December 2025
Harvest festival 29th October 2025 
Drafted by Tom Bagge
The Harvest Festival service was attended by 42 adults and 6 children. The service was taken by the Revd Isaac Frisby. The flowers and produce, which were donated, had been beautifully arranged and laid out. It was sad to see the decorations taken down at the end of the service so that everything could be auctioned in aid of the Church Fabric Fund and the Lincolnshire Air Ambulance.
The Harvest Lunch, which was held in the Wedding Venue at the Hall, by kind permission of Jamie & Leila Benton Jones, increased from the church total to 77 adults and 6 children. Venison casserole and a vegetarian dish were served, followed by a splendid array of puddings produced by several people. At the end of the meal Jamie acted as the Auctioneer with his enthusiasm it resulted a donation of £570, being donated to the Lincolnshire Air Ambulance and the other half donated to the church fabric fund. The whole event raised a record £2,716.
Well done guys I wish I could have been there it looked fun. (From Liz)
Irnham Phone Box refurbishment October 2025 
Ten years ago Irnham Parish Council purchased the redundant, Iconic K6 Red telephone Box in Irnham to use as a Book Swap resource. Since then, it has been very well looked after but the door began to show it's age!
The door comprises a metal frame which holds the glass windows inserted into a wooden door surround. Over the years the frame had rusted and rotted the wooden surround. Luckily, we found that there is a company called X2 Connect at Newark who sell spare parts for these boxes and so we were able to purchase a new wooden surround.
The work entailed removing the old door, removing the rusted metal frame from the old wooden surround, restoring the rusted metal frame, inserting it into the new wooden surround and rehanging the door.
The Parish Council are most grateful to a local resident who undertook this work to, once again, ensure the ‘Phone Box is weatherproof and continues to offer residents a well-used resource.
The History of the Telephone Kiosk can be found on X2 Connect website www.x2connect.com
New gate proposal for St Andrews Church Irnham
An update on the planning application for the attached gates – the wooden ones, which were erected in 1966, are in very poor condition.. When approved we will have to make a Faculty application to the Church authorities.
Below is an extract from the Conservation Officer’s report on our application. Charlie and I are delighted that our thoughts about the original gates were correct! To date the application has been ‘approved’ by our Parish Council, Historic England & the Joint Committee of the National Amenities Societies. Tom
The current gates, as also noted in the Historic England description, are clearly a 20th Century
replacement. Note has been made in the 1876 Kellys Directory of Lincolnshire that in 1866 new
entrance gate of iron, with stone pillars and iron palisading at the approach to the churchyard from
the Corby Road was erected. This statement was maintained until at least the 1937 Directory. This
supports the assumption that the gate was replaced with the current timber gate in the 20th
Century. The historic England listing from 1986 describes the gate as Pair of wooden gates with
wrought iron spearheads to top rail, flanked by square ashlar piers.
Overall, there are no objections on heritage grounds. The provision of the additional information
regarding the position and condition of the historic fittings could be undertaken as part of a
condition. The proposed works are considered to be in line with the Act, NPPF 215 and SKLP
EN6.
Halloween 31st October 2025 
The Halloween celebrations in Irnham were great, this year I was at home but was busy, so treats were left by my front door as I hope other houses did.
It was so lovely to hear the children chatting about how many packets of sweets they could take, then being corrected by their parents. It was so funny it made me smile reminded of my time taking my 3 boys trick or treating. They are 37 and 32 now and taking their children out. (BTW I did have a lot left.)
The pub went all out with the scary inflatable arch around the entrance. This was great for photos opportunities as you can see in this article.
Irnham Bonfire 
Some 30 folk from Irnham turned out to watch the bonfire being lit and burning very quickly due to the amount of dried wood. Also a strong wind ensured a successful fire and by morning it had burnt out the huge pile. The heat in the ash continued to smoke gently for a week despite frequent rain showers.
Irnham Estates update 
The leaves have now almost finished falling and have been scooped up and deposited beneath the big trees to provide leaf mulch and a place for wildlife. We cover the Dahlia beds with leaves too which protects the tubers from the hard frosts to come.
We have finished stripping the side shoots off the cricket bat willow trees and raising their crowns. These trees will be mature and ready to fell in 20 years !
The fallow deer rut is almost over and the doe shooting season is now open..
The Griffin has never been better, and our chefs Jordan and Kelly are going from strength to strength