The Oak is the sign of the village inn, and a place of more than local reputation for its strong, home-brewed ale.

We have traces of the custom of ringing the harvest bell in various parts of the Midlands. At Moreton and at Walgrave, in Northamptonshire, the harvest bell was rung at four o’clock in the morning. At Spratton, Wellingborough, and other places in the county, the custom is still remembered, but not kept up.

It was customary in many places, when the last load of grain was brought home, to deck it with the boughs of the oak and ash, and a merry peal of the church bells made known the news that the farmer had ended his harvest, the farm labourers riding on the top of the load to sing—

“Harvest home! harvest home!
The boughs they do shake, the bells they do ring,
So merrily we bring the harvest in, harvest in!
So merrily we bring the harvest in.”

In some of the more remote villages of the country, the gleaners’ bell is rung as a signal to commence gleaning. By this means, to use the words of Mr. Thomas North, our leading authority on bell lore, the old and feeble, as well as the young and active, may have a fair start. At Lyddington, Rutland, says Mr. North, the clerk claims a fee of a penny a week from women and big children, as a recompense for his trouble. The parish clerk at West Deeping, Lincolnshire, claimed twopence a head from the gleaners, but as they refused to pay, he declined to ring the bell.

Bearing on this theme may be included particulars of a bell formerly rung at Louth when the harvest on the “Gatherums” was ripe. “A piece of ground so called,” writes Mr. North, “was in former times cultivated for the benefit of the poor. When the ‘pescods’ were ripe, the church bell was rung, which gave warning to the poor that the time had arrived when they might gather them; hence (it is said) gather ’em or gatherum.” From the church accounts is drawn the following:

“1536. Item for Knyllyng the bell in harvest for gatheringe of the pescods iiijd.”

Similar entries occur in the books of the church.

An inscription on a bell at Coventry, dated 1675, states:—

“I ring at six to let men know
When to and fro’ their work to goe.”