Lammas day – or ‘loaf mass’ – is traditionally when people celebrate the first wheat harvest in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and is the noted as the first harvest festival of the season. Grains that are harvested at Lammas time include, wheat, barley, oats, and rye.
The festival’s roots date back to Anglo Saxon times when the festival was referred to as the ‘feast of first fruits’. It also marks the end of the hay harvesting season. Lammas Day is usually around the beginning of August and coincides with when tenant farmers would have presented the first crop harvest to their landlord. Traditionally villagers would take a loaf of bread into church that was made with the first crop. This loaf was then blessed and, according to Anglo Saxon tradition, broken into four pieces with each of the pieces placed at the corner of a barn to protect the newly harvested grain. Lammas marks the first harvest festival, while the harvest festival is for the end of the harvest season and usually celebrated in late September or early October.
This morning, the tradition was continued at All Saints’ Church in Melbourn. A member of the congregation, Bob Tulloch, got up at 5am to bake the bread which was received, blessed and consecrated and then distributed in our Communion Service.
Pictured: The Revd Andrew Birks (Vicar of All Saints' Melbourn and HolyTrinity Meldreth), receives the Lammas loaf from Bob Tulloch, who rose at 5am to bake the bread.