text:
Talk:Barnstar

Structural or Decorative?
The article states that a barn star has "no structural purpose," but the caption beneath the photo read, "a barnstar with hole used as a building reinforcement device." Reinforcement sounds structural, not merely decorative. Which is correct? --Wordbuilder 02:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * so far, no-one knows! There's a discussion on this at the bottom of the page.--mikaul 10:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * How did I miss that? Sorry. --Wordbuilder 14:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Writing at 10:07 (over 10 years ago), mikaul was clearly referring to . And BTW, avoid being confused, by noting that that section title
 * lacks this section's title's "or" and question mark), and
 * then had no subordinated sub-section, and had drawn only two contribs (4 'graphs)).
 * --Jerzy•t 13:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Fixed. --Una Smith (talk) 21:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I note that said "fix" embraced this 4-edit session, tho i have parsed neither it nor the section (whose 4 edit summaries are free of anything but vague mechanical description) nor this talk section offer any reassurance  that an adequate resolution of the fairly bleak "so far, no-one knows!" assessment just above has been resolved. If it has, the apparently justified concern expressed here deserves at least a known editor's "certification" here that the later talk section has already demonstrated such resolution. It clearly does not rise above a "Start" Class article. --Jerzy•t 13:45, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

Regionalism?
Someone else mentioned having pictures of barnstars and similar taken in New Orleans. I live in Charleston, SC, and these (and non-star shaped examples) are very common structural aides in our historic, yet earthquake and hurricane prone city. However, this article only mentions a few cities. I don't think the article needs to mention every place in the world these occur, but I feel there should be some better rationale for what's included and what isn't than just author bias. --Jhlynes 04:07, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Barnstars as architectural devices and similar
In Britain, some older terraced houses are held together by steel rods or wires tied at the ends by a large metal S or X on the walls of the end houses. The function of these shapes is clearly identical to that of barnstars, but I don't know of a name for them. It would probably be useful to include them in the article if anyone has any more detailed info on them.Lee M 00:32, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

 * Also in the Britain older houses in towns and cities sometimes have on them fire insurance marks. These were to show who insured the property to make sure the wrong fire-brigade did not put the fire out. This was in the days when insurance companies maintained their own brigades. Maybe we ought to have some Wiki award signs based on these for eminent UK Wikipedians. Apwoolrich 17:49, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

They're tie plates. The rods are called tie rods. They're usually iron, not steel. You find them on all sorts of UK buildings, including barns. They are usually structural, sometimes decorative. Go ahead and add this if you like. Not in an editing mood. 212.139.203.136 19:55, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

 * These can also be plate-shaped. An old house of mine had a couple which had been used to remove an outward bulge in the brickwork.  A tie rod with a thread at each end was run through through the house from outer wall to outer wall, the middle was heated so it expands and the tie-plates were loosely screwed on.  The rod contracted as it cools, pulled the walls together and removed the bulges.  Apparently. Daen 14:31, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Wall ties or wall anchors as they are sometimes known, are added to improve the support structure of a building or structure in areas where it is failing, or as a pre-emptive action to strengthen weak points. They can run across the outside of a wall, through a wall, or between walls. The ties used between walls consist of a round bar, spanning between the failing wall and the strongest, most favourable point of the opposite wall, with threads at both ends, onto which a plate (the anchor) is fastened. The plate has the function of distributing load across a wider surface area. Where wall ties are used to stabilise a failing wall, it is sometimes preferable to use the wall tie to pull the wall back so that it is vertical or near vertical. There are various methods of doing this, but the two most common are; gradually tightening the tie plate nut, and heating the center of a short rod, causing it to expand, then fastening the tie plate onto the ends - the bar then contracts as it cools, effectively pulling the bulge out of the wall. The tie plate can come in many shapes and sizes, including circular, square, cross, and star shaped.

I suggest this article be merged into an article on wall ties containing the above information, or at least something resembling the above information. --▫Bad▫ harlick♠ 23:19, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

what?
barnstars  meant to represent the mark of the builder.

 * The mark of the builder? What's that? --Abdull 21:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Some contributers on this thread and others have been confusing Barnstars (functional) with Hex signs (decorative). Athaenara  (talk)  04:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Protection?
What stops a registered user from adding an award image to his user page?

 * Probably wikipedians checking the history. It'd make them look less credible. -- Deltaspectre 00:11, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Same reason I don't wear the Congressional Medal of Honor on my suspenders. It'd make me look like a dumbass.  There isn't any policy to prevent you from awarding yourself a barnstar. Try the one at the right if you feel the need. User:Pedant 23:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved from article
They still can be seen on many buildings there. I lived in Richmond, Virginia for six years and constantly saw them.

The explanation preceding this is accurate. I am sincerely impressed with Wilipedia!

In Charlottesville, Virginia where I was born and raised -- until Vietnam -- you can find these stars in the ruins of the old Confederate Clothing Factory.

Traveling on the interstate you can still see the tall chimney still standing, made of bricks. I enjoyed roaming the places I have lived and traveled to learn of their history and culture. --Maury 21:12, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Heavily starred buildings
This looks like vandalism.

 * Barnstars are seen not only on barns, but on many older buildings, often of brick. A long steel rod is passed entirely through the building; a star on either side is threaded onto the ends of the rod and they are tightened. This helps to keep the structure from collapsing. A heavily starred building should be examined for failure of the mortar, and may require tuckpointing or more drastic repairs.

Eric 18:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed the section. The added ext link only confirms the suspicion in hoax. Plates are threaded on coupling rods. A star would be a poor stress-distributor. `'mikka 02:23, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

 * My understanding of barnstars, especially on masonry buildings, is that they anchor the threaded rods which hold walls true (vertical) to each other, or to tie a wall into framing or other structural members to hold it true. An abundance of barnstars in a masonry structure is taken to indicate potential brickwork or foundation problems.  I'll look for some sources.  --Ssbohio 07:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Germany before USA
it should say 'in Germany and the United States.' i just find it relevant that chronological and alphabetical order come before population or military power.. and yes i might be a bit wierd and harsh by saying this, flame me at your own desire.. --Tyriel 11:48, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Bourbon Street Barnstars?
I have some pictures of barnstars sighted in/near the French Quarter of New Orleans. Is there some place where these can be uploaded? Perhaps a space could be set aside for Wikipedians to upload images of their barnstar sightings. Terry Yager 21:08, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Barnstars on Wikipedia

 * ''The following discussions are an archived debate. Please do not modify it.

I know we are supposed to avoid self-reference but should there not be some sort of link from this article to Barnstars on Wikipedia? --Phil | Talk 17:35, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

 * Yes, in the form of a http link. Added. Fredrik | talk 17:57, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

But that looks silly: there must be a better way. --Phil | Talk 10:20, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

 * Silly how? Fredrik | talk 13:52, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It's a link to a Wikipedia article but made to look like an external link. Maybe we could come up with something like Template:Wikisource (say Template:Wikipedia usage) which refers from the main namespace into the Wikipedia namespace? --Phil | Talk 15:29, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
 * Something like this, maybe (see above)? --Phil | Talk 16:34, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

Isn't that overdoing it a bit? I mean, we don't really want to draw attention to this, just reference it somewhere. Personally, I support the current use of an external link: as far as "an encyclopedia" is concerned (which is what this article is part of, in the context of mirrors, offline editions, and even just anonymous readers) this is just a link to "a page on the web with relevant information". OK, so it feels a bit weird for us to refer to it as "external", but in a sense the project namespace should be external to the article one. IMHO, of course. - IMSoP 20:08, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

 * The Wikipedia link should be on the page. I couldn't remember the exact name of the Wikipedia Barnstar page, so I tried this page, expecting to find a link. Please let me put the link back in. It's only one line. Axl 07:33, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

 * I have put the link in. Axl 09:44, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

The link to Barnstars on Wikipedia needs to be an external link. Mirror sites won't mirror the Wikipedia: namespace. a ndroid 79  12:48, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Once again, this needs to be an external link. See Avoid self-references. Links from article-space to Wikipedia:-space are a bad idea. a ndroid 79  20:15, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Not trying to be contrary here, but how are all the See also sections, which are links to wiki namespace different? Also, it isn't really an external link, even if we make it use that syntax, so why not make it that syntactically in the see also section?  Wikibofh 21:53, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't know what you're talking about when you say "all the See also sections". The only item in See also is Talkoot, which is a wikilink to a page in article-space. From a technical standpoint, the link to the Wikipedia:-space page on barnstars could be either internal or external, but that's only for this particular instance of Wikipedia. If a mirror decides to pull only article-space and related content (categories, etc.) and not the Wikipedia:-space pages, an internal link to Barnstars on Wikipedia would be a dead link, whereas an external link would be functional. Same goes for a "hard" copy of Wikipedia on DVD or somesuch. a ndroid 79  22:16, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

 * I meant See also sections in general. I think I might get what you're saying.  That something that is in the something space would be dead, but something that is merely something would not.  So does this mean that the MoS link here should also be syntactically external? Wikibofh 00:00, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

 * Arg, seriously people. Look under Administrator (like, any other except for the Wikipedia page). It has referances at the top of the article linking to Wikipedia admins. When ever I look for the Barnstar page, it always sends me here, from which I go to the Wiki-Barnstar page. It would be much harder for newbies on Wikipedia to find Barnstars if they can't go through the link that was previously at the top of this page. My. $0.02 Sharkface217 22:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Can somebody send this Barnstar page in for Mediation? I don't want this to get ugly. Sharkface217 22:51, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not a problem! Just use the solution found at Help and Cheat sheet and POV etc. Use the selfref template (which is taken out for mirrors). Done :) --Quiddity 23:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I just noticed the November at the top of the thread, and the November at the bottom are seperated by a few years! I still stand by my suggested solution though. :) --Quiddity 23:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That's crazy! I just started watching this page today after this situation came up at Talk:Esperanza--E d  ¿Cómo estás? 23:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Now that I've seen that discussion, I'm not so sure at all. Sounds like a Village pump (policy) question to me (and be prepared for disappointment). I defer judgement on this one to the wikilawyers.. -Quiddity 00:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

 * There is no need for it to go anywhere, I think using the self-ref template was a good enough solution. There is no need to muck up what works very well. --evrik (talk) 03:42, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Mention Wikipedia?

 * ''The following discussions are an archived debate. Please do not modify it.

Does anyone think that their prevalence in Wikipedia culture is worth a mention? Sarge Baldy 19:36, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

 * Wikipedia has a self-avoidance policy (Scroll up for links to it). Sharkface217 22:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Straw poll (18/16/01)
Your input is requested below. Ral315 (talk) 07:05, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Should there be a link to Barnstar on Barnstar?

Yes

 * 1) Yes A straw poll at a userpage for someone against the question seems to be a tad biased to me. Personally, I see nothing wrong with informing the reader of more information on the topic. In "fact," it's biased to withhold the information.  The only legitimate question, IMHO, is how to present it. Rfrisbietalk 13:31, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Yes - When I first got here, I hit barnstar from the Random Article. I saw the Wikipedia Barnstars link and clicked that, and read up on Barnstars, and I thought that they were the neatest thing, and that's what got me editing here. I can see bending this little rule. --Shrieking Harpy [[Image:Gay_flag.svg|17px]] TalkundefinedCount 06:19, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Yes per my comments. --evrik (talk) 15:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Yes definately. Many people who read wikipedia are active editors themselves (or possibly future editors). The help pages are a mess and I never find what I am looking for. I'd appreciate a link in the Barnstar article and don't see how this interrupts the reader of that article. -- Splette :) Talk 15:32, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Yes. I always thought avoidance of self-refs is a pointless attempt of trying to ignore the fact we are already one of the most important phenomenas online.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) Yes. In situations where an article shares its name with a feature/aspect of WP (barnstars, vandalism, etc), it may be useful to create a template that says "X is also a WP feature. Click here to read about it." Appleseed (Talk) 18:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) Yes might be a self-reference, but after all, Vandalism links to Vandalism as well. Many people might also have trouble finding about barnstars through help pages.  Michaelas10   (Talk)   15:37, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) *In the interest of fairness, I'd say there's a far more pressing need for that link. Someone looking for our pages on vandalism and policy may well have a very urgent need to find those pages -- since when have barnstars been urgent? Luna Santin 18:09, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) Yes, but as an external link or in a self reference template at the top. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) Yes, somewhere, anywhere. Barnstars are demonstrably more well-known as wiki-awards than otherwise. User:Pedant 20:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 11) Yes If other pages have trackback, why shouldn't this one? Sharkface217 05:24, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, but only within the selfref tag so it's not picked up by mirrors. We should be using that template a lot more consistently... -- nae'blis 07:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) Weak support of nae'blis's idea, if it's viable. riana_dzasta 13:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Yes per reason given by User:Splette. Robocracy 13:58, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) Yes: a single line, displayed at the top of the article page in wikiconventional form, as suggested a few days ago by evrik: "For the use of barnstars within the Wikipedia community, see Barnstars." It is neither self-referencing nor recursive. It is a useful and beneficial solution which serves the vital meta-issue of utility perfectly. Athaenara  (talk)  04:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) Yes--E d  ¿Cómo estás? 04:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) Yes- In italics, at the top of the page, just like on Templates, Searching, and Disambiguation, as suggested by User:Athaenara. --Carterhawk 08:57, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Oh, and as a note, I went to the Barnstars article looking for wikipedia barnstars for use outside of wikipedia.
 * 1) Yes I found the article, looking for the wikipedia barnstarts. There should be a reference. --FocalPoint 18:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) Yes Of course. Note if this straw polls ends up without consensus, the page should still be restored to its previous state, which had the link.  *Spark*  21:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * For the majority of the Wikipedia Esperanza organization's existence, it has never had this on here. Ral315 (talk) 00:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

No

 * 1) No; Barnstars are not an essential Wikipedia process, and don't deserve to receive an exemption to the avoid self-references guideline.  Ral315 (talk) 07:04, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No, for the exact same reason as above. Nobody off-Wikipedia cares. ~Kylu ( u | t )  07:09, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1) No. If somebody is unaware of the Wikipedia namespace, they probably don't have too much interest or business with barnstars. Harsh, perhaps, but also probably true. The vast majority of our users are readers first and foremost -- it's more than easy to find your way to this page via the normal course of duties. Anybody who sticks around is sure to see one on somebody's userpage and get curious. Luna Santin 07:16, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 2) No; non-essential, and for some non-preferable. I'd much rather a few simple words of positive feedback to a gold star. Not as bad as the Emoticons though (also self-ref'd: Emoticon)... -Quiddity 09:24, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 3) No (not here) - Simply put, our use of barnstars is only notable within the Wikipedia subculture, and to include it would just an egotistical act. As said above, nobody outside of Wikipedia cares. Such an exception to WP:SELF might be more appropriate to a (yet to be written) Wikipedia culture article, to which a reference to our use of barnstars would be entirely appropriate. – ClockworkSoul 19:31, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 4) *Isn't it actually common across several wikis, such as meatballwiki and others? Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 5) **Meatballwiki is mostly self-references as it is. As an encyclopedia, avoiding self-references is necessary.  Ral315 (talk) 05:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 6) No. I personally do not like the self reference this will make on the article. However, if this has to be absolutely done, use the hidden text (like we use for that damn "Esperanza" group. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 22:01, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 7) No Per Luna Satin. There is no need for this sort of self-referencing. Th ε Halo Θ 12:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 8) Hell, no: Way too incestuous - something WP must avoid at all cost. This would be like Saab selling cars to Vauxhall. Moreschi 18:25, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 9) No. We are developing the encyclopedia for the benefit of readers, not editors. ×Meegs 23:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 10) No - Unless you can find documented, non trivial sources, referring to the Wikipedia barnstar, it does not belong in a mainspace article. Chris Kreider 01:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 11) No - but the fact of this usage of "barnstars" in the wiki context would be worth mentioning. — Hex  (❝ ?! ❞)  12:16, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 12) No --ElKevbo 05:15, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 13) No - Shameless self advertising. However, I would fully endorse if a link was placed on a template on the article's talk page. Much like a "Supported by this project" template. that way everybody can eat their pie.... Spawn Man 06:01, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 14) No. For the same reasons I gave on Talk:Esperanza. TacoDeposit 15:37, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 15) No per Ral315 and Luna Santin. WP:ASR should only be broken for things integral to the encyclopedia, like the link to civility at civic virtue or the link to verifiability at Formal verification. Picaroon9288 23:39, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 16) No though Barnstars are mainstream awards for Wikipedians, those who are off Wikipedia do not need to know about them essentially in order to read/edit the article or understand the rules of Wikipedia.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 19:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 17) No per Ral315 and Kylu. Wikipedians do not need to learn about barnstars in order to become good or even great editors. ▫Bad▫ harlick♠ 17:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Also the correct term isn't even "barnstar" - a tie bar would be more accurate, with a barnstar being a type of tie plate. I suggest merging this article with an article on tie bars, or maybe even on building structure etc. Hopefully people will learn that hijacking an article just because some people can't remember to prefix "WP:" before they go read up on wikipedia policies and practices isn't appropriate.▫Bad▫ harlick♠ 17:46, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Maybe or Neutral

 * 1) Perhaps. By nature all barnstars have always meant to be unofficial. They can by nature never be an essential part of wikipedia. In the light of that, I do not see the harm in putting Barnstar on Barnstar given the widespread usage of barnstars on wikipedia... After all it is quite noable being the first hit on a google image search and the second hit on a regular google search. -- Cat out 15:51, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Comments

 * Biased is quite a bad way to put it, as there's no bias in not presenting irrelevant information that doesn't relate to the topic on Wikipedia. And it's at my userpage because it spans more than one article.  That's why I posted it here- so that readers of this page would be able to express their opinion as well.  Ral315 (talk) 05:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion of this text is a reasonable solution:

--evrik (talk) 15:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I don't believe so. Barnstars don't affect the readers, and that should be our first thought.  Only in cases like Vandalism, where it's an important process that readers might look for, should we not follow WP:ASR.  Ral315 (talk) 15:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I just moved the poll. --evrik (talk) 15:20, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Let's give the poll a couple more days. I may not be around much until Monday, so let me just say this- if it does appear that a consensus forms around the self-reference being included, it should be at the bottom of the page in a "see also" section, not at the top as was at some points the case.  Since there is a significant number of people who think it should be there, I think that's an acceptable compromise from my end.  Ral315 (talk) 16:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the self-reference should go at the top so that people don't have to read down the article to find what they're really looking for. --evrik (talk) 16:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

 * Examples of Self-Refs (Look at THESE):

 * RFA
 * FAC
 * RFA
 * NPA
 * EA (disambiguation)
 * Civil
 * NPOV
 * I was just looking at Esperanza and Esperanza to try and figure out what User:Zscout370 was referring to. It appears that Ral315 has started a similar discussion over here Talk:Esperanza. --evrik (talk) 22:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

 * As I stated above, I don't support a link being given on the main article page. However, I would like to see a template giving the link on the barnstar talk page. This way both parties could be satified? Spawn Man 06:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I think that is a perfectly acceptable and even desirable solution. --ElKevbo 06:28, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Heck yeah it is! Yay! I made a good suggestion! :) Spawn Man 06:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Works for me. – ClockworkSoul 13:22, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Works for me as well. I'm glad we have been able to reach a comp.--E d  ¿Cómo estás? 01:49, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Works for me. Would probably be viable in some other selfref situations, as the talk page is the second place I look if I am trying to find a new term I haven't come across before in WP context. -- nae'blis 07:17, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I think that since no consensus has been reached, it should go back to having the self-ref at the top of the page, which is where it was before this tempest in a teapot started. It does 'no harm' to have the reference at the top, and is consistent with a lot of other pages. I'm goping to ask that the page be unprotected. --evrik (talk) 15:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It's consistent only with a few disambiguation pages, and I'm not convinced that they belong there either. Really, if there is no consensus to bend the rules, then the default should be to follow them. – ClockworkSoul 15:35, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting we make this a disambig page? --evrik (talk) 15:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Heh. No - I'm suggesting that this isn't a disambig page, so we shouldn't do it. :D – ClockworkSoul 15:46, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I still think that this tag is a reasonable solution that meets everyone's needs. --evrik (talk) 16:39, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm not thrilled by it, but I don't care enough or think it's big enough of a deal for me to invest energy in fighting it. If you put it on the page, I'll be content to just accept it. – ClockworkSoul 17:34, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Query: What do wikipedians have against newcomers learning more about wikipedia? Self References are one of the best ways to find out more information about an aspect of wikipedia, especialy since searching the other namespaces can be difficult and confusing for someone who has never done it before. Unless the wikipedia article can encompass every self reference from every other article, we need them to be spread out in places where people would expect to find them. Ill never understand, especialy in the case of Esperanza, why some wikipedians want to keep a solid wikipedia Community from growing. The reader who comes across wikipedia barnstars may then be interested in contributing to wikipedia, going from reader to editor. --Carterhawk 21:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * A curious question. I respond with a counter-query: did you learn about barnstars by reading the barnstar article, or by some other means, such as visiting user pages? A followup query: why do you assume that some people's preference to keep Wikipedian cultural references out of articles that don't directly relate to us is a calculated attempt to keep newcomers in the dark? – ClockworkSoul 22:02, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
 * 1)Through a userpage, however in looking for more information on them, i first came here. For me finding out more about wikipedia policies and culture involves a great deal of hoping an article in the Main namespace has a link to an article in the wikipedia namespace. 2) My suspicious nature. --Carterhawk 06:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

A thought What about a change to the underlying mediawiki software? What I propose is that the software track any namespaces that are set to cross reference each other. When each namespace has an article with the same name, add a tab button to the top of the article to the right of Watch that takes the reader to the other namespace. It avoids self referencing in the article, and makes related information in other namespaces easily accessible. This approach would, in theory, satisfy both groups, would it not? --Carterhawk 06:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
 * After coming up with this I added the idea to this discussion page where it belongs. --Carterhawk 08:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I think that the selfref template is meant to deal with this. --evrik (talk) 15:15, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
 * No, it's not. That template has nothing to do with the issue of if a self-reference should be made in the first place.  The template is purely a technical measure to allow mirrors, forks, and other versions/copies to supress or properly (however they define it) redirect the link(s).  --ElKevbo 20:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

 * user:Ais523 has come up with a javascript that does what I proposed, it works great and looks great. User:Ais523/selfreftab.js --Carterhawk 22:54, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I just added the . Please feel free to  replace it with user:Ais523's javascript. --evrik (talk) 23:03, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

 * I have reverted it. As far as using JavaScript, hiding things with JavaScript is not ideal; many browsers do not support JavaScript, and controversy has been expressed over this.  But in general, I think a compromise would be ideal; how about putting the link in the "see also" section, where it'll be less out of place?  Ral315 (talk) 00:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Until such time that we can come to an agreement, we should just leave the article as it is right now with the reference. I thik it serves the greater community and does not harm. --evrik (talk) 04:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

"five points" star vs. "five-point" star

 * In the first paragraph, is not the proper English language usage "five-point"?
 * And so the alternative, without the hyphen would be "five points"?
 * Wikipedia at least effectively teaches and standardizes English. So should we not always make sure that our WP sentence are grammatically and spellingwisecorrec?
 * As long as it is spellingwisecorrec —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.190.4.245 (talk) 02:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

 * And if there is a rule to whether to use the singular or plural, can someone let me know the WP article one could look in, if any?
 * Will you get a Barnstar for it?
 * PS: Notice that one says, "one woman," and, "two women," but not "two woman"!
 * Yours,etc. Ludvikus 19:30, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Structural vs. Decorative
It is clear to me that there is a major confusion going on here. There are decorative "plaques" that either feature star motifs (PA dutch) or are actually star-shaped (sheet metal?), and steel/iron forgings that function as anchor points for structural tie rods holding two opposing walls together. The image in this article is clearly the latter, yet the text not only makes no mention of the structural purpose, but specifically excludes it.

I'm going to re-write this in the near future. Anybody have a useable image of one of those decorative stars? Pjbflynn 23:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

 * You're right. This article seems lacking in those respects. In fact, earlier on this talk page, someone even thought that a discussion of tie rods and plates was "vandalism"! Here in Philadelphia there are loads of 18th- and 19th-century brick buildings that have such stars on them. On many of those buildings it looks as though, far from it being a random repair, the wall was designed to have the stars in certain places as anchors for joists, although I don't know that for sure. Some may be purely decorative, but I believe that many of them probably are joist anchors (and the joist itself may simultaneously serve as a tie rod) and some others may be tie plates for ad-hoc masonry repairs done, say, in 1860 on a building built in 1760.

 * So some of the problems in this article currently are that such stars (a) were not just for barns, but rather were also used on brick houses; (b) were not only German or German-American; (c) were not always non-structural, but rather also seem to have been used as joist anchors, combination joist-anchor/tie-plates, or just ad-hoc tie plates. However, this article needs input from a good secondary source such as a book written by someone with real knowledge of the subject (e.g., architects, people who do renovation on colonial-era buildings). — Lumbercutter 22:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I used to do renovation work on old buildings and may be able to find a source. To my best knowledge, a star-shaped anchor is for timber construction, while bigger tie plates are used for masonry, but barnstars almost certainly had a structural purpose prior to the decorative/award one. I've definitely seen something in a textbook about this; let me check it out.--mikaul 10:17, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Well, I've searched high & low and can't find a reference to barn stars which indicate even a vestigial structural use. An online article [] I found is very interesting on the subject, citing finds of old wooden barn stars in carpenters' shops which clearly cannot have had a sturctural purpose. The page has a link to a range of good photos (I've emaled for permission to use) all of which show a wooden star placed high in the eaves of the roof, too high (IMO) to be of any structural purpose, even if they were strong enough for the task.

 * There is no clear terminological distinction between painted barnstars and wooden or metal ones and pages like this one [] often elect to call the painted versions 'barn stars' and the wooden/metal ones 'hex signs'.

 * I'm confused and a bit disappointed! Being quite 'up' on structural joinery, I feel certain there should have been an original use as a tie-rod end, especially for large & precarious timber structures like barns, so I'll keep looking, but with diminished hope...--mikaul 10:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Naming?
OK, so this has the potential to really upset some people (given the whole "barnstar as wikipedia award" thing), but by what verifiable source is this image being labeled as a "barnster"? From all of my research, I can find not a single reference to a reinforcing plate such as this being called a "barnstar". Indeed, they seem to be used predominantly on urban masonry (brick) buildings.

All that I can find searching for "barnstar" is those sheet metal (tin, copper) decorative types. Lacking a source defining a star-shaped tie rod anchor plate as a barnstar, I think the image(s) need to be renamed. Pjbflynn 01:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
 * A lot of the stuff I've read while searching for a structural connection mentions barn stars being a kind of 'trademark', fixed by the builder by way of signature, expressing pride in his work. It's this connection which is behind the barnstar an award for work well done, I think. The onus is on those of us who believe them to have a structural purpose to find evidence to back the claim up. At the moment, the article makes totally unsupported claims to this end; the decorative/award usage has plenty of corraborative evidence, by contrast. --mikaul 10:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Well, the real issue as I see it is that there are two distinctly different objects being labelled as "barnstars", and I can find no source describing a barnstar as a thick metal plate with a hole in the center, can you? My contention is that these are not properly called barnstars. As for their structural function, I've found plenty of refs to that.

 * Yes, it's a message board, but it describes exactly what's being discussed
 * Just search for the word star
 * Same thing, just search
 * A good page about the purely decorative sort

Of course you can't find any mention of a structural function for barnstars, because this image does not show a barnstar. It shows a star-shaped tie plate. Pjbflynn 14:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Thanks for that, I knew I'd seen them somewhere. At the bottom of the page on the first of your links is a pic of a house and on the extreme rhs you can see the exact same star plate as is illustrating the barn star article. That seals it for me, although there are some claims to the effect that "barnstar" is an appropriate name for the item illustrated here.

 * Have a look at the Barnstar page for the design history, or if you want to go straight to the original rationale behind Wikipedia's use of it, see this link. The creator of the original Wiki barnstar claims the name is synonymous with "a fancy style of bolt washer used in early America to secure a long steel rod spanning the whole structure for support"; although technically that could be debatable, a futher link from his page takes you to the true origin, where (it is claimed) the bolt-based 'barnstar' is so-called because "it comes from early American architectural construction techniques, being used like a bolt on either end of a barn to secure a long, steel rod that spans the entire structure for support." (my bold)
 * This is where I first saw one, in a photo "somewhere" :/ Hope this goes some way to resolving things. --mikaul 20:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I have already tracked back through the Meatball Wiki and the Barnstar Subterfuge origins of the Wikipedia Barnstar. I think it would be useful to restate my concern and see what folks think.

The issue is that the image currently on this page called silverBarnstar.jpg, (and by extension, all the modified versions used as Wikipedia awards) is mis-named as a barn star. I have found plenty of sources (some linked above) that show and define a large, non-structural decorative star of wood or metal as a barn star. The only source for referring to the physically very different object in the picture as a barn star is the Barnstar Subterfuge, and I believe this is in error.

The object in this image is essentially a large washer, used on the ends of iron rods that pass through opposite walls of a masonry structure. These rods, generally called tie rods, serve to hold the sides of the structure together, either according to original design, or as a repair later in the building's history. These plates are usually called tie plates, and vary in their shape and degree of decoration. Apparently in the UK they are known as pattress plates. I can find no evidence of these plates being used on any non-masonry structure (usually urban houses and industrial buildings), and not on barns.

Unless someone can come up with evidence of these tie plates being used on barns, than the image must be renamed. I'm not really sure how to go about that, and the problem is compounded by it's use in so many "award images". Pjbflynn 04:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that there are two clearly seperate subjects here. From my reading in trying to cite this, and the discussion here, I'm thinking that Barnstars are a symbolic ornament. It's expected that some structural tie plates may have been decoratively shaped like stars, but this seems to be at best midly relevant to the topic of discussion. To try and make an analogy, consider hood ornaments, and assume that they were once used to open hoods of vehicles. It may be worth noting that this could be an origin for them, and cross referencing "Hood Latch," but the discussion of hood ornament design solely for aesthetic purposes is of its own merit. The best resolution appears to make an XRef and sentence reference to Tie rod, which will in turn need some discussion of tie plates. Autocracy 14:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed text
I just did a revert to remove this text:

Barnstars (aka earthquake washers) were employed in the early 19th century. Earthquake bolts (accompanied with decorative washers mostly in star form) are often associated with repairs made to buildings following great earthquakes. Iron bolts and decorative washers (stars) often used with them were attached to rods inserted laterally through buildings to straighten walls and provide additional structural support. The star washers were found both internally adjacent to major wood structural beams and as “end cap washers” of the long rods on the building exterior. Many of these are still visible on older multiple story brick buildings in major cities.

The ends of floor joists in older brick buildings sit in tiny pockets within the masonry wall. These small pockets are usuall not more than a few inches wide. The walls would not have to move much for the joist to slip out and fall (as would easily happen in an earthquake). To prevent this, a hole was drilled through the brick wall and run an iron rod into a floor (or ceiling) spanning the room or all the way through to the brick wall on the other side. An iron metal star or “washer” was affixed at the ends of the rod with a nut screwed on the end. Because the bricks and mortar weakened over time and are soft in nature, a large washer was used to disperse the stress of keeping the walls plumb over a wider area. Large stars were used as they are far more decorative than round or square washers, especially on older more historical buildings which were to be preserved. These tie-rods and/or "star bolts" devices are occasionally referred to as earthquake or hurricane bolts because such disasters often warrant their use.

The only part of this I dispute is that these anchors should not be called barn stars, so I'll try to encorporate this text into the Tie rod article. Pjbflynn 16:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I also removed the misleading silverBarnstar.jpg image, as clearly USA.Press was describing that. Pjbflynn 16:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Added "Confounding with similarly shaped structural tie plates"
As Pjbflynn astutely pointed out, "this has the potential to really upset some people"—but it needs correcting nonetheless. I added "Confounding with similarly shaped structural tie plates" to the article. — Lumbercutter 17:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Completely agree with the removal of the tie-plate text and your fine additional section should be an end to the matter, I think. No need to "upset" anyone or anything; there no point at all in changing name for the Wiki-award, simply because the word actually refers to something other than the object depicted. This is the way a lot of common names start out, often in ingorance of the "true" meaning or "correct" usage ('scuse my relativism) and the source of many an amusing etymological journey... this is usage outside of the public Wiki and I vote we keep the term in it's present form, display of ignorance, warts and all. What the heck, why not have it as a verb as well ;) I've made a note on the Barnstar page, FWIW --mikaul 20:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, the recent work here has been great in improving the article. Autocracy 21:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I just undid a division of this section, as I can find no evidence of this naming confusion anywhere but online communities. While I like this section clarifying the error, I'm not wild about the name. It just seems clunky and unencyclopedic. I can't at this moment come up with anything better, though. Pjbflynn 05:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I've had a go at fixing it. The hex-sign is no more a barnstar than the tie plate is, so I've added that into the 'confusion' section. The newer metal stars are proably nearer the lineage of the 'genuine' wooden ones, so (after a bit of messing about) I've left them in 'History'. I think we could probably expand this section, but it needs some verifiable research. I do have another photo, come to think of it. Anyway, feel free to revert/edit the title etc. mikaul 12:56, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Barn Stars, Protection from Fires, and Contribution to Collective Goods
When I first saw the use of barnstars in Wikipedia I was reminded of research on collective goods. I can't recall the titles of the books but my memory is that in some communities people would organize local fire departments on a contributor basis. People who had paid to support the fire department would have a marker placed on their property as a signal of their contribution. Does anyone else have info on these markers and how they might relate to barnstars? thanks --Ted 15:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Ted, what you are talking about here are called fire marks these were in Benjamin Franklin's era and can still be seen on Philadelphia buildings as well as those of other older American cities. Fire insurance subscribers would pay in advance for protection and in return receive a fire mark (usually a metalic logo) to attach to their building. Only the fire brigade employed by the fire insurance agency that provided the marks would put out a particular building if it was to catch alight. See Fire insurance marks --Rfsjim (talk) 05:22, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Do they really exist in Germany?
The article lede claims that barnstars are "originally and most commonly seen in German [and German-American] farming communities." I am a German, although admittedly I don't spend much time in farming communities, and I don't think I have ever seen such a thing. On Wikipedia, yes. (This is why I came to this article.) In an American movie, maybe. But never live. I always thought this star was used as a US national symbol, as a part of the US flag. I have no idea what the German word for this thing would be. These images don't seem to be used much on the German language Wikipedia, and where they are, people use the English word. Note that I am talking about the ornamental thing here, not the common practice to cramp parts of a building together with two pieces of metal in an X shape. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:00, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

 * I pared it down to just "German-American" because I suspect that there may not be many of them in Germany today even if there were in centuries past. I suspect a bit of the cultural-evolution equivalent of founder effect with this. Some emigrants from Germany to the U.S. in the 18th and 19th centuries may have brought this tradition with them and it propagated strongly in states such as Pennsylvania. This would not necessarily mean, however, that there were tons of barn stars in Germany then, or that there are many left today. This founder effect of sorts could easily lead to a situation where there are more barn stars in the U.S. than there ever were in Germany. Please note that if present-day rural residents of Germany know specifically otherwise, you can revert my edit. But I think it's more sensible to bring the claim back with specific verifying knowledge rather than leave it in as a dubious, unproven idea (i.e. the idea that there are plenty of barn stars in present-day Germany). — ¾-10 16:30, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Aesthetic?
I'm an Englishmen, so this word looks fine to me. However, but per WP:ENGVAR, shouldn't this be esthetic? I don't know the intricacies of American spelling, but I know you chaps are fond of removing nominally superfluous vowels, and I know you remove the middle 'a' from its opposite. PRB (talk) 09:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * While those of us on this side of the Atlantic do generally prefer our words with a minimum of vowels, we decided to keep the extra 'a' in the case of "aestheic". I don't know why that word is an exception to the unwritten rule of American English, but I suspect it may have been for reasons of aestheics, interestingly enough. – ClockworkSoul 19:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

OR
While on tour of Charleston SC, the tour guide pointed out the anchor plates on some buildings, explaining that following the earthquake in the late 19th century, tie rods with anchor plates were used to reinforce damaged buildings; shortly after that, some new buildings were built with purely decorative plates (no tie rods). The presence of the plates was not necessarily evidence of tie rods, nor even that the building had been there before the earthquake. This is a thirty year old memory. It would be nice to have a verifiable (orginal) source on the history of architecture. Naaman Brown (talk) 18:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC) Added: I am not sure what word the tour guide used for what I called anchor plates above. As I recall, they appeared to resemble sea shells or chrysanthemums.

Just like a Wikibarnstar!
A barnstar is just like a wikipedia barnstar. Very interesting. hmm? —Preceding unsigned comment added by RNelson5577 (talk • contribs) 16:37, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Not really, because Wikipedia barnstars were derived from these barnstars...  fetch  comms  ☛ 22:28, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Wagon wheel-like barnstars
The article mentions barnstars occasionally having a "wagon wheel" style rather than a five-pointed stars, but the article has several images of stars but not one illustrating this "wagon wheel" style. It'd be nice to see what these actually look like, if someone could replace one of the images with one in this style? Giftiger Wunsch   [TALK]  22:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Traduccion a wikipedia español
Este artículo esta siendo traducido y transferido a wikipedia en español por Daimond (en este caso un ip) 190.72.35.226 (talk) 02:30, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Barnstars
Any one know where the talk page is for the "Wikipedia Barnstars"...you know, the kind that get put on people's user page if they are good etc. Thanks. NelsonSudan (talk) 20:07, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

 * Yup, check out the project page at "WikiProject Wikipedia Awards" and its talk page at "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards". Regards, — ¾-10 16:01, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

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Rural homes or barns in rural farms?
The article reads: "and many rural homes in Canada"

Are rural homes decorated with barnstars? Really? Not barns in rural farms? Any sources? 85.193.219.160 (talk) 21:17, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Hot sex barnstar
, I didn't want to do this as I personally think that it's quite a tasteless barnstar, but... I've added the "Hot Sex Barnstar" here as it's a controversial one that was discussed in a reliable source. If you wish you can file an undeletion request at the Wikimedia Commons (I would advise against using your sysop powers to undelete it again), it could theoretically be used here, but I don't think that it would be a visual treat to the readers. In fact I didn't really want to add that section here, but it's relevant and it means that the image itself now has educational value for another Wikimedia website as it seemed to constantly fall on deaf ears there. Do with this information as you wish. --Donald Trung (talk) 18:54, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

 * It could theoretically be linked to like this as is done in the source article itself. --Donald Trung (talk) 19:02, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

 * Was it really necessary to choose this particular one as the article's example? While I appreciate that Wikipedia isn't censored, this seems rather gratuitous. --Vometia (talk) 19:04, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Controversial barnstar
Hello, I undid your removal of that section, mostly because it's about a specific internet barnstar that became infamous because of its distasteful nature. Perhaps it could be made shorter and explained in less detail, but I don't think that it should be entirely removed.

Or perhaps this information would better fit at the article about the Wikimedia Commons, in a section discussing its controversies? But even then it could have a passing mention here as it's one of the few internet barnstars actually described in detail by independent sources. -- — Donald Trung (talk) 21:35, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Barnstar


text:
Charlotte Pass, New South Wales

Charlotte Pass (often erroneously referred to as Charlotte's Pass) is a snow resort and village in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. The pass is in the Kosciuszko National Park where the Kosciuszko Road crosses Kangaroo Ridge. Charlotte Pass is the closest village to Mount Kosciuszko, the tallest mountain in Australia.

Charlotte Pass Village is at the base of Kangaroo Ridge to the south east of the pass. It is one of Australia's oldest snow resorts. It is the coldest location in Australia, with a record low of -23.0 C and winter temperatures that regularly drop below -10 C.

The pass and village are named after Charlotte Adams, who, in 1881, was the first European woman to climb Mount Kosciuszko.

Charlotte Pass provides access to some of Australia's highest alpine terrain and was formerly a stop-off point for public vehicular access to Mount Kosciuszko, though the public access road now terminates at the Pass. Being an alpine area, it is subject to extremes in temperature, and is a recognised environmentally sensitive zone.

History
The Snowy Mountains region is thought to have had Aboriginal occupation for some twenty thousand years. Large scale intertribal gatherings were held in the High Country during summer for collective feasting on the Bogong moth. This practice continued until around 1865. The area was first explored by Europeans in 1835, and in 1840, Edmund Strzelecki ascended Mount Kosciuszko and named it after a Polish patriot. High country stockmen followed who used the Snowy Mountains for grazing during the summer months. Banjo Paterson's famous poem The Man From Snowy River recalls this era. The cattle graziers have left a legacy of mountain huts scattered across the area. Charlotte Pass itself is named after Charlotte Adams who, in 1881, became the first European woman to climb Mount Kosciuszko, Australia's highest peak.

The Kosciuszko National Park in which Charlotte Pass is situated came into existence as the National Chase Snowy Mountains on 5 December 1906. In April 1944, following the passage of the Kosciusko State Park Act, the Kosciusko State Park was proclaimed. In 1967, this became the Kosciusko National Park, renamed Kosciuszko National Park in 1997.

The historic Kosciuszko Chalet was the first building at Charlotte Pass village, and was opened on 10 May 1930. The Chalet at Charlotte Pass was one of several alpine area accommodation facilities built by government in Australia, and offered an opulent life style at the time. The Chalet burnt down in August 1938, and a new Chalet was built in its place the following summer. The Chalet is still the largest and most significant building in the village, and remains the heart of the village in winter.

Skiing in Australia had begun some six decades earlier at Kiandra in the Northern Snowy Mountains, but the first Kosciuszko Chalet built at Charlotte Pass in 1930 gave relatively comfortable access to Australia's highest terrain. At 1760m, Charlotte Pass has the highest village base elevation of any Australia ski resort and can only be accessed via over-snow transport in winter. The growing number of ski enthusiasts heading to Charlotte Pass led to the establishment of a cafe at Smiggin Holes around 1939, where horse-drawn sleighs would deliver skiers to the start of the arduous ski to the Kosciuszko Chalet. It was the construction of the vast Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme from 1949 that really opened up the Snowy Mountains for large scale development of a ski industry and led to the establishment of nearby Thredbo and Perisher as leading Australian resorts. Kosciusko Alpine Club was the first ski club to build its own lodge here in 1952, having occupied the Chalet earlier. Other club lodges were built soon after.

Ski fields beyond Charlotte Pass and up by Kosciuszko's side were also established during this period, though their existence is now little realised. The Australian Alpine Club was founded in 1950 by Charles Anton with a view to establishing a chain of lodges for ski touring across the Australian Alps. Huts were constructed in the "Back Country" close to Mount Kosciuszko, including Kunama Hut, which opened for the 1953 season. A rope tow was installed on Mount Northcote at the site and opened in 1954. The site proved excellent for speed skiing, but the hut was destroyed in an avalanche, which also killed one person, in 1956. In 1964, Australia briefly boasted the "World's Longest Chairlift", designed to carry skiers from the Thredbo Valley to Charlotte Pass, but technical difficulties soon closed the facility.

For many decades, Charlotte Pass was a stop off point on the road offering public vehicular access to Mount Kosciuszko, however the Kosciuszko Road now terminates at Charlotte Pass. The last 9 kilometres leading to Mount Kosciuszko have been closed, for environmental reasons, since 1982.

The village and resort precinct are part of the Kosciuszko National Park, and the village is leased to and operated by Charlotte Pass Village Pty Ltd (CPV) until at least October 2017. Apart from the Chalet, the village contains 12 commercial and club lodges, and has the capacity to hold 607 guests.

Climate
Charlotte Pass has a Subpolar oceanic climate (Köppen Cfc) if using the −3 °C/27 °F isotherm or a Subantarctic (Dfc) using the 0 °C/32 °F isotherm, though the higher peaks have a Tundra climate (ET). It has the lowest recorded temperature in Australia (excluding Antarctic territories), of -23.0 °C on 28 June 1994. There are an average of 55.7 snowy days annually, being equal to Macquarie Island.

Annual rain fall averages 2329.6 mm, with about half falling as snow between May and September, although conditions result in the snowpack typically never exceeding 2.5 m to 3 m. Official snow depths are not recorded for Charlotte Pass, but are recorded by the Snowy Hydro Limited at nearby Spencers Creek (elev. 1,830 m). A typical snow depth at its peak is about 2 m.  Summer rain is usually in the form of thunderstorms, which, due to the area's elevation, can carry large quantities of hail, and severe hailstorms generally occur a few times each summer.

Snow has been recorded at all times of the year, some persisting on the ground for weeks even at the height of summer. While snowfalls at unexpected times can add interest to the area, they are typically associated with very severe weather events, which can also cause havoc with disastrous consequences. For example, weather patterns bringing snow on Boxing Day and the following day in 1998 caused loss of life in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race that year.

Wildlife
The area has been long been used as a base for environmental research, for example for plankton studies in the nearby post glacial lake Blue Lake in 1937 using a flat bottomed boat, and more recently, for example in 1997 as a heliport for studies of the mountain pygmy possum.

Of major faunal significance is the endangered mountain pygmy possum (Burramys parvus), which from 1894 until 1966 was only known from the fossil record, and the threatened broad-toothed mouse. These small marsupials are adapted to mountain life, however most other Australian animals find it hard to survive the cold climate and heavy snow. Animals that do manage to survive in the area and are occasionally seen include eastern grey kangaroos, wombats, platypus, crows, magpies, crimson rosellas, flame robins, and introduced animals such as rabbits, foxes and red deer.

Skiing
An area between Kangaroo Ridge, Mount Stilwell ridge, and Guthries Ridge is formally designated as the Charlotte Pass Alpine Resort.

It is the oldest and highest ski resort in Australia.

The resort contains five ski lifts, one triple chairlift, one T-bar, two platter lifts and a beginner's moving carpet (which replaced a rope tow in 2008), accessing 50 hectares of skiable terrain. These lifts are commonly referred to as the Kosciuszko Triple Chair, the Pulpit T-bar, the Basin Poma, Guthrie's High Speed Poma and the Kosciusko Carpet (colloquially known as the 'Kosci Carpet'). The highest lifted elevation is 1,964 m; the base elevation 1,755 m; giving a downhill skier's vertical of 210 m. The resort currently only lifts to part of its leased area. A small terrain park was first constructed in 2008. The resort has a few mobile snow guns to top up high traffic areas and help open difficult terrain areas earlier in the season. A list of all ski lifts to have operated at Charlotte Pass can be found at the Australian Ski Lift Directory.

The resort is also very popular with cross-country skiers, as the village provides immediate access to Australia's highest peaks.

The resort receives, on average, more natural snow than other Australian resorts because of its elevation. In 1981, one weather event dropped snow to the extent that the Kangaroo Ridge triple chair terminus was buried in snow, over the top of the pylon, by the cornice by up to 0.5 m. This level of snow fall is an exception.

The Charlotte Pass ski area might be the only area in Australia with viable natural snow in several years' time, owing to the impact of global warming.

Kosciuszko Main Range Walks
During the summer, Charlotte Pass is a base for bushwalkers with intent to walk to the top of Mount Kosciuszko and access the Main Range. The mountain can be accessed by the 18 km round trip Summit Walk, or a 22 km loop walk via the glacial Lakes Walk. A fine view of the Main Range and headwaters of the Snowy River can be seen from the Snow Gums Boardwalk at Charlotte's Pass and the walk to the summit traverses sub-alpine woodland on the Guthrie Range. Mount Kosciuszko itself is visible from the first lookout.

The Charlotte Pass to Kosciuszko walk follows the old Summit Road, which was closed to vehicles in 1976. It crosses the Snowy River at 4.5 km and then ascends gradually to Seaman's Hut (6 km), Rawson's Pass (8 km) and finally, the summit of Mount Kosciuszko.

The Charlotte Pass to Blue Lake walk crosses the Snowy River before ascending through alpine herbfields past Hedley Tarn lookout to Blue Lake lookout. The Blue Lake is one of only four cirque lakes found in mainland Australia and contains the best-developed glacial features in the Kosciuszko National Park alpine area of New South Wales. The Lake can be accessed by a 4-hour round-trip walk from Charlotte Pass.

A shorter and easier walk to the Kosciuszko summit can be accessed via Thredbo. Other guided walks are also available.

Access
In summer, access is by Kosciuszko Road from Jindabyne.

In winter, the area is snow-bound and can only be accessed by snowmobile from the Perisher Valley Skitube Alpine Railway terminal, which lies 8 kilometres to the north east, also via Jindabyne. Charlotte Pass Village Pty Ltd operates a fleet of vehicles to ferry people into and out of the village during winter.

The area has not always been regarded as being easily accessible to all people. In the mid 20th century, the Chalet at Charlotte Pass was referred to as a breeding ground for snobocracy by local politician John Wesley Seiffert who by public criticism obtained a reduced bus fare to the area, thus opening the snowfields to a wider range of people.

Management and Services
The area is subject to a wide range of government legislation and environmental plans, and, owing to the environmental sensitivity of the area, is one of the most heavily regulated areas in Australia.

Services such as garbage collection and sewage processing are the responsibility of the area's lessee.

Private services at the resort include a ski and snowboard school/instructors, over-snow transport such as Pisten Bully snow cats and a ski patrol service.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Charlotte Pass, New South Wales


text:
Congleton (borough)

Congleton was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district with borough status in Cheshire, England. It included the towns of Congleton, Alsager, Middlewich and Sandbach. The headquarters of the borough council were located in Sandbach.

History
The borough was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 by the merger of the former borough of Congleton, the urban districts of Alsager, Middlewich and Sandbach, and the Congleton Rural District. The new district was awarded borough status from its creation, allowing the chairman of the council to take the title of mayor.

In 2006 the Department for Communities and Local Government considered reorganising Cheshire's administrative structure as part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England. The decision to merge the boroughs of Congleton, Macclesfield, and Crewe and Nantwich to create a single unitary authority was announced on 25 July 2007, following a consultation period in which a proposal to create a single Cheshire unitary authority was rejected.

The Borough of Congleton was abolished on 31 March 2009, with the area becoming part of the unitary authority of Cheshire East on 1 April 2009.

Civil parishes
Congleton was divided into 23 civil parishes and included no unparished areas. Of the 23 civil parishes, four were administered at this level of local government by town councils: Alsager, Middlewich, Sandbach, and Congleton; with the remainder having parish councils. There are two pairs of civil parishes that are grouped together so that they share a parish council. These are Hulme Walfield and Somerford Booths, whose single parish council is called "Hulme Walfield and Somerford Booths Parish Council", and Newbold Astbury and Moreton cum Alcumlow, whose single parish council is called "Newbold Astbury-cum-Moreton Parish Council".

The following civil parishes were included in the borough:

 * Alsager (town)
 * Arclid
 * Betchton
 * Bradwall
 * Brereton
 * Church Lawton
 * Congleton (town)
 * Cranage
 * Goostrey
 * Hassall
 * Holmes Chapel
 * Hulme Walfield
 * Middlewich (town)
 * Moreton cum Alcumlow
 * Moston
 * Newbold Astbury
 * Odd Rode
 * Sandbach (town)
 * Smallwood
 * Somerford
 * Somerford Booths
 * Swettenham
 * Twemlow

Demographics
The resident population of the borough, as measured in the 2001 Census, was 90,655, of which 49 per cent were male and 51 per cent were female.

Religion
The percentage of people of each religion in the borough (trom the Census 2001):

Political control
The town of Congleton had been a municipal borough from 1836 to 1974 with a borough council. The first elections to the new Congleton Borough created under the Local Government Act 1972 were held in 1973, initially operating as a shadow authority until the new arrangements came into effect on 1 April 1974. Political control of the council from 1974 until its abolition in 2009 was held by the following parties:

Leadership
The leaders of the council from 1987 were:

Composition
The political composition of the council at its abolition in 2009 was:

Premises
The council was based at Westfields on Middlewich Road in Sandbach. This was a large nineteenth century house which had been bought in 1960 by the Congleton Rural District Council, one of the council's predecessors. In 2005–2007 a replacement headquarters building, also called Westfields, was built in front of the old house, which was then demolished. The new building was formally opened on 25 January 2008. After Congleton Borough Council's abolition, Westfields became the headquarters for the new Cheshire East Council.

Alderman and Freeman of the Borough
The following people and military units received the Freedom of the Borough of Congleton or were an Alderman of the Borough of Congleton.

Individuals

 * C. W. Harrison (Alderman 4 October 1984)
 * A. G. Smith (Alderman 4 October 1984)
 * C. H. Kelly (Alderman 25 September 1986)
 * L. Yarwood (Alderman 29 September 1988)
 * J. M. Telfer (Alderman 28 September 1989)
 * F. Bowers (Alderman 5 November 1992)
 * W. Vickers Q.P.M. (Alderman 5 November 1992)
 * E. Henshall MBE. BA. Dip. Ed.(Alderman 22 September 1994)
 * R. Tomlinson (Alderman 29 October 1998)
 * R. C. Parry (Alderman 29 January 2004)
 * K. A. Hemsley (Alderman 29 January 2004)
 * K. A. Thompson (Alderman 29 January 2004)
 * M. J. Cooper (Alderman 2009)
 * T. Farrell (Alderman 2009)
 * R. A. Giltrap (Alderman 2009)
 * L. Morris (Alderman 2009)
 * F. Walton (Alderman 2009)
 * D. Brown (Alderman 2009)
 * R. M. Domleo (Alderman 2009)
 * P. J. Edwards (Alderman 2009)
 * R. I. Fletcher (Alderman 2009)
 * D. I. Hough (Alderman 2009)
 * G. Chambers (Freeman 2009)

Military Units

 * The Cheshire Yeomanry: 1906.
 * The Cheshire Regiment: 1969.
 * First Battalion of the Mercian Regiment:???
 * First Battalion of the Mercian Regiment (Freeman ???)

Council elections

 * 1973 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1976 Congleton Borough Council election (New ward boundaries)
 * 1979 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1980 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1982 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1983 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1984 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1986 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1987 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1988 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1990 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1991 Congleton Borough Council election (Borough boundary changes took place but the number of seats remained the same)
 * 1992 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1994 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1995 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1996 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1998 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 1999 Congleton Borough Council election (New ward boundaries)
 * 2000 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 2002 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 2003 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 2004 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 2006 Congleton Borough Council election
 * 2007 Congleton Borough Council election

title: Congleton (borough)


text:
Anglesey Abbey

Anglesey Abbey is a National Trust property in the village of Lode, 5+1/2 mi northeast of Cambridge, England. The property includes a country house, built on the remains of a priory, 98 acres (400,000 m2) of gardens and landscaped grounds, and a working mill. The priory was closed in 1536 during the dissolution of the monasteries and a Jacobean-style house was built on the site of the ruins in about 1600. Owners down the centuries included Thomas Hobson and his Parker descendants, and three local clergymen. The last private owner was Lord Fairhaven who lived in the house from 1926 until he died in 1966. He made extensive additions to the house to accommodate his collection of furniture, art, books and objets d'art and landscaped the grounds. On his death, he left the house and its contents to the National Trust.

History
Anglesey Abbey was built on the remains of a priory of Augustinian Canons regular, which was founded as a hospital of St Mary during the reign of Henry I (i.e., between 1100 and 1135) and endowed as a priory by Richard de Clare in 1212. The priory was closed in 1536 during the dissolution of the monasteries. Three years later it was granted to a lawyer, John Hynde. The priory was largely demolished and materials used in the construction of Madingley Hall.

The Fowkes family acquired the property in 1595 and converted what remained of the demolished priory into a Jacobean-style house. The walls of the chapter house were incorporated into the main part of the domestic dwelling, with the calefactory or monks' day room to the north left as an outbuilding. Subsequent owners included the Cambridge carrier Thomas Hobson (of "Hobson's Choice"), his son-in-law barrister Thomas Parker and descendants, Cambridgeshire MP Samuel Shepheard and his daughter Lady Irvine, and George Leonard Jenyns. Owners did not always occupy the house themselves; it was leased out as a farmhouse at times. By the time Thomas Parker died in 1643 the property was known as Anglesey Abbey, rather than Priory.

In 1848 Reverend John Hailstone, vicar of the neighbouring parish of Bottisham, son of botanist Samuel Hailstone and nephew of a geologist John Hailstone, purchased Anglesey Abbey and carried out restorations, converting the monks' day room into an entrance hall, adding a service wing and building a stable block from remaining medieval masonry. Several sketches he made of the house survive. He was also responsible for planting trees, including cedars, wellingtonia, weeping elm and silver lime, along the drive to the house. Reverend Hailstone lived in the house after his resignation as vicar of Bottisham in 1861 until he died in 1877. His widow sold it in 1888 to the Reverend James George Clark, who lived there with his family until 1912, when he was given a living in Hertfordshire and tenants were found for Anglesey Abbey.

Anglesey Abbey was sold in 1926 to two brothers, Urban Huttleston Broughton (later 1st Baron Fairhaven) and Henry Rogers Broughton, who purchased it for its proximity to the horse-racing town of Newmarket and their stud at Great Barton near Bury St Edmunds. The brothers had inherited a fortune from their maternal grandfather, an American oil baron Henry Huttleston Rogers, and could live a life of leisure devoting themselves to owning and breeding racehorses, collecting art and creating gardens. The brothers made several alterations to the house soon after they bought it, converting the monks' day room from an entrance hall into a dining room, moving the front porch, adding a stone newell staircase and putting in fireplaces and panelling. The work was done by architect Sidney Parvin from the London firm of interior designers Turner Lord, and featured in a 1930 edition of  Country Life.

Henry moved out when he married in 1932, leaving his older brother, by then Lord Fairhaven (having been given the barony that was about to be bestowed on his father, Urban H. Broughton, when he died) as the last private owner of Anglesey Abbey. Lord Fairhaven made extensive additions to the house to provide room for his rapidly expanding collection of books, paintings, tapestries, clocks, furniture and objets d'art. The library wing, designed by Sidney Parvin, was added in 1937 and was followed by the Tapestry Hall, a staircase hall off the dining room, in 1939. In 1934 Lord Fairhaven bought and restored Lode Mill on the boundary of his property. The mill had been built in the 18th century but had been converted to grind cement rather than corn in 1900.

Lord Fairhaven converted the grounds of Anglesey Abbey, which had been largely meadow and grazing land when the brothers bought the property, into an 18th-century style park with avenues of trees, flower gardens, statuary and ornaments. The final addition to the house, a two-storey picture gallery designed by Sir Albert Richardson, was completed in 1956.

When Lord Fairhaven died in 1966, Anglesey Abbey was left to the National Trust together with an endowment of £300,000. Lord Fairhaven had stated in his will that the house should be preserved as "a complete and furnished entity so that it retains as far as possible the character of an English Home".

Interior
In addition to its Grade I listing, the house is also notable for its contents. Lord Fairhaven's collection includes furniture, paintings and sculptures, clocks, tapestries, books, and objets d'art and, according to the author of a guide to Anglesey Abbey, expresses "an eclectic taste and refreshing disregard for fashion".

Rooms open to the public include the living room that initially formed the chapter house of the monastery and dates from the 13th century; the "oak room" with its oak panelling and plaster ceiling copied from that of the Reindeer Inn at Banbury; the dining room formed from the monks' day room; the tapestry hall; the service wing; the library, where various royal visitors have engraved their names on a window; several first floor bedrooms; and the two-storey picture gallery.

Furniture includes an Italian Renaissance refectory table in the dining room, chairs embroidered by Lord Fairhaven's mother in the living room, a white japanned Chippendale dressing table that once belonged to actor David Garrick in one of the bedrooms, and bookshelves made from the piles of John Rennie's Waterloo Bridge in the library. The tapestry collection includes, as well as seventeenth-century works, one commissioned by Lord Fairhaven from the Cambridge Tapestry Company depicting Anglesey Abbey and the Fairhaven coat-of-arms. There are a large number of clocks in the house with pride of place going to a four-tier pagoda-shaped clock in the living room.

The art collection at Anglesey Abbey reflects Lord Fairhaven's taste for British painting of the nineteenth century and earlier, with a particular fondness for views of Windsor Castle, landscapes, animal and bird paintings, and nudes by William Etty. The twentieth century is represented by paintings by Alfred Munnings, including a picture of a drum horse of the 1st Life Guards (Lord Fairhaven's old regiment), and a portrait by Oswald Birley of Lord Fairhaven in the ceremonial uniform of his regiment. There are paintings by John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough (a rare seascape), Richard Parkes Bonington, Edwin Landseer and the Pether family as well as a series of Tudor portrait panels. Lord Fairhaven collected over 750 paintings, prints and drawings of Windsor Castle. His interest in the castle dates from his youth when his parents had a country house near Windsor, and from when he was later stationed at the castle with his regiment. The Windsor collection was catalogued by art historian Cyril Bunt in 1949. Although most of the paintings in Anglesey Abbey are by British artists, foreign artists are represented in the Windsor collection and there are also flower pieces by Ambrosius Bosschaert and Jean-Baptiste de Fontenay, as well as three paintings by Claude Lorrain. Sculpture in the collection includes 18th-century marble horses, a 15th-century continental wooden figure of St Jerome, a bronze bull by Antoine-Louis Barye, and a collection of bronzes by R. Tait McKenzie, Frederic Leighton, Alfred Gilbert and others, and a silver Shield of Achilles by John Flaxman.

The library at Anglesey Abbey contains over 6000 books, mostly ordinary reading books in fine bindings with about a thousand collector's books.

Grounds

The 98 acres (400,000 m2) of Grade II* listed landscaped grounds at Anglesey Abbey are divided into several avenues, walks, vistas, and gardens, with classical statuary and flowerbeds. It was Lord Fairhaven who laid out the grounds in the style of an eighteenth-century park. He was responsible for replanting the rose garden and creating the dahlia garden, the herbaceous garden, the hyacinth garden and the Narcissus garden (so called because it has a statue of Narcissus in it) for seasonal bedding. To commemorate the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937, Lord Fairhaven planted an extensive avenue of trees with a crossing avenue at the far end. The trees used were London plane alternating with horse chestnut in four rows, copying those planted in Windsor Great Park. Storm damage in 1968 removed most of the plane trees leaving only the horse chestnut trees. The Temple Lawn was created in 1953 to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. In front of the house to the south there is a formal lawn and beyond it is a meadow where earthworks mark the position of fishponds from the original priory.

In 1964 American landscape gardener Lanning Roper wrote a book, The Gardens of Anglesey Abbey, in which he described the careful planning of the garden with its many vistas, avenues, rare and common trees, pools, statues and river temples. He describes how huge areas of sky and mown grass were used to balance symmetrical planting and how Lord Fairhaven used the trees and shrubs to make groups of contrasting colour and foliage. Three generations of the local Ayres family have worked in the gardens since 1921, with Noel and Richard becoming head gardeners. A Winter Garden was opened in 1998 in Lord Fairhaven's memory. In 2013 Richard Todd, head gardener at Anglesey Abbey since 1974, received the British Empire Medal for his years of service to the trust and national heritage. In 1999 he had been responsible for establishing a composting system to improve drainage and help retain water in a drought. Ten years later 95% of garden waste was composted.

To the north-west of the house, a block of farm buildings was converted into a large bungalow, complete with a swimming pool, to serve as the Summer House for the Fairhaven family in the days when they used to occupy Anglesey Abbey house in the winter before they moved to Kirtling Tower in 2004.

The grounds are bounded on the northwest by Bottisham Lode, with Lode Mill, bought and restored by Lord Fairhaven in 1934, at its head. To the south of the mill is the quarry pool, a large pool believed to be the site of a 19th-century coprolite mine.

National Trust property
Anglesey Abbey, officially known as Anglesey Abbey, Gardens and Lode Mill, was until 2020 open to the public all year round. There is an admission charge, with National Trust members having a free entry. In 2018/19 there were 382,235 visitors to Anglesey Abbey, making it the eleventh most visited National Trust property open at a charge. In 1978 the mill was restored to working order by the Cambridgeshire Wind and Watermill Society and flour can be bought in the mill or the shop. A new visitor centre with a restaurant and shop was opened in 2008. Seasonal attractions include the winter lights festival, snowdrop and daffodil tours in spring, and summer outdoor cinema.

In March 2020 the property was closed to visitors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the gardens and park re-opening in June 2020.

Anglesey Abbey was featured in the National Trust's 2020 Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery since Samuel Shepheard, who bought the property in 1739 but did not live there or make any additions to it, had been one of the 24 directors of the East India Company from 1717 to 1721.

title: Anglesey Abbey


text:
Broadmoor Hospital

Broadmoor Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England. It is the oldest of England's three high-security psychiatric hospitals, the other two being Ashworth Hospital near Liverpool and Rampton Secure Hospital in Nottinghamshire. The hospital's catchment area consists of four National Health Service regions: London, Eastern, South East and South West. It is managed by the West London NHS Trust.

History
The hospital was first known as the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Completed in 1863, it was built to a design by Sir Joshua Jebb, an officer of the Corps of Royal Engineers, and covered 53 acre within its secure perimeter.

The first patient was a female admitted for infanticide on 27 May 1863. Notes described her as being 'feeble minded'. It has been suggested by an analysis of her records that she most likely had congenital syphilis. The first male patients arrived on 27 February 1864. The original building plan of five blocks (four for men and one for women) was completed in 1868. An additional male block was built in 1902.

Due to overcrowding at Broadmoor, an extending asylum branch was constructed at Rampton Secure Hospital and opened in 1912. Rampton was closed as a branch asylum at the end of 1919 and reopened as an institution for "mental defectives" rather than lunatics. During the First World War Broadmoor's block 1 was also used as a Prisoner-of-war camp, called Crowthorne War Hospital, for mentally ill German soldiers.

After the escape in 1952 of John Straffen, who murdered a local child, the hospital set up an alarm system, which was activated to alert people in the vicinity, as well as the public including those in the surrounding towns of Sandhurst, Wokingham, Bracknell, Camberley and Bagshot, when any potentially dangerous patient escapes. It was based on Second World War air raid sirens, and a two-tone alarm sounded across the whole area in the event of an escape. Until 2018, it was tested every Monday morning at 10 am for two minutes, after which a single tone 'all-clear' was sounded for a further two minutes. All schools in the area were required to keep procedures designed to ensure that in the event of a Broadmoor escape no child was ever out of the direct supervision of a member of staff. Sirens were located at Sandhurst School, Wellington College, Bracknell Forest Council depot and other sites until they were decommissioned upon the opening of the hospital's new site.

Following the Peter Fallon QC inquiry into Ashworth Special Hospital which reported in 1999, and found serious concerns about security and abuses resulting from poor management, it was decided to review the security at all three of the special hospitals in England. Until this time each was responsible for maintaining its own security policies. This review was made the personal responsibility of Sir Alan Langlands, who at the time was chief executive of the NHS England. The report that came out of the review initiated a new partnership whereby the Department of Health sets out a policy of safety, and security directions, that all three special hospitals must adhere to.

In 2003, the Commission for Healthcare Improvement declared the Victorian buildings at Broadmoor Hospital 'unfit for purpose'.

In 2015 the Care Quality Commission gave the hospital an Inadequate rating. In 2018 the hospital was rated as Good overall by the Care Quality Commission.

Therapies
Broadmoor uses both psychiatric medication and psychotherapy, as well as occupational therapy. One of the therapies available is the arts, and patients are encouraged to participate in the Koestler Awards Scheme. One of the longest-detained patients at Broadmoor is Albert Haines, who set a legal precedent in 2011 when his mental health tribunal hearing was allowed to be fully public; he argued there that he had never been given the type of counselling he had always sought, and the panel urged the clinicians to work more collaboratively and clearly towards his psychiatric rehabilitation.

Nature of the facility
Because of its high walls and other visible security features as well as the news reporting it has received in the past, the hospital is often assumed to be a prison by members of the public. Many of its patients are sent to it via the criminal justice system, and its original design brief incorporated an essence of addressing criminality in addition to mental illness. However, the layout inside and the daily routine are intended to assist the therapy practised there rather than to be run as a prison. Nearly all staff are members of the Prison Officers' Association, as opposed to other health service unions such as UNISON and the Royal College of Nursing.

Historical governance
The first medical superintendent was John Meyer. His assistant, William Orange, succeeded him. Orange established "a management style that was greatly admired". He also advised the Home Office on how to approach criminal insanity. Orange was in charge from 1870 to 1886.

From its opening, until 1948, Broadmoor was managed by a council of supervision, appointed by and reporting to the Home Secretary. Thereafter, the Criminal Justice Act 1948 transferred ownership of the hospital to the Department of Health (and the newly formed NHS) and oversight to the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency established under the Mental Deficiency Act 1913. It also renamed the hospital Broadmoor Institution. The hospital remained under direct control of the Department of Health – a situation that reportedly "combined notional central control with actual neglect" – until the establishment of the Special Hospitals Service Authority in 1989, with Charles Kaye as its first chief executive.

Alan Franey ran the hospital from 1989 to 1997, having been recommended for the post by his friend Jimmy Savile. His leadership was undermined by persistent rumours of sexual impropriety on the hospital grounds. Allegedly, he ignored at least three sexual assaults that he had been informed about.

The Special Hospitals Service Authority was abolished in 1996, being replaced by individual special health authorities in each of the high-security hospitals. The Broadmoor Hospital Authority was itself dissolved on 31 March 2001.

Current governance
On 1 April 2001, West London Mental Health (NHS) Trust took over the responsibility for the hospital. The trust reports to the NHS Executive through NHS England London. The former director, who then became the CEO of the trust, quit in 2009 after Healthcare Commission/Care Quality Commission findings of serious failures to ensure patient safety at Broadmoor. In 2014 the director of specialist and forensic services resigned (and was employed elsewhere in the NHS) just prior to the conclusions of an investigation into a bullying culture. The next permanent CEO retired in 2015 in the wake of poor Care Quality Commission findings and other problems in the Trust.

A new head of security was appointed in March 2013, John Hourihan, who had thirty years' experience at Scotland Yard and had worked as a bodyguard for members of the royal family.

Meanwhile, the trust allowed ITV to film a two-part documentary within Broadmoor in 2014. Press releases stated that on average there are four 'assaults' per week on staff. Psychiatrist Amlan Basu, clinical director of Broadmoor since March 2014, promoted the documentary but then decided to leave the NHS in 2015 amidst funding and staffing problems, despite the trust having just highlighted investment in his skills through its 'prestigious initiative to improve the quality of patient care in the NHS.'

Buildings
Much of Broadmoor's architecture is still Victorian, including the gatehouse, which has a clock tower.

Following long-standing reports that the old buildings were unfit for purpose (for therapy or safety), planning permission was granted in 2012 for a £242 million redevelopment, involving a new unit comprising 10 wards to adjoin the existing 6 wards of the modern Paddock Unit, resulting in total bed numbers of 234. Building company Kier reported in 2013 a sum of £115 million for the new unit of 162 beds, ready to accept patients by the start of 2017, and £43 million for a separate new medium secure unit for men nearby.

A new unit called the Paddock Centre had already opened on 12 December 2005, to contain and treat patients classed as having a 'dangerous severe personality disorder' (DSPD). This was a new and much debated category invented on behalf of the UK government, based on an individual being considered a 'Grave and Immediate Danger' to the general public, and meeting some combination of criteria for personality disorders and/or high scores on the Hare Psychopathy Check list – Revised.

The Paddock Centre was designed to eventually house 72 patients, but never opened more than four of its six 12-bedded wards. The Department of Health and Ministry of Justice National Personality Disorder Strategy published in October 2011 concluded that the resources invested in the DSPD programme should instead be used in prison based treatment programmes and the DSPD service at Broadmoor was required to close by 31 March 2012.

The trust took possession of the first phase of the new buildings, with 16 wards and 234 beds, in May 2019.

Abuse
From at least 1968 the television presenter and disc jockey Jimmy Savile undertook voluntary work at the hospital and was allocated his own room, supported by Broadmoor CEO Pat McGrath, who thought it would be good publicity.

In 1987 a minister in the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS), Baroness Trumpington, appointed Savile to the management board in charge of Broadmoor. He was being referred to as 'Dr Savile' by both the DHSS and Broadmoor despite having no medical qualifications or training, having left school at the age of 14. In August 1988, following a recommendation by Cliff Graham, the senior civil servant in charge of mental health at the DHSS, Savile was appointed by the department's health minister Edwina Currie to chair an interim task force overseeing the management of the hospital following the suspension of its board. Currie privately supported Savile's attempts to 'blackmail' the Prison Officers' Association and publicly declared her 'full confidence' in him.

After an ITV1 documentary Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile in October 2012, allegations of sexual abuse by Savile were made or re-made by former patients and staff. The civil servant who first proposed Savile's appointment to the task force at Broadmoor, Brian McGinnis, who ran the mental health division of the DHSS in 1987 before Cliff Graham, has since been investigated by police and prevented from working with children.

A Department of Health investigation led by former barrister Kate Lampard into Savile's activities at Broadmoor and other hospitals and facilities in England, with Bill Kirkup leading the Broadmoor aspects, reported in 2014 that Savile had use of a personal set of keys to Broadmoor from 1968 to 2004 (not formally revoked until 2009), with full unsupervised access to some wards. Eleven allegations of sexual abuse were known; this is thought to be a substantial under-estimate, due to how psychiatric patients in particular were disbelieved or put off from coming forward. In five cases the identity of the alleged victim could not be traced, but of the other six it was concluded they had all been abused by Savile, repeatedly in the case of two patients.

The investigation also concluded that 'the institutional culture in Broadmoor was previously inappropriately tolerant of staff–patient sexual relationships,' and that when there were female patients they were required to undress and bathe in front of staff and sometimes visitors. A 'shocking' failure to ensure a safe or therapeutic environment for female patients had already been revealed in a 2002 inquiry prior to Broadmoor becoming male-only.

In 2010 a female charge nurse received a suspended prison sentence for engaging in sexual activity with a patient at the hospital.

Violating patient confidentiality
Journalists invading the privacy of patients or reporting false information about them have been the subject of dozens of complaints from Broadmoor. Healthcare assistant Robert Neave took payments from The Sun for several years to provide them with information, including copies of psychiatric reports; this was subsequently investigated by Operation Elveden. Mental health nurse Kenneth Hall was imprisoned in June 2015 for having repeatedly sold stories to the tabloids based on stolen medical notes and fabricated documents.

title: Broadmoor Hospital