All are warmly welcome at Ripon Cathedral on Sunday 9 January 2022 for the Plough Sunday Service to celebrate Yorkshire’s farming community.
This service is a chance for the community to come together to celebrate rural life with farming families and friends, and to celebrate God in creation and the place of the church in the countryside.
As is the annual tradition, there will be a blessing of the plough with a display of machinery on the Cathedral’s forecourt courtesy of Ripon Farm Services.
Supported by the Yorkshire Agricultural Society and its farming networks, the Future Farmers of Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Rural Support Network, the service is organised and hosted by Ripon Cathedral, The Methodist Church and The Church of England’s Diocese of Leeds.
What time does it start?
Refreshments, including hot pork rolls, cake, tea and coffee, will be served from 2.30pm, before the service starts at 3.30pm.
More details
The service will be led by the Very Rev’d John Dobson, Dean of Ripon with The Rev’d Canon Leslie Newton, Chair of Yorkshire North and East Methodist Circuit.
An address will be given by Professor Sally Shortall, Duke of Northumberland’s Chair of Rural Economy at Newcastle University.
Prof Shortall recently spoke about her research into the role of women in agriculture at our Women in Farming Network’s Autumn Gathering.
Two members of the Future Farmers of Yorkshire, Jen Kent and Christina Liddle, along with Lisa Cardy, Regional Support Officer – North of the Farming Community Network and a YFYFC member will also play an active part in the service.
Support, information and a special treat
Ripon Cathedral will also be kindly playing host to the Women in Farming Network’s well-received photography exhibition, ‘All in a Day’s Work’.
This compelling visual story of farming women across the generations, captured by Ampleforth-based documentary photographer Lucy Saggers, will be on display in the Cathedral.
Members of The Farming Community Network and Samaritans will be there with helpful information and to offer opportunities for a chat.
Everyone attending the service is kindly asked to do a lateral flow test beforehand, for their own reassurance and to protect others.
Kate Dale, co-ordinator of the Yorkshire Rural Support Network at the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, said:
All members of our farming community will be welcomed warmly at this service which celebrates their vital role as food producers and as guardians of our glorious countryside.
It is important that our farmers feel supported and valued for the work they do which is of enormous benefit to us all and we hope the service provides them with a timely, uplifting message at the start of the new year.
We are so grateful to the staff and clergy at Ripon Cathedral for always making us so welcome.
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