Walk-through displays of Christmas lights have sparkled ever brighter in the UK’s grand gardens over the lpast decade or so. They often include tunnels of fairy lights and themed illuminations (animal-shaped lanterns at Chester Zoo or glowing flowers at the RHS gardens). Flaming torches, lasers, glowing snowflakes and stirring seasonal music are also quite likely to feature. These events are well-suited to Covid regulations: they take place outside in spacious grounds or parkland, so it’s relatively easy to socially distance, and they always did involve reserving tickets in advance. They are not cheap, are selling out fast, and booking timed tickets is generally essential (there tend to be more slots available on weekdays and later in the evening), but these festive spectacles offer an hour or so of pure escapism, and we could all do with a bit of that right now.
Stately avenues with palatial vistas? Check. Baroque architecture? Grassy slopes and natural-seeming lakes? Picturesque clumps of trees? Check, check, check. The park around Blenheim Palace is one of Capability Brown’s largest landscape designs and the formal gardens at its heart are tailor-made for the mesmerising light trail that winds through them each winter. The lights pick out the sculptural forms of a craggy old oak or elegant cedar, sweep across the lakeside woods and turn the winter-full cascade a spectrum of different colours. There are lasers, pulsing vines, a flaming-torch-lit rose garden and several new installations for 2020, including fire sculptures floating in the water garden and Blue Neuron, a kinetic light sculpture made from recycled plastic bottles, that sends blue light dancing through the branches. And, since the Christmas market is cancelled, this year’s trail ends, for the first time, with a grand light-show finale in the Great Court.
A rainbow of floodlit trees and sparkling walkways are staple fare for winter light trails, and Westonbirt’s kid-friendly show also has flashing lights, smoke effects and a forest of candy canes. To keep Santa safe, he’s going to be performing from a distance rather than interacting, and won’t hand over any prezzies. But there will be activity packs, elves, talking trees and a suitably seasonal story about a journey to the “West Pole” to help in Santa’s workshop.
Waddesdon Manor’s chateau-style turrets look like a fairytale castle at anytime of year, but they’re even more surreal bathed in iridescent colours that shift in sync with music. This year Waddesdon is revising the route of the walk-through musical Winter Light trail and staying open later to give people a chance to space out. Globes hang glowing over the driveway; the valley, which will be filled with yellow daffs by March, becomes a sea of flames for winter; and, in the stables, there’s an immersive sound-and-light installation called Parallels. Waddesdon is one of the few places that has not (so far) cancelled its Christmas fair and market, which is back with widely spaced chalet units, extra staff to manage visitor flow and contactless payment. It’s open from noon, although the lights only shine from dusk.
Wish Upon a Frozen Star, Castle Howard, North Yorkshire
Previous Christmases were designed in-house at Castle Howard, but this year it has joined forces with Projection Studios, which has previously lit up York Minster, Blackpool Tower and Buckingham Palace. Members of Leeds-based theatre company Tutti Frutti will be playing enchanted animals in an epic tale of frost and festivity that complements the journey through the gardens. Malton, Yorkshire’s self-proclaimed foodie capital, is the nearest town, so expect purveyors of artisanal refreshments in festive vans along the route. Safety preparations include sanitiser, distance-monitoring stewards and mapped-out spaces on the large south lawn so people can watch the light show safely.
Giant candles and kaleidoscopic snowflakes are the order of the season for the second year running in the National Trust’s huge gardens at Belton House. The estate is home to a herd of fallow deer, and a larger-than-life glittering deer sculpture greets visitors. Thousands of pea lights went into building the twinkling tunnel of light, and the scented fire garden provides a meditative change of pace after the frenetic lasers.
Ignite at Kingston Lacy in Dorset, and Gibside, Gateshead
The National Trust has introduced two new illuminated trails this year at Kingston Lacy and Gibside. The new Ignite trails, boasting “light, lanterns, fire and fantasy”, aim to showcase features of the individual parks and gardens. Around Kingston Lacy’s elegant estate, there will be fairies in the fernery or plants lit up alongside a “magical soundscape”, which includes everything from Jingle Bells to whale music. The Georgian landscape garden at Gibside, commissioned by coal baron George Bowes, was originally designed to impress spectators. With winding paths, large wooded grounds and views across the Derwent valley, it’s another perfect venue for the ¾-mile Christmas walk-through, featuring fiery fish and willow sculptures.
The pandemic has cost Chester Zoo £5.5m and this Christmassy event is vital in starting to recoup lost income. Beside the walkways that meander through the zoo, crossing bridges into 11 themed areas, there will be – for the ninth year running – lanterns and huge illuminated animals: towering giraffes and swaying jellyfish, glowing frogs, colour-changing chameleons and a show-stopping giant octopus. Visitors start near the elephant bridge and walk through a shining cactus desert, head over the rainbow to explore the air, the savannah and the bottom of the sea on a one-way route around the zoo. Refreshments are on sale as usual and, although they won’t be given out this year, visitors can bring or buy their own lanterns. To allow for distancing, the zoo has had to reduce the number of tickets available and several dates are already sold out.
Ushaw’s huge gardens, a few miles west of Durham, have been a lifesaver for some local residents during the past few months. Now there is a Christmas tree festival and light show planned for winter. It will involve illuminating a huge rose window made from recycled bottles that previously appeared outside Durham Cathedral. The windows of the main house are to be lit like an Advent calendar and the grounds decorated with festive trees, the current exhibition of outdoor stained-glass panels and a giant reindeer. The Bounds cafe will be open and at “foodie Fridays” each week until Christmas, street food vendors under the lights at the front of the house will add to the festive atmosphere.
Less a Christmas trail than an autumn celebration of the 300-year-old woods on the waterside Hopetoun estate, this new trail winds for more than a mile through the trees. Passing the atmospheric old summerhouse, wrought-iron gates and stately lime avenue, through some normally unseen areas of the grounds, it will end with floodlit views of magnificent Hopetoun House. If that sounds too sedate for the kids, there are lasers, naughty gnomes, mirror balls and a cool triangular walkway.
Founded in 1670, Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Garden is celebrating its 350th birthday this year, so sip spiced cider and stroll through tunnels of light while the Victorian palm houses blaze with festive brilliance. The yuletide botany-themed trail is back for a fourth time this year, on a longer-than-ever 32-night celebratory run. The mile of illuminations will include old favourites like the cathedral of light, laser garden and festive finale beamed on to Inverleith House. And there are new installations featuring 128-metre-long projections and thousands of LED stars.
Mancunians could surely do with some cheering up at the moment, so it’s lucky that Lightopia will be arriving to light up Heaton Park. With new installations, a new route, wider footpaths and 50 incandescent lanterns, the north-west’s largest park is hosting its second annual festival of light. A phalanx of dragons guards the food court and Christmas images are beamed on to Heaton Hall. Dance through the interactive music zone, gaze up at space-themed installations in the astronomy zone and pay tribute to key workers with a new local heroes series of sculptures.
