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It is raining and blowing a gale as I flash my UV torch around, searching for lights in the darkness. There, a bright red spider web; here, some luminescent fungi; now a twinkling tortoise, Timothy, sheltering by the wall. I am exploring the gardens of Gilbert White’s House in Selborne, Hampshire, which is holding a light trail with a difference this month.
Gilbert White (1720-1793) is considered the father of ecology, one of the first people to observe living creatures in their own habitats, rather than studying dead specimens. He discovered the role of earthworms; developed the idea of the food chain; and identified species including the harvest mouse, noctule bat, chiffchaff, wood warbler and willow warbler.
It is fitting, then, that his home – now a museum – is hosting an eco light festival (£12.50 adults/£9 children, open 4.30pm-8pm on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays until 21 December). Light trails have become a Christmas fixture: the Jolly Festive website lists more than 125 across the UK for 2024, from city centres to stately homes, botanical gardens to ancient woodlands. But bright lights can be bad news for nocturnal creatures. In its advice on how to light your garden safely at night, the Royal Horticultural Society suggests keeping it as dark as possible (though it is running RHS Glow, “an after-dark spectacle of lights” at all five of its gardens. Hmm).
In White’s garden the lighting is low-level, solar-powered or from renewable sources, and hours are strictly limited. Visitors who are expecting Blackpool Illuminations or an all-singing, all-dancing Christmas at Kew-style light trail may be disappointed. But those who want to spot “glow-worms” and other representations of woodland creatures among gently twinkling lights will be captivated. And yes, there is still a tunnel of light for selfies …
The festival is also a chance to explore the house after-hours, including the library, study, bedroom and great parlour, built to host parties. Artists have added to the atmosphere with animal-themed paper lanterns, willow sculptures, a wiggly worm visual and a poetry audio, celebrating swifts. There is a mesmerising installation by the visual artist William Lindley, featuring the house, local landscape and its wildlife. The cafe is open for mulled wine and hot chocolate, and the Jubilee Tap, over the road, serves beer from the on-site brewhouse, which White opened in 1765 (it reopened as a nanobrewery in 2021).
If you want to make a weekend of it, this part of east Hampshire is lesser-known than the New Forest, but it has a lot to offer, especially at Christmas. Next on my list was another home turned museum: Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, a village about four miles from Selborne. This is where Austen lived for the last eight years of her life, and wrote or revised all six of her novels. It is moving to see the dining room where she wrote on a tiny table by the window, the drawing room where she practised her piano each morning and read aloud, and the bedroom she shared with her sister, Cassandra. The house is dressed up for a simple Regency Christmas, with evergreen garlands, ribbons and paper decorations, and there is an audio installation of a Christmas Eve scene in Emma (until 7 January). The two candlelight tours in December are sold out, but there is availability on 28 February and 28 March.
After the house, we braved the weather on a four-and-a-half-mile circular Austen walk, passing landmarks including Chawton House Library – the Great House, as Austen knew it, where her brother Edward lived. It is decorated for A Storybook Christmas (entry £12.50 adults/£6 children/under-sixes free), recreating festive tales, with a Glimmering Gardens light display (until 5 January), and wreath and decorations workshops. There is a welcome pub with a fire at the halfway point of the walk in Upper Farringdon, the Rose and Crown, and another back in Chawton, the Greyfriar.
Another option is a trip on a steam train on the heritage Watercress Line from nearby Alton to Alresford. It is running Steam Illuminations, an immersive light and sound show (£32pp, under-twos free, until 4 January). Alresford is about eight miles from Winchester, which has been dubbed “England’s Christmas capital” and has a German-style market in the Cathedral Close (until 22 December).
We had another festive fix at Hinton Ampner near Arlesford, a country house now owned by the National Trust. The theme this year is An Enchanted Christmas, with rooms dressed for a woodland ball, a gingerbread village, a north pole workshop and more. Outside are illuminated trees, a Christmas sleigh, Santa’s sweetshop, a secondhand bookshop and a cafe serving turkey sandwiches and mince pies with brandy butter. We walked them off on another bracing four-mile estate walk through farmland and woodland.
There are plenty of cosy pubs with rooms to stay in nearby. The pick of the bunch is the Anchor Inn in Lower Froyle, five miles from Alton. Believed to date back to the 14th century, it has wooden floors, low ceilings, beams and open fires, and five Tudor-style bedrooms (doubles from £81). There are lots of Christmas specials on the menu, such as my jerusalem artichoke risotto with chestnuts and winter herb gremolata (£15.95) and my boyfriend’s turkey, ham hock and leek pie with all the trimmings (£19.95). It is also serving festive afternoon teas, sharing boards and set menus, and hosting a Christmas movie breakfast (14 December).
The Thomas Lord in West Meon, about five miles from Hinton Ampner, is a good alternative. Guests can order bar snacks and pub classics by the fire (I liked the Korean spiced cauliflower, £5.80), or go for a full festive three courses in the restaurant (£39.95 for three courses). There are five wooden cabins in the garden to stay in (doubles from £83.30), and Christmas carols, quiz and party nights.
The stormy weather didn’t let up all weekend, but we still left Hampshire with a warm festive glow – and a lot of inspiration for this year’s Christmas decorations.
Accommodation was provided by the Anchor Inn and the Thomas Lord; visit-hampshire.co.uk
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