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Eager to experience this uniquely English ritual for myself, where Magner’s Shepton Mallet Cider Mill was holding an
I headed to Illminster on a bleak and rain-lashed evening, invitation-only wassail. Anorak-clad guests basked by a bon-
where a crowd of more than 200 revelers had gathered in a fire that burned bright as Beelzebub’s hearth or huddled within
sodden apple orchard. The jaw-dropping Christmas debts had leaky-roofed farm buildings that had been converted into a
come due, the days were damp, cold and dark, and it was ages canteen, concert hall and standing-room only pub, where the
until the next holiday weekend. We should, by rights, have orchard manager dispensed several varieties of free-flowing
been crying into our pints. Gaymer’s cider.

But despite the dismal winter gloom and the unrelenting Gradually, a buzz began to build as a band of English folk
downpour, the mood was downright jovial in Stewley Orchard, dancers known as Morris men (and women, in this case),

160 WDT MAGAZINE WINTER 2018