Sunday tea

Last updated: 27 March 2006

Sunday afternoon tea is the ordinary weekly offering of the village, when it is held. A table is put out in the Village Hall, a cloth is spread, and there is cake, and a pot, and whoever has come in from the trail. It is not a sitting that needs a booking. It is not held for groups as a private arrangement. Visitors are welcome at it. Come as you are from the walk.

Sunday tea, the hall. Photograph from a Gathering year; the weekly table is a smaller affair.

Tea is served when numbers allow and when the hall is not required for other purposes. It is not served every Sunday, and not in the depth of winter. The hour, when there is one, is from three until the pot is empty, which is usually before five. If you arrive later the door may already be shut, and the green will still be there. Ask at the desk on the Saturday if you like to know; the outer board is the authority if this page and the board differ.

There is no charge. A contribution toward the cake is taken if you wish to leave one, and it is not looked for. Cakes come from the parish; names for a tin may be left at the porch. There is no shop in the village. Provisions for a longer day are more readily found in Falstone. A picnic on the green is not the same thing as tea, and is not a substitute for it when the hall is shut.

The Green Man Trail returns by the hall, which is a different way from the start, and tea, when it is being served, is a good end to that walk. In July the Gathering tea is a larger table on a Saturday, and is a different notice. See Opening Hours and the weekly sheet.