Wentworth Woodhouse: Hundreds visit A Tale As Old Time Christmas experience and Light Trail

The Grade I listed stately home has recently opened A Tale As Old As Time, an interactive experience where guests pass through the property after an enchanted spell has been cast on it.

Staff and volunteers have been hand-building props and scenery, producing haunting soundscapes and bringing foliage and twisting branches from the gardens to transform the mansion’s corridors and State Rooms into scenes akin to Sleeping Beauty's castle.

As they make their way around, children are tasked with finding a hidden trail of camellias which can break the spell cast on the house and restore life and laughter.

The mansion is renowned for the camellia collection - one of the oldest in the Western world - in its recently-restored garden Camellia House.

The event, running until December 29, is a nod to the history of the mansion - from its lavish Christmas parties thrown by the Marquesses of Rockingham and the Earls Fitzwilliam, its slide into decline in the 20th century to its new life, thanks to a careful and creative multi-million pound regeneration by the Preservation Trust who took ownership in 2017.

Wentworth Woodhouse is also staging an associated and impressive Light Trail each evening in its West Front Gardens between dusk and 9pm that is running until January 7.

The Light Trail includes fairy doors and woodland creatures to seek and find and a spectacular light tunnel finale which heads towards the house, which is also being lit up.

A festive steam train is also running in the ground at an additional cost of £2.50 per person.

Rory Burn, aged eight, who attended on Friday said: "It was really fun.

“It was exciting because there were loads of different lights to see and spot.

"I loved taking pictures of all the lights so we can remember it.”

His sister Lyra Burn, aged six, said: “It was brilliant.

" The lights were beautiful and the steam train was really fun.”

For more information or to book tickets, visit https://wentworthwoodhouse.org.uk/whats-on/a-tale-as-old-as-time/