There is a long and unbroken tradition in Britain of celebrating jubilees, weddings and coronations with the lighting of beacons - on top of mountains, church and cathedral towers, castle battlements, on town and village greens, country estates, parks and farms, along beaches and on cliff tops.
The ceremony dates back hundreds of years when beacon chains were used as communication tools. Today, they symbolise togetherness at key moments of national significance.
In 1897, beacons were lit to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. In 1977, 2002 and 2012, beacons commemorated the Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees of the Queen, and in 2016 Her Majesty’s 90th birthday.
There were four types of beacons lit for this historic occasion: a free-standing beacon fuelled by bottle gas; a beacon brazier with a metal shield, which could be built by local craftsmen/women or adopted as a project by a school or college; a bonfire beacon; and perhaps most unusually a Bishops Frome Strawman. This is similar to a normal bonfire but made from large straw bales in the shape of a stick man.
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