Harvest Festival, St Margaret's Church

Pulpit decorated for Harvest Festival 2012

A Harvest Festival service will be held at St Margarets Church , High Hutton, Huttons Ambo on Sunday 30th September at 630pm (this evening).

All welcome, there will be a chance to meet and have refreshments afterwards.

St Margaret's Window

Sorry about the late posting of this, your editor promises to get his act together in the future...

All material © Philip Stone 2012

Church Gates Gone - For Refurbishment

Church gates and evening mist

The gates at St Margaret's church in High Hutton are old friends and over the years they've provided me with many a photo opportunity. They also feature in weddings, it's traditional for the children of the village to tie the gates closed with string during the ceremony and then demand payment to release the newly wed couple.

Last leaf, High Hutton

But age has scarred the gates and frost has cracked the pillars - so the parochial church council has found some funds to restore them. The gates have been removed temporarily so that they they can be shot-blasted and repainted and the pillars repaired and they should be back in a few weeks.

Church Gates, High Hutton

If you like these pictures you can see a small gallery of black and white photographs taken around and in the church here on our flickr site.

All material © Philip Stone 2012

Full Moon - Harvest Moon

Full Moon over the Wolds, from High Hutton

The harvest has been in full swing for weeks now, we're officially in Autumn and the nights are drawing in. Often in September we see a fat full moon hanging on the horizon and call it a 'Harvest Moon' - but what is a Harvest Moon and why does it seem so big?

The Harvest Moon is defined as the full moon closest to the Autumn Equinox, the day when the length of day and night are equal and the sun crosses the celestial equator and heads south for the winter. This year that day is September the 22nd and the nearest full moon falls on September 30th, so the next full moon will be a Harvest Moon.



Full Moon and Pampas Grass, High Hutton

And the size? That's down to something called 'The Moon Illusion'. When the moon is seen near the horizon it often appears to be larger and closer than when it is high up in the sky. The reason is still hotly debated by psychologists; one theory suggests that when we see the moon next to recognizable objects on the horizon (houses, trees etc) we judge the size of the moon to be large and near the those objects, but when the moon is high in the sky we have nothing to compare it to and judge it to be small and distant.

But whatever the reason, get yourself outside on the evening of the 30th of September and enjoy the sight of a big and beautiful Harvest Moon rising over the Wolds.

All material © Philip Stone 2012