WHAT THE DICKENS IS GOING ON?
Stately home transformed ... with Victorian charm
IT IS Christmas at its grandest, with stately homes across the region opening their doors to visitors.
But with increasing competition for the all-important visitor spend, festive decorations and displays are becoming all the more elaborate to lure ticket buyers through the gates.
At Chatsworth House, rooms have been given a Victorian Gothic twist for the festive season, in a celebration of all things Dickensian. The ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, have set up home for the next few weeks, as well as actors portraying characters from Dickens’ most loved novels, as the stately home prepares for one of its busiest – and most crucial – times of year.
About a quarter of the year’s total visitors will pass through Chatsworth’s doors during the next six weeks. Family tickets cost from £54.90 to £70.90.
“Christmas is very, very important to us,” Sally Ambrose, head of visitor experience, said. “As a charity, welcoming Christmas visitors helps to support our conservation and building works, and all sorts of other things that go on at the estate. We began opening at Christmas in 2001 and it’s got so popular that we now have timed tickets to give everyone a much better experience.”
This year, Castle Howard in North Yorkshire has upped the festive stakes by drafting in creative producer and codirector of Oxford Shakespeare Company and Lamplighter Drama, Charlotte Lloyd Webber, and award-winning Canadian theatre designer, Bretta Gerecke to help transform the house.
Nicholas Howard said: “It’s about making the house more inviting and accessible and yes, if that means we get more people through the doors then it is more money in the coffers to carrying out vital maintenance and restoration work, a project which never, ever ends.”
Harewood House in Leeds is opening for the first time in five years this Christmas, with rooms dressed for a Victorian Christmas by ITV’s Victoria designer Michael Howells.