In 1981 Pearson started a series which clearly grew out of his interest in English Calendar Customs – In the Seven Woods – inspired by the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance, and which explored, in large series of pencil drawings, pastels, relief paintings and prints, the imagery associated with the dance such as horned dancers, hobby horse, and woods. There is a dark and haunting quality to many of these works, with hints of mortality, and this was a period during which he lost both his father Sam (1978) and mother Anne (1983).
Several of these drawings are in the collection of the Museum of English Rural Life, in Reading.