Lammas Tide

This little church is the furthest outpost of our benefice, or group of churches under our vicar. It stands in an idyllic hamlet with a manor house, a village pond and several very pretty old houses and cottages - all off the beaten track, as it were!

Today the church was packed for a Lammas Tide service, the first held in our benefice - for many years anyway.

The 1st of August is the ancient festival of Lammas tide, traditionally the start of the harvest calendar, and the day when the first new grain was milled and baked.....


We had a specially baked Lammas loaf, which was offered on the altar as a thanksgiving for the first fruits of the harvest. Part of the loaf was used as the bread in the communion part of the service, and the rest was buttered and shared at a picnic afterwards. The weather was kind and many of us sat outside the church on the grass and enjoyed our picnics together.

Thomas Hardy mentions Lammas tide in his novel "Return of the Native", and Shakespeare used Lammas Eve, July 31st, as the day of Juliet's birth. Her nurse remarks:
"On Lammas-Eve at night shall she be fourteen;
That shall she, marry..."


Juliet was at "a pretty age"  -  so this was an appropriate date for her birthday, representing youth, plenty and the ripening grain - and all the more poignant!


The bell tower on the church is fascinating too!