Organized By Tamsin Lewis
Outside Shakespeare's Globe (33.395769, -110.789126)
The October Plenty Festival is an urban harvest festival, celebrating British produce, tradition and independent farming with song, dance, games and plays. The Festival begins with music and dance on the Bankside at Shakespeare's Globe where you will be joined by the 12 feet tall Corn Queene, the fiddle playing Bear and The BerryMan who offers libations for the coming year. The whole assembly then dances a farandole to Borough Market where there will be story telling in the Apple Orchard; a play performed on the cart-stage; music, dance, apple bobbing, conkers and the annual Execution of John Barley Corn. The market will be open for buying some of the best food and drink available in London. This is a truly unique and somewhat eccentric event, the like of which you will not see elsewhere. And best of all - it's FREE! The October Plenty programme: The Corn Queene. A huge Corn Queene effigy heavy with 'Plenty' - wheat, barley and other grains, and apples, root vegetables and foliage from the Borough Market - appears in a procession around the front of the Globe, Bankside, with the Company of actors and the time-honoured Hobby Horse in attendance, strung with cakes and loaves and led by the Berry Man. The Berry Man. The Berry Man - our Autumn incarnation of the original Green Man - decked with wild fruits and foliage, leads the company. He carries an Apple Tree to where it will be placed within the Bankside area, with general songs and music on the street for all. The procession. We then move through the streets to the Borough Market. There in the Green Market there is time to savour the delights on offer: soul cakes, apple biscuits, conker fights, cider from the New Forest, apple bobbing, a great beer selection and the wonderful market stalls as well as more dancing. The Play. The Story Orchard. A glade of young English apple trees creates a space for children to gather. There they can re-clothe the trees with green wishes (paper apples) and listen to stories about apples, markets, harvest time and London sparrows! There is a tasting table of old apple types from London by Brogdale Horticultural Trust with decorations created at Roots and Shoots, the Lambeth community gardens environment project.