Costermongers held their annual Harvest Festival at St Mary-le-Bow church in the City of London, on the afternoon of Sunday 25 September 2022.

The event was well attended by Pearly royalty, the mayors of London boroughs, some Chelsea Pensioners, some military personnel, and enough members of the general public to fill the church.

Traditional harvest hymns were sung; ‘We plough the fields and scatter’ seeming rather out of place in a City church, sung by a congregation probably very few of whom had any connection with agriculture.  Although costermongers traditionally sold fruit and vegetables from barrows on London’s streets, reference to this was restricted to a box of apples (Malus cv.) and a box of pears (Pyrus cv.); an ornamental loaf of bread was placed on the altar, and a black-and-white framed photograph of Queen Elizabeth was placed between the apples and pears.