MORE than 100 people packed into TWIGS’ woodland garden at the weekend for the fourth annual wassail celebrations.

The Icknield Way Morris Men led an all-singing, all-dancing procession around the Manor Garden Centre site on a frosty Saturday morning and blessed a 40-year-old apple tree.

Alan Holland, service manger at TWIGS, said: “We are holding this ancient festival to give thanks to the bounty of nature and for the blessing of this year’s crops.

“Proceedings are led by a character called The Butler and accompanied by the Lady of the Manor.”

Wassails are held all over the country in January and have been popular for hundreds of years.

Participants hung pieces of apple-soaked toast on the tree and banged saucepans to keep evil spirits away.

Alan said: “The whole wassail movement is being revived across the country. Go back 10 years and you would rarely find one. But now you can find one almost anywhere.”

TWIGS is a charity that gives people who experience mental health problems the chance to regain confidence, self-esteem and to learn new skills.

Hannah Chorley, 38, who had braved the cold to come to watch, said: “I think it’s great that people are keeping these traditions alive.”