I visited Belton House's Christmas light trail at the beginning of December. Belton House is owned by the National Trust, and the construction of the house dates to the mid-1600s. This was my first ever visit to the property, and I will have to return when the house and grounds are open to epxlore it sometime. I visited it to see the Christmas lights trail, and I was amazed at just how much there was to see. Overall, the website states that it will take ninty minutes to walk the trail, though I think I walked it in about two or two and a half hours with some stops for photographs and to enjoy some of the more interactive installations more.
In addition to the light trail, visitors could enjoy some food and drink set up in the stable grounds of the house before (or after) the light show, and there was another space about halfway around the trail where visitors could purchase a hot drink or buy gourmet marshmallows to toast over one of the fire pits.
The first part of the trail led us past through the front of the house where the name "Belton" was lit up. The front of the house was drenched in blue light with snowflake motifs.
Then, we walked through the light tunnel, which is always popular for photographs. Every light trail now seems to have one of these.
After this, there was a section of colourful trees and a colourful walkway with blues, reds, greens, and purples.
Next up were the singing lit-up trees that played two different songs. One of them was a vocal chorus that I am unsure who sings, which was a little eerie, and the other song was "Wonderful Christmas Time" by Paul McCartney.
The trail then led us through some mirrored hearts, which I remember seeing last year when I visited the Christmas Light Trail at National Trust's Stourhead.
There were a few different places to get photographs through the trail, but I did not bother as there was a queue, and I don't really like my photograph taken at the moment anyway. Some of them were the selfie "Christmas at" windows, and the one pictured below was a bench decorated with pine and bauble garlands.
After this, the trail winded around through heart tunnels, which I thought were really fun. Unfortunately, a couple of the heart arches were not lit up on my visit.
Next up was a little section of woods, and we went over a small bridge which was lit up blue underneath to appear like water. The trees were lit up in greens and blues to a nice effect.
Through this section was an area of lit-up white orbs hanging from the branches of trees with some positioned on the ground.
Continuing on, the magic increased with bright lights spiralling and moving across overhead in blues, whites, and reds. This was set to soundscape and looked magical.
Ahead of us, it ended into a small field of orbs that reminded me of fireworks exploding. This was set to the Disney song "When You Wish Upon A Star" (I think that was the correct Disney song).
The trail then ended on the side of an expansive lake, and we could see the trees along the other side of the banks lit up to music, which I believe was "Once Upon A December" from the Disney film "Anastasia". I watched the light show a couple of times and had to replace my camera battery here. This looked much better in person as it was more than the frame of my camera could capture.
After the lake light show, we came to the middle of the trail. Santa was there to greet the children, and there were a couple of kiosks selling the hot drinks and marshmallows. We bought a drink but did not linger.
The next part of the trail led us through singing lights. At each pitch of the vocal assigned to one tree, the lights would scale up (or down) the tree to match the vocal range.
After this was a lovely little cove with red poppies suspended in air. This was one of my favourite parts of the trail.
Finally, we headed through a lit-up hedge to complete the rest of the trail, which would lead us back through some familiar areas.
This tree was covered with pink, purple, and green lights and mirrored balls.
And we were back at the coloured forest of trees with the music that we saw toward the beginning of the trail. This time, instead of watching the trees at a distance, we got to walk through them.
And finally, we came to another pond with a temple on the far side. This was sequenced to colour-changing pond lillies to a soundscape. I stayed to watch the display at different angles.
We were almost at the end of the trail now and stayed to watch a soundscape of hundreds of coloured orbs in a field which would change colour and pattern depending on the music.
After this, we came to a lit-up glasshouse, and in front of this was a field of flames.
We walked through the field of flames to leave the trail, and that was the end of the trail.
Back in the stable yard, we were able to get some food and drink, and we admired the Christmas trees and decorations on the way out.
That concludes Christmas at Belton House. The trail itself is currently on and booking until January 2. I really enjoyed the Christmas trail at Belton House.
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