Ready, steady… decorate! The National Trust volunteers at Avebury are ready for Christmas

Volunteers at the National Trust have dressed Avebury's historic manor house to the nines for the festive season.

One of the most popular jobs for the National Trust Avebury volunteers is to get the house ready for Christmas, so the last few weeks in November were a hive of activity as everything was made ready for the public to explore Christmas through the ages which launched on 23 November.

Each of the downstairs rooms in the manor show how it would have been decorated for Christmas in its period. Those occupying the Tudor parlour and bedrooms would not have celebrated Christmas as we do today, but would have marked the time with feasting and decorating with extra candles and natural evergreens such as holly, ivy, yew and mistletoe.

In Georgian times there would have been sumptuous feasts, the Edwardian kitchen would have been awash with extra pies and game. And in one of the more popular rooms, the 1930’s drawing room, the Christmas tree is richly decorated along with paper chains and Chinese lanterns accompanied by the sound of 1930’s music.

Gail Leaman, a new volunteer at Avebury said: "I love Avebury and now have some free time, so this year decided to volunteer. This is my first Christmas at Avebury and helping to decorate has been such a happy and fun time, it really gets you into the season and has inspired me to make more of my own decorations."

Another volunteer, Pam Kerslake from Swindon explains why she helps out: "I’ve really enjoyed working on this over the weekend - we’ve been making the garlands and window displays from natural greenery, last year I helped to make some of the decorations for the trees which we are using again this year. The smell of the greenery is wonderful and it’s been so therapeutic making them, a lovely way to meet people and helping the National Trust at the same time."

Avebury Manor, built in 1550s, was refurbished in 2012 by the BBC as the focus of a television series called The Manor Reborn where each room was decorated as a different period to reflect the lives of the people who had lived there in the past and this theme is followed through for Christmas.

Senior Visitor Experience Officer, Hazel Barry-Scott added: "We start preparing for this in January so it’s fantastic to see it all coming together, quite exciting. We’ve tried to go bigger and better this year while staying in keeping with the history of the house and hope our visitors enjoy it as much as we’ve enjoyed putting it together."

Avebury Manor will be decorated for Christmas from 23 November through until 1 January. If you’d like to find out more about the seasonal events at Avebury visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/avebury