Harvest

200 years ago, Whitchurch was very rural any just about everyone celebrated the changing seasons

Pretty much the whole community were farming families or agricultural workers and would come together at seedtime and harvest and be involved in the fields

Harvest was a particularly special time during the farming year. The extended farming families would come together with their workmen to gather in the harvest crop of wheat, barley and oats. The best land was always used for wheat growing with the poorer ground for barley and oats. Early starts and long days whilst the weather permitted. Always trying to harvest during the dry spells (not always possible in Wales!)

Before the industrial age, harvest was very labour intensive. Teams of experienced men would scythe the corn, leaving just the stubble. Others would follow behind gathering the corn stooks into sheaves and tying them into bundles standing vertically in the cleared field. These then were bundled onto horse-drawn wagons (or wains), then collected together into stacks in the open field or (in later years) to purpose-built ricks. Mums, dads and children all had their special roles

Harvest songs and traditional hymns set the rhythm for work and could be heard from one end of the village to the other

So, whilst we know what a traditional harvest would be, not many would know when. The Harvest Festival usually fell on the Sunday nearest to the Harvest Moon (the full moon that occurs closest to the Autumn Equinox), usually late September

The best wheat and barley stooks were also used for thatching. Remember, most houses and cottages at that time would have thatched roofs and would require constant patching and completely re-thatched every 30 years or so. There were still a few thatchers living in the village at the time of the early census’

So, harvest was always one of the high points of the year and to be celebrated. Ancient rituals can only be guessed at, and pagan celebrations would have been quite special with much eating, carousing and dancing (you only have to look at the modern druidic celebrations today to get an idea. Harvest home and corn dollies are the nearest we get today

Puritan attitudes to harvest were quite different and many of the traditional celebrations were frowned upon. Whitchurch was almost totally Welsh-speaking and the Mabon celebrations formed the central focus

With the coming of the new chapels and the English-speaking workers at Melingriffith and Pentyrch, the 19th century and Victorian harvest festivals changed again. This time within the churches themselves. Choirs and pipe organs and celebratory teas

Our modern church harvest festivals are now quite different again. Lots of us can remember church or chapel harvest services with decorated church buildings and vast displays of locally grown vegetables, all topped off by at least one specially-baked harvest loaf in the shape of a wheatsheaf (just like the one in the picture), in a prime location at the front of the church

Nowadays, the collected food is often tinned, and is donated to the local foodbank

Does anyone have any memories of harvest that they recall or were told about?

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