Her Majesty The Queen launched Love British Food’s inaugural National Harvest Service in Westminster Abbey in 2013, when she was HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. The service has taken place in a different city or group of parishes every year since. Last year it took place in Peterborough Cathedral. This year it takes place in Southwark Cathedral on Sunday 6thOctober at 11AM at a special harvest service organised by City Harvest, the magnificent food redistribution charity that makes good food available to those most in need in London.


The Harvest Torch, that was blessed in Westminster Abbey, travels the country with the service.


Celebrating the harvest by gathering together to give thanks for the food from the land is something that is celebrated by communities all over the world. Years ago it was, in Britain, almost as important a part of our national calendar as Christmas and Easter.

 

Harvest is one of the most important times of the year for farmers; the culmination of a year’s work and investment. And it is an opportunity for us all, in our homes and in our communities, to give thanks for the bountiful food that the land provides.

 

Love British Food runs a campaign to keep the celebration of the harvest a key part of the national calendar; to bring about a revival of this tradition that has long played a significant role in bringing communities together and reminding us how lucky we are to have food in abundance from Britain's beautiful countryside.

 

In 2013 we established a National Harvest Service. It was held in Westminster Abbey, the first harvest service to be held in the Abbey for nearly half a century. It is now held every year, each time in a different part of the country during British Food Fortnight. A Harvest Torch is handed from city to city with the National Harvest Service. It is a specially commissioned sculpture depicting harvest’s natural bounty and is the farming community’s answer to the Olympic Torch. The Torch has travelled from Westminster Abbey to Birmingham, Canterbury, Lincoln, Pembrokeshire, Ely, Chelmsford, Wells and the villages of Somerset. Next year we hope it will travel to Peterborough.

 

The tradition of celebrating harvest festival in churches began in 1843 when, at Morwenstow in Cornwall, The Reverend Robert Hawker conducted a special thanksgiving service at his church and blessed the crops. A year later, The Reverend Henry Alford’s hymn, ‘Come ye thankful people come, raise the song of harvest home’ was published. In the decades that followed, harvest festival gained in popularity and churches throughout the country celebrated it. However today, while many wonderful harvest celebrations still take place in communities and churches across Britain, this tradition that continues to flourish in other countries is no longer an established part of our national calendar. 

We hope that Love British Food’s campaign to keep harvest festival on the national calendar, together with the renewed interest in the link between what we eat and where it comes from, will signify the continued revival of this joyous tradition.


There is so much to celebrate. We are fortunate to live in a country with four distinct seasons: ‘the warmth to swell the grain, the breezes and the sunshine, and soft refreshing rain’; a wonderfully varied topography with fells, dales, moors, plains, valleys, marsh, pasture and coast; and a vibrant farming community that despite relentless challenges continues to succeed in producing some of the highest quality food in the world. From our beef and sheep breeds which are the envy of the world; to our dairy farmers who now produce more types of cheese than France; to the abundance and rich variety of fruit and vegetables; to nature’s harvest which gives us mushrooms, haws, hips, blackberries and sweet chestnuts, we are indeed truly blessed.


Download The Order of Service



Harvest Time Song by Bryony Muir

The days are long when it’s harvest time

So we’ll say a little prayer when the sun begins to shine

Working hand in hand with the weather all the time

Sometimes I like to dream when it’s harvest time


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A Reflection on Farming

Read at the Love British Food’s Harvest service in Westminster Abbey in 2013 by Milly Fyfe, Chairman at the time, National Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs


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