Celebrating A Victorian Harvest Festival

Pupils from Harrold Priory Middle School helped E2BN celebrate a Victorian Harvest festival. The aim was to record the activities to develop some podcasts that can be downloaded and used by schools.

You will be able to see the celebrations and some of the recipes that were made for our harvest feast in the History Cookbook, being developed as part of E2BN's Cookit website. These will be published in November, so watch this space.

The harvest festival was very popular in late Victorian times. It is a celebration of thanks to God for the safe harvest of the crops. It is mainly associated with wheat, bread, fruit and vegetables.    

The harvest festival as we know it today began in 1843, when the Reverend Robert Hawker invited parishioners to a special thanksgiving service for the harvest at his church at Morwenstow in Cornwall. They very much enjoyed the event and insisted on celebrating again the following year. The idea soon caught on and rapidly spread to other parts of the country.

There had been a celebration in medieval times, at the beginning of the Harvest season on the 1st August, which was called Lammas, meaning 'loaf Mass'. Farmers made loaves of bread from the new wheat crop and gave them to their local church. They were then used as the Communion bread during a special mass thanking God for the harvest. The custom ended when Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church. Since the reintroduction of a service in Victorian times, we now celebrate harvest after the crops have been gathered.

In Victorian times, at the start of the harvest, communities would appoint a respected man as their 'Lord of the Harvest'. He would be responsible for negotiating the harvest wages and organising the fieldworkers. At the end of the harvest there was the church service and a feast, or a big meal, called a Harvest Supper. A goose stuffed with apples was eaten along with a variety of vegetables and there were games and celebrations.

Our harvest celebrations were a great success. A good day was had by all and E2BN would like to thank the pupils, teachers and adults that took part in the event.  E2BN is still looking for other schools to help us test and develop historical recipes for the cookbook which will be completed in December. If you are interested please let us know at admin@e2bn.org