Plough Sunday is beginning of year (From Evesham Journal)

Plough Sunday is beginning of year

8:20am Thursday 13th January 2011 in News

A SHEEP will join a plough and milk churns at the altar when members of Moreton and District Agricultural and Horse Show Society hold their 21st Plough Sunday Service at Cornwell church on Sunday.

The Rev Andrew Keith will conduct the service at which HalfPint, the Suffolk cross Mule, will be a star attraction.

“Our Plough Sunday celebrations take us to a different church each year,” said show society secretary Emma Heathcote-James. “Traditionally, work in the fields did not begin until the week after Plough Sunday.”

Its origins date back to at least medieval times and Miss Heathcote-James said the words to be used in Sunday’s service date back to the Victorian service where the parish ploughs, bedecked with ribbons, would be dragged to church to be blessed, as the ploughing season began, ushering in the start of the farming cycle with a reminder to break up fallow ground.

Next morning, Plough Monday, teams would drag the ploughs round the village seeking contributions for an ale or night of revelling at the tavern.

Typical festivities included morris dancing, a Feast of Fools, Mab and his Wife and sometimes a man dressed as a bear.

Plough Tuesday more often than not would be spent recovering before a return to work after the Christmas season in earnest.

The service at 3pm, to which all are invited, follows a lunch at the Red Lion Inn, Little Compton, at 12.30pm. More information is available from the show office on 01608 651908