Harvest Festival 2025 – In Your Cathedral

Harvest is being celebrated in our cathedrals with services focussing on climate change, farming, food poverty and sustainability.

Harvest Festival at your local Cathedral

The diverse range of farming that the county of Essex offers was celebrated at Chelmsford Cathedral when it hosted the County Harvest Festival Service at the end of September.

The opening procession featured all creatures (and agricultural machinery) great and small, including a barn owl from Barleylands Farm which flew down the middle of the aisle.

The Diocesan Rural Advisor, The Revd Canon Janet Nicholls said,

‘The County Harvest Festival provides a pause in this challenging agricultural year to come before God in thankfulness and prayer for the commitment of our farming community. 

‘The service also provides the opportunity for our farmers to showcase the vital work of the countryside in the heart of the city. ‘

Harvest Festival at Salisbury Cathedral 

Salisbury Cathedral celebrated Harvest Festival with two services on Sunday inviting donations of non-perishable groceries for the Salisbury Food Bank.

The Wiltshire County Harvest Thanksgiving Choral Evensong, held in the afternoon, featured a Procession of Offerings and representatives from Wiltshire’s farming and agricultural community and the Cathedral Choir sang at both services.

St Edmundsbury Cathedral hosted the County Harvest Festival on Sunday for a day of seasonal celebration, community gathering, and thanksgiving.

Suffolk’s agricultural tradition was celebrated during the day with stalls, activities and displays on the Green that included Suffolk Punch horses, Red Poll cattle, and Suffolk sheep, alongside a tractor and combine harvester for visitors explore.

This was followed in the afternoon by a Harvest Service in the cathedral and every visitor was encouraged to bring non-perishable food items for the local food banks, Gatehouse and Storehouse.

A special feature in this year’s Harvest Festival was the Love British Food Harvest Torch.

Since 2014, the Harvest Torch has become well known as the emblem of Love British Food and has journeyed around many of our cathedrals for their county harvest festivals.

The torch was designed and sculptured by Andy Hall FWCB from Devon and Blacksmith and was National Blacksmith of the Year.

The Reverend Clive Fairclough, one of the diocese’s rural chaplaincy team, was thrilled to be offered the harvest torch to travel around rural Suffolk. He said.

“This beautiful sculpture is a wonderful symbol of British agriculture with its ears of corn, fruits of the earth, mushrooms and bullrushes of the meadows.”  

This year, the torch has travelled around Suffolk to several of the county’s agricultural shows earlier in the year.

The torch will now continue to Westminster Abbey for the National Harvest Festival on Thursday 16 October which celebrates British Food Fortnight.

Winchester Cathedral celebrated harvest and explored climate change and other environmental issues at the Big Green Weekend held at the end of September.

There were farm animals, falconry displays, tractors, a Hampshire Fare market, and a Big Top marquee full of topical displays, speakers and organisations who are working towards a more sustainable future.

It also used the end of the Big Green Weekend to share its plans for solar panels on its roofs, announce that its popular Christmas Market will be even more sustainable than ever and that next year’s flower festival will once more aim to use as many British-grown flowers as possible. It also outlined some of the action it is already taking to mitigate climate change including a bio-diversity project in the north paddock of the Cathedral estate.

Earlier in September, Winchester Cathedral had invited a group from Christian Climate Action (CCA) to address the congregation in which they urged the church to show leadership on the crisis, and recognise the need to consume less and live differently.

Ely Cathedral will celebrate the harvest this weekend with this year’s theme, ‘Farming The Fens’.

There will be a tractor outside the Cathedral and the Nave will be filled with flowers designed by the Flower Guild, as well as harvest themed displays from G’s, the NFU and a number of local schools.

Prickwillow Museum will demonstrate their model pumping station, a wooden wind pump, plus lots of scale models of interesting things including a wind tunnel.

Wicken Fen, the National Trust’s oldest nature reserve, and one of Europe’s most important wetlands, will share their ambitious landscape-scale conservation project, helping to create a diverse range of new habitats.

There will also be two Smoothie bikes, where visitors can power their own smoothie making using local fruit and veg; the opportunity to make a small scarecrow, corn dollies; a seed swap and storytelling of local folklore character Tiddy Munn

Harvest Festival Worship will take place throughout the weekend and includes a harvest supper, harvest prayer and praise and a Harvest Festival Eucharist.  As part of the Harvest Festival, the recently planted orchard in the Dean’s Paddock will be open to visitors. Volunteers will be on hand to chat about the project and Ely Cathedral’s work to improve biodiversity on their land.

Ely Food Bank will be collecting donations though out the weekend. More here.

Newcastle Cathedral’s Harvest Festival will be a joyful celebration of the season, filled with music, prayer, and reflection on the gifts of the harvest.

The service at 10am on Sunday 19 October will feature uplifting music from some of the Cathedral Choir’s youngest voices.

The service will also give thanks for the generosity of the Cathedral community, whose Harvest donations this year will help to support West End Refugee Service (WERS).

The Harvest Festival will also showcase artwork created by members of the congregation.

This artwork – by asylum seeker and refugee members of our Bible study group – has been inspired by the Cathedral and the natural world. It

has been created in collaboration with artist Rory Williams as part of a project supported by Newcastle City Council’s Arts Development Team.

All services are FREE to attend with no pre-booking required and this service will also be live-streamed via Newcastle’s YouTube channel.

Wakefield Cathedral celebrated harvest last weekend giving thanks for the season and encouraging people to share their creations online.

There were activities and free downloadable craft sheets for families to enjoy at home, Messy Cathedral, which included crafts and a communal meal, and eco-themed events were also part of the cathedral’s Harvest celebrations and seasonal programming.

Hereford Cathedral will celebrate harvest over the 21- 23 October with a bring and share harvest supper and harvest praise.

On Saturday the cathedral will host the county harvest festival which will offer harvest workshops arranged by the education department, a craft and mini food fair, a new red tractor standing sentinel outside the cathedral, major fruit and flower displays, apple trees and an appearance of Ronaldo, Weston Cider’s Herefords bull.

Songs of Praise for harvest will take place on Sunday 23 October at 3.30 pm and will include the NFU, Young Farmers and local apple growers.

Pictured by the car is the Dean of Portsmouth, Dr Anthony Cane and the Revd Canon Harriet Neale- Stevens with food donations collected during their harvest weekend events as part of the citywide With Thankful Hearts campaign. Harvest events also included a barn dance and hog roast.  Food donations, for distribution through the Roberts Centre, can be left in the Cloister throughout the year.