Punch and Judy:

1849 St Giles Fair, Oxford Oxford University and City Herald - Saturday 08 September 1849

May Day

"Hertfordshire has a long tradition of celebrating May Day ... The traditional celebrations started very early in the morning, before dawn, when groups of young people, usually accompanied by musicians playing instruments such as the pipe and tabor, would gather to collect branches of may (hawthorn) from local woodlands."

1896 May Day procession

“At Charlton-on-Otmoor, Oxon, on May morning a procession used to start from the vicarage, headed by two men carrying a large garland of flowers on a stick. With them went six morris-dancers, a fool or " Squire," who carried a bladder and a money-box, and a man who played the pipe and tabour”

'Old English Customs Extant at the Present Time An Account of Local Observances Festival Customs and (Ancient Ceremonies yet Surviving in Great Britain'
by T. H. Titchfield, London, 1896

Dunmow Flitch: The Flitch Trials are held every 4 years in Great Dunmow, Essex. They exist to award a flitch of bacon to married couples from anywhere in the world, if they can satisfy the Judge and Jury of 6 maidens and 6 bachelors that in 'twelvemonth and a day', they have 'not wisht themselves unmarried again'. Four musicians were at the front of the procession in 1841, one of whom was a pipe and tabor player' who played with so much glee that he cannot refrain from dancing to his own music.' Two pipe and tabor players accompanied the Flitch of Bacon in the procession in 1855.

1823, 1 May: The chimney-sweepers as usual paraded the streets, but with more pomp than last year.
In addition to their ordinary finery they had a drum & pipe, &c.

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS.Eng.hist.c.144. Frederic Madden MSS., 'Journal for 1823', f.86.

Jack-in-the-Green

1836 The sweeps procession, in costume, entered "Bedford-row with a fife and drum, followed by an immense crowd of persons, when they commenced dancing and disturbing the whole of the neighbourhood .."

The Morning Post, 4 May 1836, page 4.

1841Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser - Wednesday 02 June 1841

1842 Lambeth, London

 Two gentlement "were driving a spirited horse past ...
Kennington-road, when some sweeps, accompanied
with drums and fifes, startled the horse, which became
wholly unmanageable, and in a few seconds dashed the
vehicle against the iron corner post"

1861

 "The juvenile members of the [sweeps] profession disport themselves in fancy dresses - faded finery from Drury Lane, and things that once were smart from Monmouth Street - and parade the thoroughfares with drums and fifes ... To-day, however, in violation of all the canons of art in such matters, some of the sweeps set at nought the good old custom, and actually had the hardihood to appear in washed faces!"

1869 'Chambers Book of Days', May 1st

Jack-in-the-Green procession: "All of these figures or persons stop here and there in the course of their rounds, and dance to the
music of a drum and fife, expecting of course to be remunerated by halfpence from the onlookers. It is now generally a rather poor show, and does not attract much regard; but many persons who have a love for old sports and day-observances, can never see the little troop without a feeling of interest, or allow it to pass without a silver remembrance."

By the 1880's the Jack-in-the-Green procession had changed as the sweeps were invited to a formal dinner rahter than processing round the streets:

"And on May-morning the deceivers take on the character of sweeps, and dance the unwary out of halfpence. As for the real sweeps, they have advanced in luxury, and dine at Copenhagen-house. They dance, too, but then it is to the sounds of hireling minstrels ; they have become respectable, and have left the streets to cheats and imposters"

Punch [almanac] VI (London: Punch, 1844), page 196.

Whitson Ale:

May 15th 1869

"It was the custom of our simple ancestors to have parochial meetings every Whitsuntide,... all agreeing to be good friends for once in the year, and spend the day in a sober joy. The squire and lady came with their piper and taborer; the young danced or played at bowls; the old looked on, sipping their ale from time to time. It was a kind of pic-nic..."

Francis Douce described an ‘ale’ ... "A large empty barn, or some such building, is provided for the lord's hall, and fitted up with
seats to accommodate the company. ... The lord's music, consisting of a pipe and tabor, is employed to conduct the dance."

"The last load is brought in and stops under the village maypole which has been decorated for the occasion.  The harvest queen
advances accompanied by the cheerful pipe and tabor"

1838 Harvest home:

" Crown'd with the cares of cornc, now come,
And, to the pipe, sing harvest home.
Come forth, my lord, and see the cart,
Drest up with all the country art.

 The pipe and the tabor are now busily set awork,
and the lad and the lass will have no lead on their heels.
O, 'tis the merry time," 

The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist, part 3, ed Theodore Hook, Rural Festivals

1857 from:" Ballad: THE HAYMAKER'S SONG.

[AN old and very favourite ditty sung in many parts of England at
merry-makings, especially at those which occur during the hay-
harvest. It is not in any collection.]

And when that bright day faded,
And the sun was going down,
There was a merry piper
Approached from the town:
He pulled out his pipe and tabor,
So sweetly he did play,
Which made all lay down their rakes,
And leave off making hay.

Then joining in a dance,
They jig it o'er the green; ..."

Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England, edited by Robert Bell, part 4