the solstices and equinoxes by their plain names. Ostara, Litha and Mabon were proposed as names for three of the festivals by an American writer in the 1970s. They have never fully taken root among initiates here.
- A practical attitude to the Book. The core rites are kept as received, but British covens have generally felt free to compose, adapt and add around them.
- Indoors, mostly. The climate, the custom of working skyclad and the scarcity of private land mean that most circles are cast indoors. Outdoor rites are prized all the more for being rare.
- Tea. No account of the British Craft would be honest without it. The circle is closed, the kettle goes on, and a great deal of the real teaching happens afterwards.
The law
Witchcraft has not been a crime in England since 1736, when the Act of the previous year replaced the offence of witchcraft with that of pretending to exercise it. That Act was repealed in 1951, and the law which took its place, aimed at fraudulent mediums, was itself repealed in 2008. There is now no British statute that mentions witchcraft at all.
Wiccans have the same protection as members of any other religion. Discrimination on grounds of religion or belief in employment, housing and the provision of services is unlawful. Pagan chaplains serve in hospitals and prisons.
The position on marriage differs between the nations of the United Kingdom. In Scotland, pagan celebrants have been able to conduct legally binding weddings since 2004, and in Northern Ireland since 2015. In England and Wales a handfasting has no legal force, and couples who want one generally hold a civil ceremony as well. More is said on the page about rites of passage.
How many of us are there?
The census of England and Wales has allowed people to write in a religion since 2001, and the figures give at least a rough idea of scale.
| Census | Wicca | Pagan |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 7,000 | 31,000 |
| 2011 | 12,000 | 57,000 |
| 2021 | 13,000 | 74,000 |
These figures need to be read with care. The religion question is voluntary, many witches prefer not to answer it, and a good many Wiccans write Pagan. Nor do the figures distinguish initiates from the much larger number who practise alone. Nobody knows how many Gardnerian initiates there are in Britain, because nobody counts. It is a small world, in which most people are at no more than two or three removes from one another.
Britain and elsewhere
Gardnerian Wicca reached North America in the 1960s through a single coven, and for some years the tradition there developed with little contact with its parent. Some differences of custom grew up as a result. American initiates coined the term British Traditional Wicca for the Gardnerian and Alexandrian family. Some American lines keep written records of lineage, are stricter about the wording of the Book, and make more use of formal titles. Since the 1990s the two sides of the Atlantic have been in regular touch again, and each has learned from the other.
Neither way is the more correct. Each grew out of its circumstances, and a witch properly initiated in one country is recognised in the other.
What has not changed
For all the talk of difference, a Gardnerian circle in Britain today would be recognisable at once to the men and women who stood in Gardner's. The circle is cast in the same way. The same gods are invoked. The same eight festivals come round, and the wine and the cakes are blessed and shared at the end. Seventy-five years is not long in the life of a religion. It is long enough to show that this one can be handed on.