The Mutton Pie at Cliffe

St James’s Day was reckoned the day oysters came in, and Hone records the vulgar belief that whoever ate oysters on it would never want money. Apples were once blessed by the priest on this day, under a special form in the Sarum manual. At Cliffe in Kent the rector, by an old custom, gave a mutton pie and a loaf at the parsonage to everyone who asked for one on St James’s Day, at a cost of about fifteen pounds a year.