Queen’s Platinum Jubilee will be marked by 2,800 beacons

MORE than 2,800 Platinum Jubilee beacons will be lit across the globe in honour of the Queen’s 70-year reign, organisers have revealed as the twoweek countdown to the national celebrations begins.

A network of flaming tributes will stretch throughout the UK, with beacons at historic sites including the Tower of London, Windsor Great Park, Hillsborough Castle, Lambeth Palace and the Queen’s estates of Sandringham and Balmoral.

The first beacons on June 2 – the start of the extended Jubilee weekend – are due to be set ablaze thousands of miles away in Tonga and Samoa in the South Pacific, and the final one in the central American country of Belize in the Caribbean.

The principal beacon at Buckingham Palace – a 21-metre tall Tree of Trees sculpture for the Queen’s Green Canopy initiative – will be illuminated by a senior royal, who has yet to be revealed, late this evening.

As well as traditional beacons organised by charities, community groups, councils and other organisations, creative adaptations of the gesture are also being staged to commemorate the monarch’s milestone.

Scouts are starting at least 70 beacons in tribute to their patron the Queen, ranging from in Cornwall to the Highlands and Islands, and Merthyr Tydfil in Wales and the Norfolk Broads in the east of England.

In Wilton, Wiltshire, a beacon will be lit in the same place and by the same Scout group as when one was lit on the night of the Queen’s Coronation.

Girlguiding will also set up to 70 beacons on fire for the head of state, their patron too.