A Victorian Harvest Weekend

For a few years now we've marked the traditional harvest-time with a special event at the mill, especially as the end of September is when the watermill closes its doors to the general public for the autumn and winter, so we go out with a bit of a celebration. 

We'd collected apples from the trees at the mill and been given several crates by friends to press into gallons and gallons of juice.  It was more or less all drunk by the visitors and millers that weekend, none left over to make cider.

We churned cream to make butter and ate cakes made to Victorian harvest-time recipes.

A steady flow of visitors for guided tours kept the millstones busy throughout the day so we ended up with a few sacks of flour.

Thanks to the creative talents of Chris and Joan, and a fair few pieces of string to hold things together, a little Victorian parlour appeared inside a tent between the mill and the bywash.   They provided us with nineteenth century tunes all afternoon and the cheery melodies drifted around the mill giving just the right atmosphere for a harvest home.

Chris had also brought along his collection of Victorian cycles and did several ride pasts on the penny farthing.

More genteel perhaps, was the beautiful lace making demonstration by Karen Andrews.

And then it was done, and packed away, the mill closed to the public for the colder months, with only school groups coming to the site for the next month.  The millers and all that joined us had a great time, and we're looking forward to doing it all again next autumn.