MORE than 1,000 people visited a North Yorkshire church as it held a harvest festival with a difference this weekend.

Clergy at St Mark's, in the heart of Harrogate, felt that produce brought to harvest festival services in the past has had more to do with the local supermarkets than farmers' fields.

So, to make this weekend's services more relevant to a largely urban congregation, people were asked to bring things connected to their hobbies - and the "harvest of talent" really fired imaginations.

Tents, a train set, windsurfing boards and even a sailing boat were among more than 50 hobbies to find their way inside the church this weekend.

There were even pony rides available outside the recently-refurbished buildings in Leeds Road.

"It's certainly given people a fresh look at the tradition of harvest festival," said diocesan communications officer, the Reverend John Carter, who attends St Mark's.

"It offered us the opportunity to say that everything we do is blessed by God; it reflects the fact that we are created by God, who is creative Himself."