The 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day was marked in Rosedale by taking Winston Churchill’s advice with ‘a brief moment of celebration’ in the form of a picnic on the village green on Thursday evening, 8 May 2025. As well as the picnic on the green, the community school set up a teddy bears’ picnic and later in the evening the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee memorial was illuminated as part of the national beacon lighting campaign.

The Picnic on The Green

The Rosedale Beacon

With heartfelt thanks to Lorraine Dale for organising the event, Lorrie Westwood for the wonderful poppy displays and to David Simons for the evocative wartime musical soundtrack, all a fitting local tribute to the Greatest Generation.

Bring a bottle, a snack or two and a blanket to the village green at 8.30pm on Thursday 8 May 2025 to join with others in commemorating the end of the war in Europe on 8 May 1945. The Crown beacon will be ceremonially re-lit at 9.30pm in line with the the national beacon lighting and there will be appropriate music and song, and maybe some dancing!

See you all there for a good knees up.

Over £360 was collected for the Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team at the coffee morning held at theCoach House Inn in Rosedale Abbey on 3 May 25.

Once again, very many thanks to all who contributed prizes for the raffle and those who donated cash for the coffee and to the staff of the Coach House for sponsoring this successful event.

As notified, Gill Lane is due to be closed from from Wednesday 7 May for two days for top dressing work from the Low Bridge junction by the caravan park up to the White Horse junction – weather permitting, it says!

The mobile library service due to vidit Rosedale Abbey today, 19 Match, has been cancelled because of mechanical problems. The next visit will be on Wednesday 2 April from 1.00 to 3.00pm.

The dates and sponsors for the charity coffee mornings held in the Coach House Inn on the first Saturday of each month for the remainder of 2025 are:

1 March – Rosedale Community School

5 April – Moors Bus

3 May – Ryedale Mountain Rescue

7 June – Reading Room/Village Hall

5 July – Yorkshire Cancer Research

2 August – Ryedale Special Families

6 September – Rosedale Church

4 October – Rosedale Community Fund

1 November – Rosedale WI and Craft Fair

6 December – Rosedale History Archive

The events start at 10.00am and end with the ever popular raffle at around 12.00am. Entry is free but donations of items for the raffle and for the coffee and biscuits provided are welcomed – see you all in ’25!

Dear friends,

Tomorrow we celebrate Candlemas – the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, at

9.15 am Hutton (Revd Christine)

9.15 am Rosedale (me)

10.45 am Lastingham (me).

In addition we will be remembering that this is Holocaust Memorial Week, so we will be having a quiet space towards the end of the service at Lastingham so that we can light candles while Maddy plays quiet music.

Please feel welcome to attend any service.

The Festival of Candlemas has a very ancient tradition. Look, for instance, at Candlemas on Wikipedia.

We celebrate the presentation of Jesus in the Temple, while his mother Mary offers a purification offering. The later service of Churching of Women still in the Prayer Book relates to this, but is very little practised today, at least in Britain. Revd Christine has only once been involved in such a service, and I, never.

Also, people in Anglican tradition would bring candles to church on this day to be blessed, and in the Middle Ages made offerings  of candles to the church for its use throughout the year.

Finally – although there is lots more about Candlemas on the web – while some people take down Christmas decorations on Twelfth Night, they are often left up until Candlemas. Since the Wise Men only arrive in our cribs and Nativity sets (strictly) at Epiphany, taking them away six days later hardly gives us a chance to enjoy them, so that’s another reason to leave decorations in place until February 2^nd1

With prayers and blessings,

Revd David

The coffee morning in aid of the Rosedale Football Club held at the Coach House Inn this morning raised the excellent sum of £399 – well done to all who contributed, to those who donated raffle prizes and to the Coach House team for hosting.