noden photos on Flickr

Ludgate was the westernmost gate in London Wall. Of Roman origin, it was rebuilt several times and finally demolished on 30th July 1760. The name survives in Ludgate Hill, an eastward continuation of Fleet Street, Ludgate Circus and Ludgate Square. The gates' materials were sold for £148.

Etymology

According to legend, recorded by the Norman-Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth, Ludgate was named after the ancient British king Lud. Lud was said to be the brother of King Cassivelaunus but some folklorists think he is a manifestation of the god Nodens. There are other suggestions for the origins of the name, although none has been universally accepted. Later writers said it was derived from "flood gate" or "Fleet gate",[1] from "ludgeat", meaning "back gate" or "postern",[2] or from the Old English term "hlid-geat"[3][4][5][6][7] a common Old English compound meaning "postern" or "swing gate".[3][4][5][7]

History

Lud Gate and surrounding area in the sixteenth century (as imagined in 1895)

Ludgate is believed to have been one of four original gates in the Roman London Wall, work on which started in 190 AD.[8]

Ludgate in flames in 1666. Oil painting by anonymous artist, circa 1670.

Anti-royalist forces rebuilt the gate during the First Barons' War (1215–17) using materials recovered from the destroyed houses of Jews.[9] The gate was rebuilt about 1450 by a man called Foster who at one time was lodged in the debtor's prison over the gate. He eventually became Sir Stephen Foster, Lord Mayor of London. His widow, Agnes, renovated and extended Ludgate and the debtor's prison; the practice of making the debtors pay for their own food and lodging was also abolished. Her gift was commemorated by a brass wall plaque,[10] which read:

Devout souls that pass this way,

For Stephen Foster, late mayor, heartily pray;

And Dame Agnes, his spouse, to God consecrate,

That of pity this house made, for Londoners in Ludgate;

So that for lodging and water prisoners here nought pay,

As their keepers shall answer at dreadful doomsday![11]

In February 1554, Ludgate was the final setting of Wyatt's rebellion, when Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger arrived at the gate with part of his army numbering three or four hundred men. The gate was defended by Lord William Howard with the local militia, who refused entry to the rebels, causing them to retreat and later surrender.[12]

Ludgate was rebuilt in 1586 to the design of William Kerwin; niches in the facade were furnished with statues of Queen Elizabeth I and King Lud with his two sons;[13] these statues replaced medieval ones that had been defaced by Protestant iconoclasts during the reign of King Edward VI. The gateway was finally demolished in 1760 at the request of the local citizens.[12] It was still in use as a debtor's prison, so the inmates were transferred to the City workhouse in Bishopsgate.[14] The statues from the facade were preserved at the Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West in Fleet Street. When the church was rebuilt in 1831, they were sold and taken to Hertford Villa in Regent's Park, but were returned to the church in 1935. Elizabeth's statue now stands in a niche over the vestry door, while the others are inside the porch...Wikipedia

NODENS class fast attack frigate by iomedes !...

181 37

Realized from a concept by IgnusDei, found on DeviantArt.

Problem is that I'm a noob in composition and this ship is very big...so sorry for the picts again...

Merci à Pierre pour la typo...

Nodens by Ivan Martynov

67

Ancient hunter from the deep Abyss.

NODENS class fast attack frigate by iomedes !...

132 16

Realized from a concept by IgnusDei, found on DeviantArt.

Problem is that I'm a noob in composition and this ship is very big...so sorry for the picts again...

Merci à Pierre pour la typo...

I dreamt I was having a nightmare ... and I was! by Tom Venables

86 103

This is the original description: "Spoof to upset the Explore gamers which will be removed after Sunday. Please FAV and use stupid comments like 'Wonderful', 'Beautiful', 'Wow', 'Awesome', etc."

Some persons have asked for this to remain as a symbol, possibly, as Alison admirably phrased it, of subversion. I honestly didn't think this would be so 'popular' ... for a given value of popularity, as the saying goes. So: it now stays up. For the vanity record, for we all need little personal boosters: last reported as Explore no. 33 in Scout, otherwise mostly around no. 40 and went as low as 64. Has now dropped out of Explore due to the spike effect dying down, as most Explore items inevitably do.

This is the original untouched pic: www.flickr.com/photos/tjv/3589056382/

Observation: On your own photostreams, you have an Interestingness ranking of your photos which is independent of popularity. This image went to no. 1 on my Interestingness. In other words, even thought I deliberately slightly worsened it, it had some indefinable 'quality' to support the spoof.

Now the sequence of what I said.

My comment placed around 4 p.m. BST Saturday, in reply to a humorous comment on the outrageous number of tags: "More [tags] being added until the 75 limit is full, hehe!

Currently Explore no. 40 or so, DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD ROFL

Thanks to everyone who understands the reasons for this monstrosity and takes part in the Tom Foolery! Before I delete it, I'll copy out those *inventive* tags and take a screenshot of its Explorefulness page position and post it on my 'stream. Have a nice weekend, everyone."

On Saturday evening BST, the eminent Denis Collete from Canada, understanding the joke, kindly placed a single *photopool* invitation, which I accepted. Thank you Denis, and please visit him — superb photo-Impressionist images.

Me, midnight BST Saturday: "I'm nonplussed! This started life as a decent — but no more than that — normal urban photo from one corner of a NW England supermarket car park which I 'enhanced' with very simple effects in a secondhand Ulead PhotoImpact 7 graphics prog *deliberately* to make it a tiny bit interesting but mildly awful.

It's a spoof, a protest on behalf of everyone, great or modest, against Explore gaming. So my tiny group started the comments and Favs rolling just for a legpull and it's taken on a life of its own since then.

Thanks to everyone (yes, even the members of the gaming groups, for we're all fellow humans). As far as possible I'll put links to you all. Some of the commentors have outstanding streams, some of you just deserve more exposure, some — well, like me, you hit lucky once in a blue moon!"

Me, 9.30 a.m. BST Sunday, in response to a 'Yes, but Why?' query: "A good table-turner, n'est-ce pas?

I'll publish an account to any group that asks, FWS. The personal motivation, the facts of why it was a run at Explore, the experience.

Rest assured I am *not* an 'Explore whore', except on merit or happenstance. Which, of course, is how things should be. Those who have blindly commented purely because it is/was in Explore, well — perhaps you might be more critical of *your own practice* in future.

Regards to everyone, especially those who appreciated the joke. Commiserations to the gamers — leave those gaming groups and get real!"

Me, 10 p.m. Sunday BST, in response to an humorous comment from Pedrik about becoming an 'Explore-whore': "Hi Pedrik, thanks for joining in the fun. Nah, I'm not good enough, consistently enough, and my mainly social stuff just ain't Explore-type 'Interestingness' enough. I'm happy getting some views and comments, to be sure, but I think it's been said somewhere that only 5/100ths of 1 percent of the daily uploads can make the daily (whatever) Explore 500.

I only have genuine contacts and groups, by the way, only a very few of which contacts, and a fair but not overwhelming number of group people, have openly joined in with comments or Favs (though I might have had views-only from them which I can't trace.) Not in the least interested in reciprocal commenting and Faving, which is what the ramping groups specialize in."

THANK YOU EVERYONE, yes, everyone, even the gamers who viewed.

NODENS class fast attack frigate by iomedes !...

72 16

Realized from a concept by IgnusDei, found on DeviantArt.

Problem is that I'm a noob in composition and this ship is very big...so sorry for the picts again...

Gods of Ancient Briton by Ross Fisher

57 10

I wanted to do a series of builds about Ancient British gods for ages, but never worked up the motivation to do it.

These guys are fascinating! They have a lot of overlapping spheres of interest. I wanted to use quite bright colours to highlight their inhuman nature. I think there's a lot of Mike Mignola influence there, particularly around the eyes. I know this is a subject that he is interested in, too.

L-R:

Cocidius - A god worshipped on Hadrian's Wall as a hunting/warrior deity. My ancestors' idea of a good battle was getting butt naked, running/riding full pelt at the enemy, dismounting, and then having a ruckus. They didn't do well against an organised enemy...

Sulis - The patron deity of Aquae Sulis, the modern town of Bath. She is equated with Minerva, and is a healing/water deity.

Herne - Often equated with the god Cernunnos, Herne is a god of the wild, and a hunter. He was only really worshipped near Windsor. He is the patron deity of LEGOLAND.

Andraste - an Iceni goddess of war. She was possibly the inspiration for Boudicca's rebellion. Worshipped in East Anglia.

Nodens - had various different guises; Nodons, Nudd, Ludd, Nuada. He is a god of the sea, of dogs, and of healing.

80104 by Gareth Griffiths

10 3

BR Standard 4MT 80104 arrives at Corfe Castle with the 10:40 Noden - Swanage. Thursday August 2nd 2018.

Baths complex, Lydney Park Roman temple site. by archidave

5

Fährhafen Neuharlingersiel by Achim Schmidt

22

Port of Neuharlingersiel

Baths complex, Lydney Park Roman temple site. by archidave

6

The Roman temple, Lydney Park by archidave

5

We have waited for You by Jouni Niirola

7 8

"Herra,

armahda meitä,

sinua me odotamme.

Ole näitten käsivarsi joka aamu,

ole meidän apumme hädän aikana."

"HERRE,

var oss nådig,

dig förbida vi.

Var dessas arm var morgon;

ja, var vår frälsning i nödens tid."

"Yahweh,

be gracious to us;

we have waited for you:

be our arm every morning,

our salvation also in the time of trouble."

Isaiah 33:2

Christmas tree....History of Christmas Trees by Hughes Songe

9 1

A Christmas tree is a decorated tree, usually an evergreen conifer, such as a spruce, pine or fir, or an artificial tree of similar appearance, associated with the celebration of Christmas.[1] The custom was further developed in medieval Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), and in early modern Germany where German Protestant Christians brought decorated trees into their homes.[2][3] It acquired popularity beyond the Lutheran areas of Germany[2][4] and the Baltic governorates during the second half of the 19th century, at first among the upper classes.The tree was traditionally decorated with "roses made of colored paper, apples, wafers, tinsel, [and] sweetmeats".[2] Moravian Christians

. began to illuminate Christmas trees with candles,[5] which were often replaced by Christmas lights after the advent of electrification. Today, there is a wide variety of traditional and modern ornaments, such as garlands, baubles, tinsel, and candy canes. An angel or star might be placed at the top of the tree to represent the Angel Gabriel or the Star of Bethlehem, respectively, from the Nativity.[6][7] Edible items such as gingerbread, chocolate, and other sweets are also popular and are tied to or hung from the tree's branches with ribbons. The Catholic Church had long resisted this custom of the Lutheran Church and the Vatican Christmas tree stood for the first time in Vatican City in 1982.[8] In the Western Christian tradition, Christmas trees are variously erected on days such as the first day of Advent or even as late as Christmas Eve depending on the country;[9] customs of the same faith hold that the two traditional days when Christmas decorations, such as the Christmas tree, are removed are Twelfth Night and, if they are not taken down on that day, Candlemas, the latter of which ends the Christmas-Epiphany season in some denominations.[9][10]

The Christmas tree is sometimes compared with the "Yule-tree", especially in discussions of its folkloric origins.[11][12][13]The history of Christmas trees goes back to the symbolic use of evergreens in ancient Egypt and Rome and continues with the German tradition of candlelit Christmas trees first brought to America in the 1800s. Discover the history of the Christmas tree, from the earliest winter solstice celebrations to Queen Victoria’s decorating habits and the annual lighting of the Rockefeller Center tree in New York City.Long before the advent of Christianity, plants and trees that remained green all year had a special meaning for people in the winter. Just as people today decorate their homes during the festive season with pine, spruce, and fir trees, ancient peoples hung evergreen boughs over their doors and windows. In many countries it was believed that evergreens would keep away witches, ghosts, evil spirits, and illness.In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong and summer would return. The ancient Egyptians worshipped a god called Ra, who had the head of a hawk and wore the sun as a blazing disk in his crown. At the solstice, when Ra began to recover from his illness, the Egyptians filled their homes with green palm rushes, which symbolized for them the triumph of life over death. Early Romans marked the solstice with a feast called Saturnalia in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture. The Romans knew that the solstice meant that soon, farms and orchards would be green and fruitful. To mark the occasion, they decorated their homes and temples with evergreen boughs.

In Northern Europe the mysterious Druids, the priests of the ancient Celts, also decorated their temples with evergreen boughs as a symbol of everlasting life. The fierce Vikings in Scandinavia thought that evergreens were the special plant of the sun god, Balder. Germany is credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. Some built Christmas pyramids of wood and decorated them with evergreens and candles if wood was scarce. It is a widely held belief that Martin Luther, the 16th-century Protestant reformer, first added lighted candles to a tree. Walking toward his home one winter evening, composing a sermon, he was awed by the brilliance of stars twinkling amidst evergreens. To recapture the scene for his family, he erected a tree in the main room and wired its branches with lighted candles. Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German settlements had community trees as early as 1747. But, as late as the 1840s Christmas trees were seen as pagan symbols and not accepted by most Americans. It is not surprising that, like many other festive Christmas customs, the tree was adopted so late in America. To the New England Puritans, Christmas was sacred. The pilgrims’s second governor, William Bradford, wrote that he tried hard to stamp out “pagan mockery” of the observance, penalizing any frivolity. The influential Oliver Cromwell preached against “the heathen traditions” of Christmas carols, decorated trees, and any joyful expression that desecrated “that sacred event.” In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts enacted a law making any observance of December 25 (other than a church service) a penal offense; people were fined for hanging decorations. That stern solemnity continued until the 19th century, when the influx of German and Irish immigrants undermined the Puritan legacy.

History

Origin of the modern Christmas tree

Martin Luther is depicted with his family and friends in front of a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve

Modern Christmas trees originated during the Renaissance in early modern Germany. Its 16th-century origins are sometimes associated with Protestant Christian reformer Martin Luther, who is said to have first added lighted candles to an evergreen tree.[14][15][16] The Christmas tree was first recorded to be used by German Lutherans in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, under the leadership of the Protestant Reformer, Martin Bucer.[17][18] The Moravian Christians put lighted candles on those trees."[5][19] The earliest known firmly dated representation of a Christmas tree is on the keystone sculpture of a private home in Turckheim, Alsace (then part of Germany, today France), with the date 1576.[20]

Possible predecessors

Modern Christmas trees have been related to the "tree of paradise" of medieval mystery plays that were given on 24 December, the commemoration and name day of Adam and Eve in various countries. In such plays, a tree decorated with apples (to represent the forbidden fruit) and wafers (to represent the Eucharist and redemption) was used as a setting for the play. Like the Christmas crib, the Paradise tree was later placed in homes. The apples were replaced by round objects such as shiny red balls.[12][13][21][22][23][24]

At the end of the Middle Ages, an early predecessor appears referred in the 15th century Regiment of the Cistercian Alcobaça Monastery in Portugal. The Regiment of the local high-Sacristans of the Cistercian Order refers to what may be considered the oldest references to the Christmas tree: "Note on how to put the Christmas branch, scilicet: On the Christmas eve, you will look for a large Branch of green laurel, and you shall reap many red oranges, and place them on the branches that come of the laurel, specifically as you have seen, and in every orange you shall put a candle, and hang the Branch by a rope in the pole, which shall be by the candle of the high altar."[25]

Yggdrasil, in Norse cosmology, is an immense and central sacred tree.

Other sources have offered a connection between the symbolism of the first documented Christmas trees in Germany around 1600 and the trees of pre-Christian traditions, though this claim has been disputed.[26] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "The use of evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands to symbolize eternal life was a custom of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hebrews. Tree worship was common among the pagan Europeans and survived their conversion to Christianity in the Scandinavian customs of decorating the house and barn with evergreens at the New Year to scare away the devil and of setting up a tree for the birds during Christmas time."[27]

During the Roman mid-winter festival of Saturnalia, houses were decorated with wreaths of evergreen plants, along with other antecedent customs now associated with Christmas.[28]

The Vikings and Saxons worshiped trees.[28] The story of Saint Boniface cutting down Donar's Oak illustrates the pagan practices in 8th century among the Germans. A later folk version of the story adds the detail that an evergreen tree grew in place of the felled oak, telling them about how its triangular shape reminds humanity of the Trinity and how it points to heaven.[29][30]

Historical practices by region

Estonia, Latvia, and Germany

Christmas tree and menorah with Brandenburg Gate in background

Left: Tallinn Christmas Market in Estonia; Right: Christmas tree with Hanukkah Menorah next to it in Pariser Platz

Customs of erecting decorated trees in winter time can be traced to Christmas celebrations in Renaissance-era guilds in Northern Germany and Livonia. The first evidence of decorated trees associated with Christmas Day are trees in guildhalls decorated with sweets to be enjoyed by the apprentices and children. In Livonia (present-day Estonia and Latvia), in 1441, 1442, 1510, and 1514, the Brotherhood of Blackheads erected a tree for the holidays in their guild houses in Reval (now Tallinn) and Riga. On the last night of the celebrations leading up to the holidays, the tree was taken to the Town Hall Square, where the members of the brotherhood danced around it.[31]

A Bremen guild chronicle of 1570 reports that a small tree decorated with "apples, nuts, dates, pretzels, and paper flowers" was erected in the guild-house for the benefit of the guild members' children, who collected the dainties on Christmas Day.[32] In 1584, the pastor and chronicler Balthasar Russow in his Chronica der Provinz Lyfflandt (1584) wrote of an established tradition of setting up a decorated spruce at the market square, where the young men "went with a flock of maidens and women, first sang and danced there and then set the tree aflame".

After the Protestant Reformation, such trees are seen in the houses of upper-class Protestant families as a counterpart to the Catholic Christmas cribs. This transition from the guild hall to the bourgeois family homes in the Protestant parts of Germany ultimately gives rise to the modern tradition as it developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the present-day, the churches and homes of Protestants and Catholics feature both Christmas cribs and Christmas trees.[33]

Poland

Main article: Podłaźniczka

The hanging of a podłaźniczka is an old Polish folk custom dating back to pagan traditions.

In Poland, there is a folk tradition dating back to an old Slavic pre-Christian custom of suspending a branch of fir, spruce, or pine from the ceiling rafters, called podłaźniczka, during the time of the Koliada winter festival.[34] The branches were decorated with apples, nuts, acorns, and stars made of straw. In more recent times, the decorations also included colored paper cutouts (wycinanki), wafers, cookies, and Christmas baubles. According to old pagan beliefs, the branch's powers were linked to good harvest and prosperity.[35]

The custom was practiced by the peasants until the early 20th century, particularly in the regions of Lesser Poland and Upper Silesia.[36] Most often the branches were hung above the wigilia dinner table on Christmas Eve. Beginning in the mid-19th century, the tradition over time was almost completely replaced by the later German practice of decorating a standing Christmas tree.[37]

18th to early 20th centuries

Adoption by European nobility

German Christmas tree, book illustration 1888

In the early 19th century, the custom became popular among the nobility and spread to royal courts as far as Russia. Introduced by Fanny von Arnstein and popularized by Princess Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg the Christmas tree reached Vienna in 1814 during the Congress of Vienna, and the custom spread across Austria in the following years.[38] In France, the first Christmas tree was introduced in 1840 by the duchesse d'Orléans. In Denmark a Danish newspaper claims that the first attested Christmas tree was lit in 1808 by countess Wilhemine of Holsteinborg. It was the aging countess who told the story of the first Danish Christmas tree to the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen in 1865. He had published a fairy tale called The Fir-Tree in 1844, recounting the fate of a fir tree being used as a Christmas tree.[39]

Adoption by country or region

Germany

A German Christmas tree in a room at Versailles turned into a military hospital

By the early 18th century, the custom had become common in towns of the upper Rhineland, but it had not yet spread to rural areas. Wax candles, expensive items at the time, are found in attestations from the late 18th century.

Along the lower Rhine, an area of Roman Catholic majority, the Christmas tree was largely regarded as a Protestant custom. As a result, it remained confined to the upper Rhineland for a relatively long period of time. The custom did eventually gain wider acceptance beginning around 1815 by way of Prussian officials who emigrated there following the Congress of Vienna.

In the 19th century, the Christmas tree was taken to be an expression of German culture and of Gemütlichkeit, especially among emigrants overseas.[40]

A decisive factor in winning general popularity was the German army's decision to place Christmas trees in its barracks and military hospitals during the Franco-Prussian War. Only at the start of the 20th century did Christmas trees appear inside churches, this time in a new brightly lit form.[41]

Slovenia

Early Slovenian custom dating back to around the 17th century was to suspend the tree either upright or upside-down above the well, a corner of the dinner table, in the backyard, or from the fences, modestly decorated with fruits or not decorated at all. German brewer Peter Luelsdorf brought the first Christmas tree of the current tradition to Slovenia in 1845. He set it up in his small brewery inn in Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital. German officials, craftsmen and merchants quickly spread the tradition among the bourgeois population. The trees were typically decorated with walnuts, golden apples, carobs, and candles. At first the Catholic majority rejected this custom because they considered it a typical Protestant tradition. The first decorated Christmas Market was organized in Ljubljana already in 1859. However, this tradition was almost unknown to the rural population until World War I, after which everyone started decorating trees. Spruce trees have a centuries-long tradition in Slovenia. After World War II during Yugoslavia period, trees set in the public places (towns, squares, and markets) were politically replaced with fir trees, a symbol of socialism and Slavic mythology strongly associated with loyalty, courage, and dignity. However, spruce retained its popularity in Slovenian homes during those years and came back to public places after independence.[42][43][44][45]

Britain

An engraving published in the 1840s of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert created a craze for Christmas trees.[46]

Although the tradition of decorating churches and homes with evergreens at Christmas was long established,[47] the custom of decorating an entire small tree was unknown in Britain until some two centuries ago. The German-born Queen Charlotte introduced a Christmas tree at a party she gave for children in 1800.[48] The custom did not at first spread much beyond the royal family.[49] Queen Victoria as a child was familiar with it and a tree was placed in her room every Christmas. In her journal for Christmas Eve 1832, the delighted 13-year-old princess wrote:[50]

After dinner ... we then went into the drawing room near the dining room ... There were two large round tables on which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All the presents being placed round the trees ...

After Victoria's marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became even more widespread[51] as wealthier middle-class families followed the fashion. In 1842 a newspaper advert for Christmas trees makes clear their smart cachet, German origins and association with children and gift-giving.[52] An illustrated book, The Christmas Tree, describing their use and origins in detail, was on sale in December 1844.[53] On 2 January 1846 Elizabeth Fielding (née Fox Strangways) wrote from Lacock Abbey to William Henry Fox-Talbot: "Constance is extremely busy preparing the Bohemian Xmas Tree. It is made from Caroline's[54] description of those she saw in Germany".[55] In 1847 Prince Albert wrote: "I must now seek in the children an echo of what Ernest [his brother] and I were in the old time, of what we felt and thought; and their delight in the Christmas trees is not less than ours used to be".[56] A boost to the trend was given in 1848[57] when The Illustrated London News,[58] in a report picked up by other papers,[59] described the trees in Windsor Castle in detail and showed the main tree, surrounded by the royal family, on its cover. In fewer than ten years their use in better-off homes was widespread. By 1856 a northern provincial newspaper contained an advert alluding casually to them,[60] as well as reporting the accidental death of a woman whose dress caught fire as she lit the tapers on a Christmas tree.[61] They had not yet spread down the social scale though, as a report from Berlin in 1858 contrasts the situation there where "Every family has its own" with that of Britain, where Christmas trees were still the preserve of the wealthy or the "romantic".[62]

Their use at public entertainments, charity bazaars and in hospitals made them increasingly familiar however, and in 1906 a charity was set up specifically to ensure even poor children in London slums "who had never seen a Christmas tree" would enjoy one that year.[63] Anti-German sentiment after World War I briefly reduced their popularity[64] but the effect was short-lived,[65] and by the mid-1920s the use of Christmas trees had spread to all classes.[66] In 1933 a restriction on the importation of foreign trees led to the "rapid growth of a new industry" as the growing of Christmas trees within Britain became commercially viable due to the size of demand.[67] By 2013 the number of trees grown in Britain for the Christmas market was approximately eight million[68] and their display in homes, shops and public spaces a normal part of the Christmas season.

Georgia

Decorated Chichilaki at the Orbeliani Palace

Georgians have their own traditional Christmas tree called Chichilaki, made from dried up hazelnut or walnut branches that are shaped to form a small coniferous tree.[69] These pale-colored ornaments differ in height from 20 cm (7.9 in) to 3 meters (9.8 feet). Chichilakis are most common in the Guria and Samegrelo regions of Georgia near the Black Sea, but they can also be found in some stores around the capital of Tbilisi.[70] Georgians believe that Chichilaki resembles the famous beard of St. Basil the Great, because Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates St. Basil on 1 January.

The Bahamas

The earliest reference of Christmas trees being used in The Bahamas dates to January 1864 and is associated with the Anglican Sunday Schools in Nassau, New Providence: "After prayers and a sermon from the Rev. R. Swann, the teachers and children of St. Agnes', accompanied by those of St. Mary's, marched to the Parsonage of Rev. J. H. Fisher, in front of which a large Christmas tree had been planted for their gratification. The delighted little ones formed a circle around it singing "Come follow me to the Christmas tree"."[71] The gifts decorated the trees as ornaments and the children were given tickets with numbers that matched the gifts. This appears to be the typical way of decorating the trees in the 1860s Bahamas. In the Christmas of 1864, there was a Christmas tree put up in the Ladies Saloon in the Royal Victoria Hotel for the respectable children of the neighbourhood. The tree was ornamented with gifts for the children who formed a circle about it and sung the song "Oats and Beans". The gifts were later given to the children in the name of Santa Claus.[72] In 1846, the popular royals, Queen Victoria and her German Prince, Albert, were sketched in the Illustrated London News standing with their children around a Christmas tree. Unlike the previous royal family, Victoria was very popular with her subjects, and what was done at court immediately became fashionable—not only in Britain, but with fashion-conscious East Coast American Society. The Christmas tree had arrived. By the 1890s Christmas ornaments were arriving from Germany and Christmas tree popularity was on the rise around the U.S. It was noted that Europeans used small trees about four feet in height, while Americans liked their Christmas trees to reach from floor to ceiling.

The early 20th century saw Americans decorating their trees mainly with homemade ornaments, while the German-American sect continued to use apples, nuts, and marzipan cookies. Popcorn joined in after being dyed bright colors and interlaced with berries and nuts. Electricity brought about Christmas lights, making it possible for Christmas trees to glow for days on end. With this, Christmas trees began to appear in town squares across the country and having a Christmas tree in the home became an American tradition. The tradition was introduced to North America in the winter of 1781 by Hessian soldiers stationed in the Province of Québec (1763–1791) to garrison the colony against American attack. General Friedrich Adolf Riedesel and his wife, the Baroness von Riedesel, held a Christmas party for the officers at Sorel, Quebec, delighting their guests with a fir tree decorated with candles and fruits.[73]

The Christmas tree became very common in the United States of America in the early nineteenth century. Dating from late 1812 or early 1813, the watercolor sketchbooks of John Lewis Krimmel contain perhaps the earliest depictions of a Christmas tree in American art, representing a family celebrating Christmas Eve in the Moravian tradition.[74] The first published image of a Christmas tree appeared in 1836 as the frontispiece to The Stranger's Gift by Hermann Bokum. The first mention of the Christmas tree in American literature was in a story in the 1836 edition of The Token and Atlantic Souvenir, titled "New Year's Day", by Catherine Maria Sedgwick, where she tells the story of a German maid decorating her mistress's tree. Also, a woodcut of the British royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, initially published in The Illustrated London News December 1848, was copied in the United States at Christmas 1850, in Godey's Lady's Book. Godey's copied it exactly, except for the removal of the Queen's tiara and Prince Albert's moustache, to remake the engraving into an American scene.[75] The republished Godey's image became the first widely circulated picture of a decorated evergreen Christmas tree in America. Art historian Karal Ann Marling called Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, shorn of their royal trappings, "the first influential American Christmas tree".[76] Folk-culture historian Alfred Lewis Shoemaker states, "In all of America there was no more important medium in spreading the Christmas tree in the decade 1850–60 than Godey's Lady's Book". The image was reprinted in 1860, and by the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become even more common in America.[75] Drawing depicting family with their Christmas tree in 1809. Several cities in the United States with German connections lay claim to that country's first Christmas tree: Windsor Locks, Connecticut, claims that a Hessian soldier put up a Christmas tree in 1777 while imprisoned at the Noden-Reed House,[77] while the "First Christmas Tree in America" is also claimed by Easton, Pennsylvania, where German settlers purportedly erected a Christmas tree in 1816. In his diary, Matthew Zahm of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, recorded the use of a Christmas tree in 1821, leading Lancaster to also lay claim to the first Christmas tree in America.[78] Other accounts credit Charles Follen, a German immigrant to Boston, for being the first to introduce to America the custom of decorating a Christmas tree.[79] August Imgard, a German immigrant living in Wooster, Ohio, is said to be the first to popularize the practice of decorating a tree with candy canes.[citation needed] In 1847, Imgard cut a blue spruce tree from a woods outside town, had the Wooster village tinsmith construct a star, and placed the tree in his house, decorating it with paper ornaments, gilded nuts and Kuchen.[80] German immigrant Charles Minnigerode accepted a position as a professor of humanities at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1842, where he taught Latin and Greek. Entering into the social life of the Virginia Tidewater, Minnigerode introduced the German custom of decorating an evergreen tree at Christmas at the home of law professor St. George Tucker, thereby becoming another of many influences that prompted Americans to adopt the practice at about that time.[81] An 1853 article on Christmas customs in Pennsylvania defines them as mostly "German in origin", including the Christmas tree, which is "planted in a flower pot filled with earth, and its branches are covered with presents, chiefly of confectionary, for the younger members of the family." The article distinguishes between customs in different states however, claiming that in New England generally "Christmas is not much celebrated", whereas in Pennsylvania and New York it is.[82]

When Edward H. Johnson was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, a predecessor of Con Edison, he created the first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree at his home in New York City in 1882. Johnson became the "Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights".[83] The lyrics sung in the United States to the German tune O Tannenbaum begin "O Christmas tree ...", giving rise to the mistaken idea that the German word Tannenbaum (fir tree) means "Christmas tree", the German word for which is instead Weihnachtsbaum. Under the state atheism of the Soviet Union, the Christmas tree along with the entire celebration of the Christian holiday, was banned in that country after the October Revolution but then the government introduced a New-year spruce (Новогодняя ёлка, Novogodnyaya yolka) in 1935 for the New Year holiday.[84][85][86] It became a fully secular icon of the New Year holiday, for example, the crowning star was regarded not as a symbol of Bethlehem Star, but as the Red star. Decorations, such as figurines of airplanes, bicycles, space rockets, cosmonauts, and characters of Russian fairy tales, were produced. This tradition persists after the fall of the USSR, with the New Year holiday outweighing the Christmas (7 January) for a wide majority of Russian people.[87] The Peanuts TV special A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) was influential on the pop culture surrounding the Christmas tree. Aluminum Christmas trees were popular during the early 1960s in the US. They were satirized in the TV special and came to be seen as symbolizing the commercialization of Christmas. The term Charlie Brown Christmas tree, describing any poor-looking or malformed little tree, also derives from the 1965 TV special, based on the appearance of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree.[88]. Since the early 20th century, it has become common in many cities, towns, and department stores to put up public Christmas trees outdoors, such as the Macy's Great Tree in Atlanta (since 1948), the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York City, and the large Christmas tree at Victoria Square in Adelaide. The use of fire retardant allows many indoor public areas to place real trees and be compliant with code. Licensed applicants of fire retardant solution spray the tree, tag the tree, and provide a certificate for inspection.

The United States' National Christmas Tree has been lit each year since 1923 on the South Lawn of the White House, becoming part of what evolved into a major holiday event at the White House. President Jimmy Carter lit only the crowning star atop the tree in 1979 in honor of the Americans being held hostage in Iran.[89] The same was true in 1980, except the tree was fully lit for 417 seconds, one second for each day the hostages had been in captivity.[89]

During most of the 1970s and 1980s, the largest decorated Christmas tree in the world was put up every year on the property of the National Enquirer in Lantana, Florida. This tradition grew into one of the most spectacular and celebrated events in the history of southern Florida, but was discontinued on the death of the paper's founder in the late 1980s.[90]

In some cities, a charity event called the Festival of Trees is organized, in which multiple trees are decorated and displayed.

The giving of Christmas trees has also often been associated with the end of hostilities. After the signing of the Armistice in 1918 the city of Manchester sent a tree, and £500 to buy chocolate and cakes, for the children of the much-bombarded town of Lille in northern France.[91] In some cases the trees represent special commemorative gifts, such as in Trafalgar Square in London, where the City of Oslo, Norway presents a tree to the people of London as a token of appreciation for the British support of Norwegian resistance during the Second World War; in Boston, where the tree is a gift from the province of Nova Scotia, in thanks for rapid deployment of supplies and rescuers to the 1917 ammunition ship explosion that leveled the city of Halifax; and in Newcastle upon Tyne, where the main civic Christmas tree is an annual gift from the city of Bergen, in thanks for the part played by soldiers from Newcastle in liberating Bergen from Nazi occupation.[92] Norway also annually gifts a Christmas tree to Washington, D.C. as a symbol of friendship between Norway and the US and as an expression of gratitude from Norway for the help received from the US during World War II.[93]

Customs and traditions

Setting up and taking down

Adding decorations to tree

Both setting up and taking down a Christmas tree are associated with specific dates; liturgically, this is done through the hanging of the greens ceremony.[94] In many areas, it has become customary to set up one's Christmas tree on Advent Sunday, the first day of the Advent season.[95][96] Traditionally, however, Christmas trees were not brought in and decorated until the evening of Christmas Eve (24 December), the end of the Advent season and the start of the twelve days of Christmastide.[97] It is customary for Christians in many localities to remove their Christmas decorations on the last day of the twelve days of Christmastide that falls on 5 January—Epiphany Eve (Twelfth Night),[98] although those in other Christian countries remove them on Candlemas, the conclusion of the extended Christmas-Epiphany season (Epiphanytide).[99][100] According to the first tradition, those who fail to remember to remove their Christmas decorations on Epiphany Eve must leave them untouched until Candlemas, the second opportunity to remove them; failure to observe this custom is considered inauspicious.[101][102]

Decorations

Main article: Christmas ornament

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Christmas ornaments at the Christmas market, Strasbourg

Christmas ornaments are decorations (usually made of glass, metal, wood, or ceramics) that are used to decorate a Christmas tree. The first decorated trees were adorned with apples, white candy canes and pastries in the shapes of stars, hearts and flowers. Glass baubles were first made in Lauscha, Germany, and also garlands of glass beads and tin figures that could be hung on trees. The popularity of these decorations fueled the production of glass figures made by highly skilled artisans with clay molds.

Tinsel and several types of garland or ribbon are commonly used as Christmas tree decorations. Silvered saran-based tinsel was introduced later. Delicate mold-blown and painted colored glass Christmas ornaments were a specialty of the glass factories in the Thuringian Forest, especially in Lauscha in the late 19th century, and have since become a large industry, complete with famous-name designers. Baubles are another common decoration, consisting of small hollow glass or plastic spheres coated with a thin metallic layer to make them reflective, with a further coating of a thin pigmented polymer in order to provide coloration. Lighting with electric lights (Christmas lights or, in the United Kingdom, fairy lights) is commonly done. A tree-topper, sometimes an angel but more frequently a star, completes the decoration. In the late 1800s, home-made white Christmas trees were made by wrapping strips of cotton batting around leafless branches creating the appearance of a snow-laden tree. In the 1940s and 1950s, popularized by Hollywood films in the late 1930s, flocking was very popular on the West Coast of the United States. There were home flocking kits that could be used with vacuum cleaners. In the 1980s some trees were sprayed with fluffy white flocking to simulate snow.

Religious issues

The earliest legend of the origin of a fir tree becoming a Christian symbol dates back to 723 AD, involving Saint Boniface as he was evangelizing Germany.[138] It is said that at a pagan gathering in Geismar where a group of people dancing under a decorated oak tree were about to sacrifice a baby in the name of Thor, Saint Boniface took an axe and called on the name of Jesus.[138] In one swipe, he managed to take down the entire oak tree, to the crowd's astonishment.[138] Behind the fallen tree was a baby fir tree.[138] Boniface said, "let this tree be the symbol of the true God, its leaves are ever green and will not die." The tree's needles pointed to heaven and it was shaped triangularly to represent the Holy Trinity.[138]

The Christmas tree was first recorded to be used by German Lutherans in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the Cathedral of Strasbourg in 1539, under the leadership of the Protestant Reformer, Martin Bucer.[17][139] In the United States, these "German Lutherans brought the decorated Christmas tree with them; the Moravians put lighted candles on those trees."[5][19] When decorating the Christmas tree, many individuals place a star at the top of the tree symbolizing the Star of Bethlehem, a fact recorded by The School Journal in 1897.[6][140] Professor David Albert Jones of the University of Oxford writes that in the 19th century, it became popular for people to also use an angel to top the Christmas tree in order to symbolize the angels mentioned in the accounts of the Nativity of Jesus.[7]

Under the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, after its foundation in 1917, Christmas celebrations—along with other religious holidays—were prohibited as a result of the Soviet anti-religious campaign.[141][142][84] The League of Militant Atheists encouraged school pupils to campaign against Christmas traditions, among them being the Christmas tree, as well as other Christian holidays, including Easter; the League established an anti-religious holiday to be the 31st of each month as a replacement.[143] With the Christmas tree being prohibited in accordance with Soviet anti-religious legislation, people supplanted the former Christmas custom with New Year's trees.[84][144] In 1935, the tree was brought back as New Year tree and became a secular, not a religious holiday.

Pope John Paul II introduced the Christmas tree custom to the Vatican in 1982. Although at first disapproved of by some as out of place at the centre of the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican Christmas Tree has become an integral part of the Vatican Christmas celebrations,[145] and in 2005 Pope Benedict XVI spoke of it as part of the normal Christmas decorations in Catholic homes.[146] In 2004, Pope John Paul called the Christmas tree a symbol of Christ. This very ancient custom, he said, exalts the value of life, as in winter what is evergreen becomes a sign of undying life, and it reminds Christians of the "tree of life",[147] an image of Christ, the supreme gift of God to humanity.[148] In the previous year he said: "Beside the crib, the Christmas tree, with its twinkling lights, reminds us that with the birth of Jesus the tree of life has blossomed anew in the desert of humanity. The crib and the tree: precious symbols, which hand down in time the true meaning of Christmas."[149] The Catholic Church's official Book of Blessings has a service for the blessing of the Christmas tree in a home.[150] The Episcopal Church in The Anglican Family Prayer Book, which has the imprimatur of The Rt. Rev. Catherine S. Roskam of the Anglican Communion, has long had a ritual titled Blessing of a Christmas Tree, as well as Blessing of a Crèche, for use in the church and the home.[151]

Chrismon trees, which find their origin in the Lutheran Christian tradition though now used in many Christian denominations such as the Catholic Church and Methodist Church, are used to decorate churches during the liturgical season of Advent; during the period of Christmastide, Christian churches display the traditional Christmas tree in their sanctuaries.[152]

In 2005, the city of Boston renamed the spruce tree used to decorate the Boston Common a "Holiday Tree" rather than a "Christmas Tree".[153] The name change was reversed after the city was threatened with several lawsuits.[154]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree

www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas-trees

Painted wall by Tony Shertila

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The Vyne was built in the early 16th century by William Sandys, later Lord Sandys of the Vyne, who was Henry VIII's Lord Chamberlain.

The Chapel uses a technique of painting a larger room on the wall to give a greater feeling of space.

2014 02 0294 Hampshire The Vyne HDR1

MODENA - fontana dei due fiumi by massimo mazzoni

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www.facebook.com/lefotografiedimassimo

transporter FUU 84C by Martha R Hogwash

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You've had a Cavalier - now it's time for a Grenadier !

Harringtons were always good candidates for conversion, as their bodies were largely falling apart by the time they were 10 - 12 years old, so were going to need a major rebuild at the back end anyway. FUU 84C was new to Motorways (Overseas) Ltd. of London, not an operator with which I was familiar before, but who seemingly ran international trips with luxurious vehicles, often with 2+1 seating layouts. There were three of these (FUU 83-5C), with only 31 seats.

It had become a transporter by 1977, with its owner at this time, Mick Noden of Barby, near Rugby.

Roman Ring, the lord of the rings by Tony Shertila

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The Vyne Ring or the Ring of Silvianus is a gold ring, dating probably from the 4th century, discovered in a ploughed field near Silchester, in Hampshire, England, in 1785. Originally the property of a British Roman called Silvianus, it was apparently stolen by a person named Senicianus, upon whom Silvianus called down a curse.

In 1929, during excavations of the site of the Roman temple of Nodens at Lydney Park, the archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler discovered details of the curse. As Wheeler consulted with J. R. R. Tolkien on the name of the god invoked in the curse, the ring and curse may have inspired the One Ring in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

2014 02 0300 Hampshire The Vyne HDR1

guitar workshop by Paul Steptoe Riley

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graham noden's guitar workshop in the basement of hank's in denmark street. graham and his guys are experts at setting up, repairing and customizing all types of electric and acoustic guitars. They have done several for me over the years and always to the highest standard.

Operation Foam- Stockport by Greater Manchester Police

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At around 6.30am this morning (Friday 30 April) officers from GMP's Stockport Challenger, alongside officers from the Neighbourhood Policing Team, CID and partners executed warrants at seven properties in the Stockport and Ardwick area of Greater Manchester and one property in Disley.

During searches of the property officers seized a large quantity of suspected class A and B drugs, two suspected firearms and ammunition, high value items including watches and handbags, and an estimated £30,000 to £40,000 in cash.

This action formed part of Operation Foam, a large scale operation focused on the infiltration and takedown of the encrypted communication platform EncroChat.

Operation Foam is GMP's strand of Operation Venetic, a nationwide operation that has seen law enforcement agencies across the UK join together and share expertise in order to break through the highly sophisticated and encrypted global communication service.

Superintendent Marcus Noden of GMP's Stockport Division, said: "Today's action is the culmination of many months of meticulous and thorough investigative work and these arrests and seizures are testament to the skill and dedication put in by all officers involved to help disrupt serious organised crime.

"The detrimental impact of serious organised criminal activity does not just impact those involved but can be felt across communities and GMP is committed to identifying this activity and ensuring those responsible face the appropriate justice.

"Our work will continue but we want to highlight that often our investigations are supported by intelligence passed to us by members of the public so I would encourage anyone with information that could assist on enquiries to get in touch with police."

Anyone with information should contact police on 0161 856 2795. Alternatively, details can be passed on anonymously via the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Winter in Sweden by Robin Wilhelmsson

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This one was snapped outside the University area of Lund and just outside the picture to the left there's a big magnificent church with history back to the early ages.

Operation Foam- Stockport by Greater Manchester Police

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