Frome's wassail is back for its second year on 3rd February 2024 at Weylands, following the community planting of fruit trees on the site in 2021. This traditional midwinter ceremony has been practised since Saxon times in cider-producing regions, including Somerset, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, and is designed to 'wake up' the trees and scare away bad spirits, to ensure a good fruit harvest in the autumn.

The wassail will feature singing, banging pots and pans, and drinking mulled cider or apple juice, which is also shared with the roots of the trees. The Frome wassail will once again include music by Frome Street Bandits, a procession to the trees to gift cider and toast, led by Annabelle Macfadyen and other performers, and craft activities for children, making musical wassail sticks.

There will be mulled cider from Dowding's and refreshments for sale.

This year's wassail has an added twist; it will open with a series of appearances from candidates to replace Frome's town crier Mike Bishop, who retired in November on Remembrance Sunday.