GILBERT White’s House and the Oates Museum was the venue for Christmas celebrations last weekend.

Large crowds of people attended the event last Saturday and Sunday.

Throughout the weekend the house and museum, in Selborne, hosted six choirs from the area - the Froxfield Choir who opened the weekend; The Shuffletunes; the Petersfield Choir; the Barton Stacey Chamber Choir and the Alton Community Choir, with a special performance on Sunday morning from Selborne School Choir.

On Saturday the Wickham Morris Dancers delighted visitors with their high-spirited dancing and Mummers’ play, which this year took on a topical trend with the addition of a new character to the traditional St George story - the US President Elect Donald Trump.

The house has been decorated with a festive-trees theme, and each room has a feature tree with its own theme, lovingly designed by volunteers. The Festival of Trees will be available to see up until Saturday, December 24

Other delights were meeting members of Gilbert White’s family, who were visiting for the weekend, as well as the great man himself, and joining Gilbert’s gardeners for a wassail - an ancient tradition of blessing the apple trees with mulled wine and singing a wassail to ensure a good harvest the following year.

Another precaution the wassailers take is to make as much noise as possible with pots and pans, and whacking the trees with sticks to ensure no evil spirits lurked in the trees to cause the trees to fail. Members of the public joined with full gusto to choruses of “here’s to thee old apple tree”.

Second-hand books were on sale, a raffle full of festive treats, and the opportunity to make Christmas decorations were all activities on the day.

Visitors could guess the weight of the Christmas cake, made and designed by Rosie Grabham. The tiered fruit cake was decorated with gingerbread houses that depicted Selborne village, with lights behind the windows.

The highlight of the event as always was the mulled wine, served from White’s old kitchen and filling the house with a delicious scent.