The UK's Tallest Living Christmas Tree at Cragside (and What The House Will Look Like This Year)
Cragside is known for its elaborate Christmas celebrations, from celebrating popular carols to bringing the poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' to life
‘Christmas meant a lot to the Armstrongs,’ says property curator Clara Woolford, as she explains why it’s so important for Christmas to be celebrated at Cragside each year. ‘They really celebrated Christmas in style, and they welcomed guests into their home at Christmastime. They would invite local children from Rothbury to come and have presents from under the tree; they had big, festive parties with friends and family; and when we’ve deep-cleaned in the library and drawing room we’ve even found pine needles under the floorboards, so we know they were bringing trees inside!
‘The Victorian era was when our modern Christmas was born – we’ve all seen those pictures of Queen Victoria and her family gathered around the Christmas tree, and all the traditions we have like Christmas crackers and Christmas cards all became fashionable during that period when the Armstrongs lived at Cragside. They very much followed all those fashions. It’s part of our story to invite visitors into Cragside to enjoy what is a really lovely, warm and welcoming home. In the middle of Northumberland when it’s very cold, it’s nice to have that inviting space to come into.’
Inspired by Cragside’s great outdoors, this year’s theme, Spirits of the Forest, will bring a sprinkling of magic to the house. It imagines that the Armstrongs’ servants have decked the halls and trimmed the trees ready for Christmas morning, but during the night the spirits cast an enchanted spell. The carefully cultivated landscape begins to reclaim the House. Trees appear to burst out of rooms, woodland animals are roaming the halls, foliage is growing down furniture and fireplaces are transformed into craggy caves.
‘We’re really celebrating the amazing landscape that the Armstrongs created at Cragside,’ says Clara. ‘It was pretty much just bare moorside; heather, boulders and bracken. What they did over the course of nearly 30 years was transform it into a fantasy American-style landscape. It’s meant to look like the redwood forests of Canada and North America. That was their vision. That didn’t come into fruition in their lifetime, it’s really just what we’re seeing now, because obviously the trees had to grow.’The mystical adventures continue outside on the Twilight Lantern Walk. Following a trail of sparkling lights, visitors can experience the Debdon Valley as the sun sets. Carrying a lantern, you’ll follow the route between glowing trees and witness the shimmering cascades. As you explore the valley, Cragside House will appear in view, shining at the top of the crag.
The walk ends at the foot of the UK’s tallest living Christmas tree. ‘We’re really celebrating the forest and pinetum – the living collection we’ve got at the site,’ Clara adds. ‘We’re imagining the “spirits” of the trees, as it were, and the characters taking over the valley (with the lighting of the enormous 42-metre tall Wellingtonia [Giant Redwood] and the lantern trail).’
The tree (which is the same height as 10 double-decker buses and more than twice as tall as the Angel of the North) will shine bright with more than 2,000 lights. While the team are creating a magical Christmas with plenty of sparkle, they have the environment in mind as well. The tree is being lit using portable power stations with large rechargeable battery packs. Unlike diesel-powered generators, these will be less noisy and fume-free. The lights have even been secured using re-usable cable ties.
Meanwhile for the house, a team of gardeners, rangers and volunteers have been foraging for materials to make dramatic displays and rustic wreaths. They are using a mix of fallen branches, pinecones, berries and different textured leaves gathered during pruning. The gardeners have also been drying flowers over the last few months to add pops of colour amongst the greenery – all to bring the essence of Cragside’s outdoor spaces indoors.
‘We’re doing our biggest trail through the house ever,’ Clara explains. ‘For the first time the drawing room and the gallery upstairs will be open at Christmas and we’re imagining that the garden has “gone wild” throughout the house. There’ll be a sapling bursting through the middle of the dining table that’s been set for Christmas, animals scampering round the house for children to spot. We’ll be transforming the massive inglenook fireplace in the drawing room into a grotto, and the gallery will be turned into a midnight forest. It’s really quite spectacular this year.’
The team are recycling and upcycling decorations from previous years. From as early as the summer, the team collected and stored packaging materials and transformed them into all kinds of creations, including cut outs of trees, animal silhouettes and paper decorations. ‘We pick a theme and the whole team get involved with the prep – that’s everything from our team of fantastic volunteers creating paper maché boulders for inside the house to the rangers going out to gather all the foliage,’ Clara explains. ‘As much as possible, we use foliage from the property and we get really creative. We try to be as sustainable as possible too so it takes us a bit longer, but we do our best to make sure everything we do is respectful to the environment we’re in.
‘This year, we really wanted to focus on our outdoor environment, both to celebrate the vision the Armstrongs had but also to raise some awareness of the threats that face our trees because they aren’t native species, they’re specimens from North America and they’re seeing the effects of climate change. Northumberland used to be the perfect environment to grow them in, but we’re now seeing warmer and wetter winters.
