A HISTORIC estate in the heart of the South Downs has been lit up with thousands of Christmas lights.

The mile-long promenade at the Cowdray Park estate showcases a series of beautiful large-scale art installations, a fully-immersive winter wonderland with its own movie set snow machine, and a 'Tree of Joy' with 5,000 LED lights pixel mapped to spell out the word 'joy'.

Each installation has been designed to complement the landscape and take advantage of the features of the estate, with one, 'Winter Revels', illuminating the Cowdray Ruins themselves in a three-minute animated fantasy with words and music created by award-winning projection studio artists.

Ross Ashton, one of the artists behind the project, said: "We worked a lot into three minutes and had loads of fun making the sound and imagery.

"We always try to make work that draws on the history and the setting of the site, so for Christmas At Cowdray, there are Elizabethan carols and lines of Tudor poetry and the music is based on period songs.

"We know Henry VIII visited Cowdray and one of the most important members of his entourage was the Master of the Revels - his full-time personal party organiser. That have us the starting point and what unfolds is a series of amusing vignettes that relate to the period."

'Winter Revels' opens with a page in a tabard strumming a lute, giving way to a rural landscape where a couple swap lines of poetry. The backdrop then changes again to a theatre where a production of 'George and the Dragon' is about to be performed, as it would have been at the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

Other highlights at the estate during the festive period include an installation in which a single person can control the movement of four-metre high angel wings, and a "tranquil oasis of light" with fibre optic illuminations.

The festive light trail is open until January 1, with tickets available from their website.

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