A KEIGHLEY master baker will share more of his bread-making secrets as part of the traditional first-harvest celebrations taking place at East Riddlesden Hall this Yorkshire Day.

Mike Armstrong, a highly experienced, award winning professional baker, will give a bread-making demonstration and talk about the history of celebrating Lammas (which means “loaf-mass”) at the Bread in the Barn event at this National Trust attraction on Wednesday August 1.

Held in the 17th century Great Barn, visitors will be able find out more about the pagan festival of Lammas.

They will be shown how to make their own bread dough to take away and bake at home.

Inside the house, the atmospheric, 400 year-old Great Hall will be home to a display of bread, wheat sheaves and corn dollies, traditionally laid out to celebrate the annual wheat harvest.

Jacqueline Waters, who is the house steward at East Riddlesden Hall, said: “The Lammas event is very popular and it is great to welcome visitors to celebrate the first-harvest and its links to the hall’s agricultural past.

“We are really looking forward to having Mike join us again this year to share his knowledge of Lammas and his bread-making skills.”

Mr Armstrong will be at the Great Barn on August 1 and the 45-minute bread making sessions will take place at 11am, 1pm and 3pm that day.

The sessions cost £2 per person plus general admission which is free to National Trust members.

Mr Armstrong, known as Baker Mike, writes the Keighley News’s regular Friend in Knead column, providing baking tips, ideas and recipes.

In 2011 he won the Sainsbury’s Supermarket chain’s national bake-off, beating more than 4,000 entrants from across the company.

Lammas Day is a holiday in some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere, usually between 1 August and 1 September.

The festival marks the annual wheat harvest, and is the first harvest festival of the year.

On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop.

*East Riddlesden Hall is currently open Saturdays to Wednesdays from 10.30am to 4.30pm.

Admission is free for National Trust members and under fives.

Admission charges apply for non-National Trust members. Check online at nationaltrust.org.uk/east-riddlesden-hall for full event details and activity costs.