One of the great things about being a tour manager is you get to do a lot more Christmas trips than the average person, Christmas tours to snowy destinations, European Christmas markets, English stately homes with their themed Christmas decorations and Christmas lights.
Longleat combined Christmas lights and decorated English stately homes, and as an added bonus, you get to go around a safari park too.
Longleat first started drawing the crowds when they bought lions as a way of attracting visitors and since then they have expanded. These days there are a lot more animals and a multitude of other attractions to set this place apart from other English stately homes.
And throughout December and the beginning of January, Longleat have a Festival of Lights for Christmas.
We came to Longleat on a weekend when there was heavy snowfall through the Midlands. Fortunately we did manage to get to Longleat, unfortunately because of the cold weather, the animals weren’t exactly the most active I’ve ever seen them. If they were to be seen at all.
When we drove around the safari park, the deer, zebra and Bactrian camels seemed happy enough in the cold weather. The recently rescued elephant was in her house and the rhinos were also indoors. We drove through the monkey enclosure and the monkeys are normally jumping all over the vehicles being both playful and destructive. But in the cold weather, the monkeys also preferred the shelter of their tree hideaways, just a couple of hardy souls were sitting outside, but they were conserving their energy and barely moved a muscle, they certainly weren’t doing any running and jumping. Even the Canadian timber wolves who you would think would be used to cold winters, were mostly sheltering inside and only one or two were visible, laying under the trees.
The big cats did make up for the inactivity of the other animals though, the lions were all out in the open, grouped in their prides in the two enclosures, one of the cheetahs was sitting proudly on a tree stump as if posing for photos, but the tigers were the stars of the show, stalking around the enclosure as if they were hunting for prey, one of them walked right in front of our bus. Very clever. If it was going to get a meal, it seemed to make sense to target the vehicle with the greatest number of people in it!
After the safari we had several hours to look around the rest of the Longleat estate. The train that runs along the lake shore had turned into a Santa train for Christmas so I didn’t ride the train on this occasion, however, the boat was sailing as normal. The hippo was a long way in the distance, but at least you could catch a glimpse, unlike the gorillas who were nowhere to be seen. Nico, the old gorilla who lives on his own island in the middle of the lake, in a house with central heating and a telly, was not receiving visitors today. In warmer weather he’ll sit outside, but when we went past his island he was in his house, probably lounging in his armchair in his dressing gown, drinking Cabernet Sauvignon and watching a Christmas film on telly with the radiator on full blast. Which is exactly what any sensible person would have been doing on a day like this.
The other gorillas were also in their house, they’d already been fed so there was no incentive for them to venture out into the cold again. But the sealions could always be relied upon to provide the entertainment on what would have otherwise been a very dull boat ride on the lake. They were swimming alongside the boat for the entire trip. All of the sealions are females apart from Buster, an enormous male who is probably the noisiest of the sealions too. The children on the boat could purchase fish to feed to the sealions who greedily waited for the food to be thrown overboard.
I hadn’t been in Longleat House for a few years, but I went inside on this occasion to see it all decorated for Christmas. They had done a beautiful job of decorating the house, a large Christmas tree in each room, the dining room table set in readiness for a festive meal and all staff dressed in period costume, happy to tell visitors about Victorian Christmas customs. Sadly no photographs were permitted inside the house, so I can’t show you what the decorations were like.
The main reason for coming to Longleat was to see the Christmas lights. Every year Longleat have a Festival of Lights where they decorate the grounds around Longleat House in a particular theme. The theme this year was fairytales. The decorations were made of silk and had lights inside them. The lights were due to be switched on at 4 o’clock. The Fairytale Festival of Lights was one of the best outdoor Christmas light displays I have ever seen. It was worth coming to Longleat to see these alone. My particular favourite was the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel, but there were so many other fairytales represented from classics like Cinderella and the Sleeping Beauty to more unusual ones like the Firebird, a Russian fairytale and the local Gurt Wurm, a legendary dragon originating in South West England. There was also an illuminated boat on the lake as part of the Little Mermaid fairytale and an archway leading into the Snow Kingdom from the Snow Queen, which was appropriate for this time of year and the animals from the Snow Queen were all quite happy to be out in the cold, snowy, winter weather. A path weaved its way amongst the fairytales and brought you into the courtyard where there was a giant Christmas tree.
There were a couple of other Christmas specialities at Longleat, the first was the story of the Enchanted Christmas Tree. In the courtyard, a story was narrated, centred around the giant Christmas tree where the lights on the tree changed colour and visually told the story and images were also projected onto the opposite building to accompany the tale of a child’s journey to find an enchanted Christmas tree.
The other special Christmas show was the Flight Before Christmas where a lady sat on stage telling a story of Christmas in the forest and owls flew silently in a triangular pattern around the dimly lit room, flying so low that they brushed some of the audience as they soared past. I love birds, probably more than any other animals and owls are a particular favourite, so I adored this show.
It was a marvellous day at Longleat, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it’s made me want to go back there again to see another Festival of Lights. Who knows what the theme will be for the next Christmas season, but I’m willing to bet it will be just as spectacular as this one.
I visited Longleat to see the Festival of Light in December 2017
There’s still time to catch the Longleat Festival of Light
It’s on for another week until 7 January 2018.
For more adventure ideas in England, check out these posts.
Yorkshire: Gaping Gill Winch Meet
Norfolk: Hiking the Pingo Trail
