Details for the 2017 Christmas season at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, have been revealed to include a brand new garden trail of light and a series of illuminated installations.
The season of wintery evenings will run from 22nd November until 1st January 2018, opening each day to the public between 5pm and 10pm.
This will be the fifth annual run of the Christmas at Kew event and the garden has once again teamed up with entertainment promoter Raymond Gubbay Ltd to create a series of new theatrical and entertaining features.
One million lights
Groups will get to follow a new illuminated trail around Kew that is made up of over one million twinkling lights. Illuminated globes, glittering Christmas trees, and underwater displays of lights in the lake at Kew are amongst the sights to be expected.
Also along the trail, visitors will get the chance to warm up in the heat of the Fire Garden which will form a corridor of rotating Christmas trees. You’ll also encounter the ‘Play Me Light Me’ musical installation, with giant light-up piano keys.
Groups can enjoy a big ‘trail finale’ at Kew’s Palm House, which will come to life with colourful criss-crossing laser beams, jets of light, and, new for 2017, kaleidoscopic projections playing across a giant water screen.
More at Kew this winter
Further highlights at Christmas at Kew will include pantomime performances from Santa and his elves; a festival fairground with a Victorian carousel and a helter skelter ride; and a variety of festive food and drink offerings at a Victoria Plaza.
Tickets for Christmas at Kew go on sale on 27th June.
Group travel organisers can find out more information by visiting www.kew.org.
(Photo credit: Jeff Eden, RBG Kew).
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has announced that it will be taking its flower shows to different locations across the country from next year.
We caught up with Iain Parkinson, head of landscape and horticulture at Wakehurst, to find out what groups can expect from the gardens in West Sussex.
GLT editor Keeley Rodgers on the highlights of our fam trip to Kew Gardens and The Poppy Factory in Richmond.
Charlie Brooks and Liam Fox have kicked off the UK tour of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as The Childcatcher and Grandpa Potts respectively.
