By Jill Stocks

Horsforth Community Garden hosted a wassailing event on Saturday, hoping that the ancient ritual will help to bring growth in the coming year.

Wassailing is a new year tradition going back centuries, involving singing, poetry and loud noise, to encourage a good harvest for the year and bring the community together.

Toast is placed in the trees to encourage the tree spirits and the roots of trees are wetted with cider, or in this case apple juice, to wish growth in the garden. 

The word “wassail” is derived from a middle English toast which in the modern parlance translates as “be in good health” and guests at a wassailing are also encouraged to don head-dresses. 

Horsforth Community Garden is one of the projects of Friends of Horsforth Hall Park and is located in Horsforth Hall Park adjacent to the Japanese Gardens. Volunteers maintain its upkeep throughout the year. 

Penny Pinn is the treasurer for Friends of Horsforth Hall Park and volunteers in the community garden and told us about the event.

She said: “Today we’ve had 50 people in Horsforth Hall Park in the community garden celebrating wassailing, an ancient British tradition, to bless the trees and hope they will fruit well next year.

“We’ve been joined by the Acappella Choir to sing some wassailing songs. People made apple cake from Horsforth apples, that otherwise would’ve gone to waste, picked by local volunteers.

“We poured apple juice on the trees saved from going to waste by the Community Cafe, and hung toast from the Community Cafe on the trees for the robins. And we’ve made the sun shine.”

Horsforth Music Centre Acappella Group were on hand to perform a number of songs. David Blakeley told us a little about the group.

“We’ve probably been doing wassails for about five years. One of our fellow members actually has an orchard herself so we go and sing at her orchard. 

“Singing in general and enjoying yourself and entertaining other people is very important and unfortunately quite a lot of schools etc have taken music off the curriculum so I think it’s important to keep it going and get out there.”  

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