MEMBERS of a society gathered for an annual ceremony on Sunday.

The Liskeard Old Cornwall Society (OCS) and town mayor Anne Purdon were guests of farmer James Moon of Bolitho Farm for the Crying the Neck ceremony, which saw the last of the year's corn being cut by the landowner.

The corn, said to contain the 'Spirit of the Harvest', was then held high and pointed to the north, east and south of the compass points. It was not pointed to the west, however, because that signifies darkness and death.

The corn is then held over for a year to guarantee a good harvest for the following year. Duncan Matthews, president of the Liskeard OCS, said: 'It went very well and we had more than 40 people there.

'It's something that we try to do every year but obviously it does depend on the crop that we get. The atmosphere was great and we were lucky that we had such lovely weather.'

After the ceremony, James Moon handed over a cannon ball to Paul Day, a steward at Stuart House in Liskeard.

James said the iron ball, weighing around 10-12 pounds, had been on the farm for some 50 years and he and his brother had used to use it as a shot for shot-putting in their younger days.

The cannon ball will remain on loan at Stuart House.