File:Melton Mowbray Victorian Christmas Fayre (5) - geograph.org.uk - 1610075.jpg

English: Melton Mowbray Victorian Christmas Fayre (5). Melton's Victorian Christmas Fayre, held on the 1st Sunday in December, has become a regular feature of the festive season. The whole of the town centre is given over to market stalls selling all sorts of crafts and gift items with a range of street catering and street entertainment. Nota Bene, an "a capella" choir, entertain the punters with a selection of traditional carols and Christmas songs.

"A capella" means "from the chapel" and describes vocal music or singing without instrumental accompaniment. A capella, originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concerto style, became associated with unaccompanied vocal music in the 19th century when Renaissance polyphony became popular again. Ignorance of the fact that vocal parts were often doubled by instrumentalists in the polyphony style led to the term coming associated with pure unaccompanied signing and this has persisted up to the present.

The pale blue building behind the choir is the Swan Porch, with it's swan which was reputedly daubed in red paint in 1837 by the Marquis of Waterford and a group of friends when celebrating a successful fox hunt. Waterford and his party found several tins of red paint which they daubed liberally on to buildings in the centre of Melton Mowbray; the origin of the phrase "painting the town red". See 399273