How a muddy idea in Llanwrtyd Wells became one of Britain’s strangest modern traditions.
There are a couple of ways to become a world champion. You could spend years training. Perfect your technique. Follow a carefully planned diet. Dedicate yourself completely to your chosen sport.
Or you could travel to a small town in the middle of Wales, put on a snorkel and a pair of flippers, lower yourself into a trench of brown peat water and kick as hard as you possibly can.
There is, however, one important rule.
You are not allowed to swim properly.
Welcome to Llanwrtyd Wells. Welcome to the World Bog Snorkelling Championships.
Unlike many of the traditions I have written about so far, there is no need to go digging through medieval manuscripts to find the origins of this one. There is no ancient fertility ritual hiding beneath it. No forgotten saint. No king granting a charter hundreds of years ago.
Bog snorkelling is younger than many of the people who now take part in it. And yet, in the space of around forty years, something that began as another wonderfully strange idea in a tiny Welsh town has become an annual event known around the world. Perhaps then, it gives us an opportunity to watch something we do not often get to see.
A tradition being made.
A Town Built Around Water
Long before anybody thought about putting on a snorkel and deliberately entering a peat bog, Llanwrtyd Wells was already known for its water. The town itself, tucked away amongst the hills of mid Wales, developed as a spa destination after the discovery of mineral springs in the area. Visitors travelled there believing the waters held medicinal properties, and for generations tourism became an important part of life. But as they always do, fashions change. The age of British spa tourism faded, and Llanwrtyd Wells eventually found itself facing a problem familiar to plenty of small rural communities.
How do you persuade people to come? The answer – to become so unique people would be forced to do a double take. During the latter half of the twentieth century, locals began developing unusual events designed to bring visitors back into the area.
One of the first great successes came after a discussion in the Neuadd Arms Hotel over whether a man could outrun a horse across rough country. Most pub arguments end when everybody goes home. Llanwrtyd Wells organised a race. The result was the Man versus Horse Marathon, first held in 1980, and the beginning of a remarkable collection of eccentric events that would eventually become associated with the town.
And somewhere amongst all of this came another idea. Why not swim through a bog? There are slightly different versions of the precise origin story. Some accounts connect the idea with efforts to raise money for the community. Others place it within the wider attempt to revive tourism in the town.
What they largely agree upon is the involvement of Gordon Green, then landlord of the Neuadd Arms and one of the driving forces behind Llanwrtyd Wells’ increasingly strange sporting calendar. By the mid-1980s, the idea had become a reality. A trench was dug through the peat. Competitors put on their snorkels. And the World Bog Snorkelling Championship was born.
It is worth appreciating the confidence involved in putting the words World Championship in front of something you have essentially just invented. But apparently the confidence was justified.
The tourists began to return!
So How Do You Snorkel Through a Bog?
The championships take place at Waen Rhydd bog on the outskirts of Llanwrtyd Wells on the Sunday of the late-August bank holiday weekend. Competitors enter a long, narrow trench filled with dark peat water wearing a mask, snorkel and flippers. Their task is simple enough, get to the other end of the bog, turn around, and get back to where you started. The total distance is 120 yards (about 110 metres). There is however just one small complication. Conventional swimming strokes are forbidden. Front crawl is forfeit, breaststroke is banned, and butterfly stroke is barred. For better or worse, no elegant display of years spent at the local swimming baths is allowed whatsoever.
The rules do permit doggy paddle, provided the hands and arms remain beneath the surface, although many of the fastest competitors rely almost entirely on the power of their flippers. Competitors must touch a post at the far end of the trench before turning and then race back towards the finish.
All while staring into water where visibility can generously be described as not very good.
The current world record is astonishing. In 2023, Neil Rutter completed the entire 120-yard course in one minute and 12.34 seconds. Which means that somewhere in Britain there is a man who can quite legitimately introduce himself as one of the greatest bog snorkellers who has ever lived and I for one think that is wonderful.
It Gets Stranger
Speed, however, is only part of the attraction. Fancy dress has become firmly attached to the championships. Competitors have entered the bog dressed in costumes ranging from superheroes to
animals and whatever else somebody decides would be improved by being dragged through several hundred feet of muddy water. There are prizes for fancy dress alongside the more serious racing categories.
Around the competition itself something resembling a small festival has developed. Food and drink stalls appear beside the bog. There are crafts, music, real ale and cider. Spectators line the banks while competitors disappear into the peat below them.
The day before the main championship now brings another challenge: the Bogathlon, combining a bog swim with cross-country cycling and running. Because simply snorkelling through a bog was becoming too easy. The strange sporting culture of Llanwrtyd Wells does not end there either. The town has become associated with everything from stone skimming competitions and real-ale cycling events to mountain-bike chariot racing.
What began as an attempt to attract people into a struggling rural community has gradually given Llanwrtyd Wells an identity quite unlike anywhere else. It became the place where strange ideas were not simply discussed but were organised into some of the best and wackiest events you could think of.
Forty Years in the Bog
There is something I really like about traditions like this. It would be easy to dismiss bog snorkelling as nothing more than another eccentric British competition. And, admittedly, a large part of its appeal is the sight of perfectly sensible adults willingly disappearing face-first into cold muddy water. But beneath all of that silliness is a surprisingly nice story.
A small community needed people to come back. So rather than allowing itself to quietly disappear from the tourist map, Llanwrtyd Wells gave people a reason to visit. Then another. Then another.
Eventually those strange little ideas became part of the identity of the town itself. Tradition does not always have to mean preserving something ancient. Sometimes it means creating something worth repeating. And perhaps the nicest part of the whole story is that Llanwrtyd Wells was once a town famous because people travelled there for its water. More than a century later, people are still travelling from around the world because of it.
They just bring snorkels now.
This article is part of an ongoing exploration of Britain’s traditions, legends and local celebrations from the famous ceremonies known throughout the world to the smaller customs kept alive within individual villages. substack.com/@maxxtaylor
What unusual traditions exist where you come from? Drop me a message on Substack! I would love to hear your stories.
Words: Maxx Taylor
Image attributes:
Feature image: Rud-gr, CC BY-SA 3.0, Source
[1] Neuadd Arms Hotel, Llanwrtyd Wells by Railwayfan2005, CC BY-SA 4.0, Source
[2] World Bog Snorkelling Championship at the dense Waen Rhydd peat bog, near Llanwrtyd Wells by Rud-gr, CC BY-SA 3.0, Source
[3] World Bog Snorkelling Championships By Rud-gr, CC BY-SA 3.0, Source
