Clipping posies

Sheep-shearing was one of the few set times of the farming year still kept as a holiday. The flock was first plunged one by one into a mill pool to be washed, and a few days later the shearers sat in rows by the pens with the whole village looking on, and the great sheep-shearings at Holkham and Woburn were famous. John Clare, quoted in the Year Book, remembered the old breakfast of furmety in a beechen bowl, with ale from the pint horn and old songs. In his own day the maids still gathered garden flowers into clipping posies for the shearers, and each man claimed a kiss in return.