Northumberland estate wins official Guinness World Record Title in time for Christmas
Cragside, in Northumberland, is now the official Guinness World Record holder - of the worlds tallest bedded Christmas tree
Cragside, in Northumberland, is now the official Guinness World Record holder - of the worlds tallest bedded Christmas tree.
That means the tree is still alive and planted in the ground - at 44.7m tall it's twice the height of the Angel of the North, or 10 double decker buses.
The tree - a giant Redwood Wellingtonia is decked out in over 1300 multicoloured Christmas lights - and thought to be around 150 years old.
It is one of millions of trees planted in the 1860s by the estate’s founders, the Armstrong family, some of which are now the tallest of their kind in the country.
Steve Howard, Visitor Operations Manager, said: “It’s been quite the year of planning. Last year we presented the UK’s Tallest Living Christmas Tree, and we kept wondering if we could go one giant leap further and secure a Guinness World Records title… and we made it!”
Visitors will notice that in addition to the lights, the tree is also dressed in two large purple bows to meet the essential criteria to have two traditional decorations on the Christmas tree.
The tree was officially measured with witnesses present and signed off by a Guinness World Records adjudicator when the tree was dressed last month.
Guinness World Records adjudicator Carl Saville said:
“The breathtaking giant redwood, perched on the edge of the hillside, is a vision of growth and pure beauty in Cragside’s historic landscape.
"It was a privilege to give this tree the recognition it deserves”.
Steve continued: “It’s been tough keeping this big secret quiet over the last few weeks, but we wanted to share our huge news while many people are putting up their own Christmas trees.”
If you’re dressing a Christmas tree at home, spare a thought for the team unravelling almost 800-metres of lights to hang on the towering tree.
Festooning a tree that’s more than 10 double-decker buses tall takes some industrial thinking: the team used a cherry-picker which can reach 51-metres, and it took three people, two days to hang the lights.
Every bulb is checked and then draped and fastened vertically so as not to put too much pressure on the tree, which has been part of the Armstrongs’ ‘fantasy mountain landscape’ for over 150 years.
This is not the first time the grounds have been decorated in celebratory lights. In 1884, to commemorate a royal visit, the Armstrongs decorated the estate’s hillsides in thousands of lamps.
The then Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported: ‘Ten thousand small glass lamps were hung amongst the rocky hillsides, and an almost equal number of Chinese lanterns were swung across leafy glades.’