Ashwick, Oakhill & Binegar News
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The Beacon Ashwick, Oakhill & Binegar News AUGUST 2021 Cover photo: © Lee Linford Church Services – August 2021 Sunday, 1st August 10am Lammas Service St. James, Ashwick Sunday, 8th August 10am Family Worship All Saints, Oakhill Sunday, 15th August 10am Communion St. James, Ashwick Sunday, 22nd August 10am Communion Holy Trinity, Binegar 4pm 4th@4 Church Rooms, Ashwick Sunday, 29th August 10am Rambling Worship Walk starting at Holy Trinity, Binegar; finishing at St James, Ashwick Would you like to support the churches in our parish? Please scan the QR code and make a donation online. Thank you. Please visit www.beacontrinity.church or: Follow us on Instagram! facebook.com/beacontrinity instagram.com/beacontrinity View from the Hill With the restrictions lifting, many areas of life are returning to a form of normality. I am sure many are still being sensibly cautious especially in confined spaces. From the church perspective, we are pleased to be able to plan for the forthcoming months in the hope that things will stay under control as we live with Covid. We have a special service on 1st August when we will celebrate Lammas. This festival is to celebrate the start of the grain harvest. Lammas has been forgotten in many communities with Harvest Festival marking the end of harvest including the fruit and berries etc. There are two reasons for me wanting to increase the number of celebrations we have. Firstly, there is always a need to say thank you, and acknowledge all that we have in life, and secondly, communities need to make memories, and celebrations are ways to do just that. I will always remember the Drive-in Harvest Festival we had last year. Lammas will be in St. James Church, Ashwick at 10am. We will be praying for our farmers, our vegetable and fruit growers as they look ahead to the work at harvest time. Our Harvest Festival this year will once again be on the Fair Field in Binegar. I had hoped we would have a weekend of events, a community party. However, due to the ongoing uncertainty around Covid we are sticking to Sunday 19th September. I would like to have a scarecrow festival where children, families or households create a scarecrow and display it on the day and even at home before and afterwards. It would be great to have scarecrows all over Ashwick, Oakhill and Binegar. Holy Trinity Church will be full of floral arrangements for harvest and stay open across the weekend. On Sunday morning there will be an open-air service at 11 am (this time we will not need to stay in our cars). In the afternoon there will be fun and games for all the family. You can bring a picnic if you wish. If you would like to help make this a great community event then please get in touch. Page 3 Community corner Haymaking, the traditional way Wilf Roberts' Memorial Just remembering old days. This is the We were really upset and saddened that way we do things now, to clear a field of someone felt the need to steal a pot of hay. When we first got married we made begonias in memory of our dear Dad which about 4000/5000 small bales of hay that were placed next to his memorial bench at had to be cut, turned several times and Galley Batch. He was a Japanese prisoner lined up before baling. Praying for the of war who lost his youth and suffered weather to hold. atrocities for us to have a better world and Then we had the help of the boys up the freedom, but to steal was not a part of that road and family, to help get it all in, on deal. You know who you are, shame on you. trailers. Load up trailers by hand and Sue Roberts unload into the sheds by hand. At the end of a long day and evening, back to the house for supper and cider for all. Farming was physically harder then but the load was shared. Now it’s easier with machines but harder working alone without the banter of people sharing the load. Mandy Alvis The Labyrinth Picture of The Labyrinth at the Fair Field in Binegar. Open to all. Photography Exhibition The Beacon Photography Group is exhibiting its members photography taken Read more about local haymaking on during lockdown. See the final part, Part 3, pages 12-13. on pages 18-19. Page 4 Social distancing for gardeners This month's cover... Alternative social distancing measures This month's photograph of a hot air balloon – poster captured by Pam Dennis at the taken by Lee Linford. Please send photos Malvern Show. for the cover (portrait orientation, in colour) to: [email protected] Thank you. Do you like being outside in nature? Do you like walking? August 29th We have Rambling Worship. Meeting in Binegar Church at 10am we will then walk to Ashwick Church. There will be a route using footpaths and lanes and one using all roads/lanes. Be prepared for the weather, bring drinks and snacks and a picnic to have when we arrive in Ashwick. Open Garden in aid of Dorothy House Hospice Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th August from 2-5 pm at Simbriss Farm, Ashwick, Oakhill, Radstock BA3 5BA. Entry £5 adults • Children under 11 free. For more details phone Pauline West on 01749 840293 or 07444 943700 June was a Weather Report: changeable month June 2021 with some very warm days. Highest reading was From Roemead Farm. 29.9°C on the 25th of June. Written by Mean temperature 15.6°C, rainfall total Gerald Esain. 124.5mm, (above average for June), 59mm of rain falling on the 18th of June, the second wettest 24 hours recorded at this site in 40 years. Page 5 Sarah's Nan's Dorset Apple Cake We love a good homemade cake (that's simple to make!) So from the Kite family to yours, here's a little recipe that's been passed down the generations. My nan would have made this cake using eggs from their own chickens and apples from their apple tree in the garden! Ingredients: 170g/6oz self-raising flour 85g/3oz butter/margarine 85g/3oz caster sugar 113g/4oz dried fruit (e.g. currants) 85-113g/3-4oz chopped apple (small chunks, skin on) 1 egg 2 tbsp milk (30ml) Demerara sugar for sprinkling Method: 1) Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C Fan/Gas 4. 2) Rub the butter or margarine into the flour 3) Add the sugar and dried fruit. Stir the dry mix. 4) Combine the chopped apple with the milk and egg. Add to the dry mix and stir well. 5) Line a 450g/1lb loaf tin with baking parchment and spoon the mixture in. Sprinkle the demerara sugar on top generously. 6) Bake in the oven for 1 hour or until golden. 7) Leave in the loaf tin to cool then remove parchment and enjoy! Recipe Tips: Sarah's Nan's top tip: Double the mixture and make two cakes while the oven is on. Freeze one and eat the other! Page 6 Oakfest @ Oakhill Church School Nursery The children of Oakhill Church School Nursery were invited to our Oakfest Festival week, where they could experience music, instruments, dancing, tattoos and body art, cider (apple juice!) and snacks, along with other fun activities. Page 7 Tales of old Our two Calvinist-leaning bishops were followed in six short years by four High Anglicans. The first, William Laud (1626-28) was, within five years, King Charles I’s Archbishop of Canterbury. The next, Leonard Mawe, died after only 15 months. Walter Curle moved to Winchester in 1632 and that brought us Bishop William Piers. In a sense, Mawe was lucky to die naturally. Laud was executed, Curle exiled and Piers impeached, imprisoned and deprived of his bishopric. The arguments between High Anglicans and Puritans would not go away. Charles I appointed Laud in 1633 to steer the Church towards a uniform High Anglicanism which, to Puritans, reeked of Rome. Piers was a devotee of Laud and our Diocese became “Laud’s laboratory”. Piers was a scourge to Puritans. He enforced orthodox ceremonies. He ordered communion tables to be railed. Many parishes resisted. Piers excommunicated the Beckington churchwardens for their refusal. Appeals to Laud and the King just landed them in gaol. Piers offended Puritans who wished to keep Sunday Holy. Somerset Judges forbade unlawful Sunday meetings but Piers insisted on Sunday wakes and fund-raising parish ales social events. He insisted the King’s Book of Sports (those allowed on Sundays) be read in churches. He threatened clergy who refused with censure or suspension. He stamped out the practice of lay (Puritan) preaching in churches demanding priests taught congregations the catechism instead. In 1640, parliament arrested and indicted Archbishop Laud for treason. Within days, Piers was impeached before the House of Lords. He had contested the legality of the parliament and for that he was accused of high treason and committed to the Tower. Though he lost his status as bishop, after the trial, he was allowed to live on his estate in Oxfordshire, where he married for a second time. In 1660, the monarchy restored, he was reinstated to Bath & Wells. At the end of his long life, he retired to Walthamstow and died in 1670, age 90. He left two sons: William, Archdeacon of Bath and John, who inherited the family estate. What do you suppose Anthony Mortimer, our Rector 1619-66, made of all that? Richard Higgins Page 8 Grenville’s Ramblin’s..