Holkham Hall – a magical Christmas

yes, really, a full size unicorn spotted briefly on Sunday morning

The Winter wonderland inside the Hall

Once an event is underway there is usually little more to add to the news we’ve already posted. However, when we arrived last weekend to add the human characters to the decorations that had been put up around the Hall, Bygones Museum and Courtyard we were blown away by the magical transformation. Holkham Hall already has a well earned reputation as one of the great treasure houses of England, but during evenings this week and all next weekend it also offers the most amazing start to anyone’s Christmas. I doubt there is anywhere else in England where the weather, while waiting to see Father Christmas, is just what will make him feel at home, where fairies, unicorns and mermaids (there were extremely high tides around the Norfolk coast last week) may be spotted by those with an eye for magic.
The wait to see Father Christmas has been enlivened with a storyteller and a walk through Wonderland that had grownups desperate for children so they could go through the grotto too. We kept hearing comments about how the Holkham Christmas experience has gone from strength to strength, and how it was the best start to Christmas anywhere in the country.
For the Black Knight team this is our last event of the year. At Holkham Hall the servants are once again busy in the Victorian kitchen preparing Lord Augustus Holkham’s legendary Christmas tea. As we did last year, all the recipes are from around 1860-1870 or thereabouts, with a few coming from family receipts passed down through generations. As our Christmas present to readers, we are putting a selection of those recipes up on the newsite for a limited time. There will soon be lots to tell about a wide variety of new events coming next year (as well as some older favourites – for example Pensthorpe Medieval Spectacular, in August, will celebrate its 10th anniversary) so these recipes will only be around till Christmas. We hope you enjoy them, but do remember, tastes change.