Christmas Trees in the Old Churchyard

What started in 2020 as a way to celebrate Christmas in a covid-safe way, this year returns for its 4th year in the old churchyard, Upton-Upon Severn. What you are surrounded by (and on the other side of the trees) is an art installation called the "Pepperpot Christmas Trees".

Local shopkeepers, businesses and voluntary organisations create their own unique Christmas Trees for both locals and visitors to enjoy. Here you are surrounded by trees from both the local Scout and Guide troups and a shop called Upton Emporium. The important thing is they each bring their own interpretation and meaning of what a Christmas Tree could look like, some classic, some more alternative.

This is held in the old churchyard, a place steeped in it's own history. Whats left of the church is now referred to as the "Pepperpot" due to it's unique top. Originally it was the tower of Upton-upon Severns church, a plain medieval sandstone structure topped with a wooden spire. in the 1750's the church to the east of the tower was rebuilt in a classical style. Unfortunately during 1769 / 70 the wooden spire became unsafe and was replace with the octagonal pepperpot, copper-clad dome and tiny openwork lantern designed by Anthony Keck that you see today. About 100 years after this the town had outgrown its church and a decision was made to build a new one. Finally in 1937 the church was pulled down leaving the towns unique tower standing by itself. Nowadays the tower is used as the local tourist information point bring more people in to find out more about its history.

Europe / UK-England

Lat: 52° 3' 51.416" N
Long: 3° 14' 3.624" W

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

Taken with a Nikon D300 and a Nikkor 10.5mm f/2.8G fisheye lens. Mounted on a Nodal Ninja 5 panoramic head and R-D16 rotator atop a Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod. 5 bracketed shots (-1 0 +1) taken at 6 positions 60° apart, tilted 15° down, another set of shots taken looking straight up. Raw files then processed in darktable v3.8.1 before being stitched together using Hugin 2023.0.0 and converted using Pano2VR 6.1.15 pro.