According to the writer – "The Festivities extended over a week, and the same procedure was observed year after year." On the Saturday evening preceding the 29th a company of parishioners headed by fiddlers and players of other instruments went in procession across the Great Common to Maypole Hill where there was an old sycamore tree, for the purpose of "Rising Peter", who had been buried under the tree after the last St. Peter's Day. This effigy of St. Peter, rudely carved in wood and clothed in a fantastic fashion was placed in a box and conveyed to the neighbouring house (possibly the Inn) where it was exposed to view and kept there until the following Saturday, when another procession formed and St. Peter was reinterred. This was called "burying Peter". On the evening of the first day of the feast, young men went through the village with large baskets for the purpose of collecting tarts and cheese cakes and eggs for mulled ale, all being consumed at the above ceremonies. Afterwards – dancing, sports, and suppers took place in the village every day while the feast lasted. The small community of Widdington lies in the north of the parish. Widdington was historically a township in the ancient parish of Little Ouseburn. It became a separate civil parish in 1866. In 1988 the parish was absorbed into the civil parish of Nun Monkton. Nun Monkton ceased to be an estate village in 1934 when the estate houses of the village were sold off. The population today, of around 250, is well below its high point of about 350 in the 1890s and consists largely of commuters travelling daily to York, Harrogate and Leeds and retired people. The last shop in the village closed in 1986. The village green, however, continues to be grazed by cows and other animals and is one of the last working greens in Yorkshire. The Alice Hawthorn public house was named after the 1840s equine winner of the Doncaster Cup and Queen's Vase and was formerly The Blue Bell Inn. The Alice closed in 2007 after 220 years, but reopened after refurbishment under new management in September 2009. It has since closed and reopened under new management in summer 2013. The Yorkshire Heart Vineyard and Brewery was founded in Nun Monkton in 2000 and won a gold medal in the International Wine Challenge Cellar Door of the Year awards. There has been a school in Nun Monkton at least since the early-18th century when the Dorothy Wilson Trust was set up in York to endow education for both boys and girls in the village.