As darkness descends, visitors can weave their way through an immersive light experience through the woodlands. This mesmerising trail features stunning, light elements and interactive light play all set to a beautiful soundtrack. The team behind Luminate create bespoke installations that deliver those wow moments and take your breath away. New to Coombe Abbey this year is Ice Storm, which featured at Sandringham, the King’s country retreat, last year. Ice Storm is a spellbinding install featuring lights strung on metal panels each about 4 metres tall with dramatic arches and giant snowflakes.

As the dark nights draw in, this is a sure-fire way to light up the faces of friends and family as you explore. On the route there will be mulled wine and marshmallows to toast on fire pits, to keep the chill away.

Coombe Abbey is set in 500 acres of parkland. The estate includes gardens designed by Capability Brown and a beautiful 80-acre lake. This season Coombe will be hosting afternoon tea with carols and Sunday lunch with Santa. The setting provides the perfect festive backdrop to Luminate, which will light up Coombe with a display featuring fairies and the ever-popular wishing wall where visitors can make a wish on a tag and pin it to the wall ahead of the festivities. Who knows what 2025 will bring you – wishes can come true! Warming seasonal food and drink will be on offer at the entrance and exit point and visitors can spend time relaxing there and enjoying the illuminated swings.

Janine Maycock, part of the Luminate team, says: “We work hard to ensure Luminate is a fun and enchanting evening out. We have lots of family visitors, but it is also a romantic date night and has sparked several proposals of marriage. The trail is different each year, so there is always a surprise, and we look forward to welcoming people for the first time as well as our returning visitors to Luminate at Coombe. We are working towards becoming the world’s best festive light event and we work with exceptional talent in iconic locations.”

Ron Terry, group operations director at No Ordinary Hospitality, which operates Coombe Abbey Hotel, said: “The festive period is a very special time at Coombe Abbey and Luminate makes the winter months even more magical.

“The experiences are always extremely high quality and popular with visitors of all ages with so much to see and do, and we are looking forward to seeing the trail return this November.”

Luminate proudly supports a number of charities by donating tickets. For Coombe the charities include the Lord Mayor’s selected charities for the year which are Carer’s Trust Heart of England and St Giles Trust as well as Molly Ollys, who support children suffering from life threatening illness and their families in the UK.

There will be two evenings on Monday December 2 and Monday December 9 where visitors are able to come along with their four-legged friends and the trail is flat.

The team at Luminate works with Ecologi to offset their carbon footprint and have planted over 80,000 trees to date.