Leonardslee Lights

leonardslee lights over the lake — The incredible Leonardslee Lights

I’ll just be honest and come out and say it. I’m not a massive fan of Christmas lights. Perhaps my experience has been clouded by my childhood memories of my father, endlessly wrestling with the Christmas tree lights in the 1980s.

It was an endless snake of green cables and bulbs that never quite worked, accompanied by muttered, under the breath, very un-Christmas-like swearing as each bulb was twisted and checked to make sure it actually worked, before producing an underwhelming display of lights.

Fast forward a few years and now, I am that father. Well, all sons do become their fathers, I guess. Once a year, Mrs B tests my life insurance coverage by sending me into the loft, where I precariously balance on the roof beams, just a small accident away from a life-changing sum of money for her.

Of course, all men secretly like going into the loft because they can pretend they’re Detective John McClane from the film Die Hard, crawling through tight spaces to dispatch international terrorists, when the actual closest they’ll get is perhaps dealing with an errant spider who has made his home between the dust-covered holiday suitcases and the boxes of stuff no one knows quite what to do with.

Anyway, once the horror of trying not to fall through the floor of the attic is dealt with, it’s merely the risk of breaking your neck getting the boxes of Christmas decorations down the narrow attic stairs, being covered in dust and filth and the rooting through the boxes before you’ve even got to the part where you put the Christmas lights up.

At this point, sweating profusely and covered in grime, I hand over to Mrs B, who has very particular ideas about how Christmas decorations should look. I mean, she’s very good at that part, that’s why she has an interior design blog.

My miserable attempts to make things look aesthetically pleasing are generally met with looks of bafflement from wives, children and passing blind people. Come January each year, I grumpily throw everything back in the boxes and mentally prepare for the horror of doing it again in 11 months’ time.

statues outside Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens — Leonardslee Lakes & Gardens

So, it’s fair to say I’m not a massive fan of Christmas decoration faff. I’m mostly a supporter of Christmas when it comes to the eating of the food and the ability to drink alcohol at 8 in the morning without judgement.

When Mrs B duly suggested that we have a lovely family visit the Christmas lights at Leonardslee Gardens in deepest Sussex, I did pull a bit of face. However, the good news was that at least some other sucker had pulled out all the Christmas lights for me, I guess, and the children seemed keen to go.

There was the promise of some mulled wine, so it came to pass that one Saturday we duly loaded the children into the car and headed for Leonardslee Gardens.

Getting to Leonardslee Gardens

If you’re heading to Leonardslee, regrettably for the environment, the only real way to get there is by car. If you’re coming from the M23 or A23, head south on the M23/A23 and take the exits for Handcross, follow the B2110 through Lower Beeding and at the end of the road turn left.

The entrance is immediately on your left (SatNav postcode RH13 6PP). There are buses in the area; the No 17 Stagecoach bus runs between Horsham Railway Station and Brighton once an hour or thereabouts If you’re a fan of public transport.

Of course, we drove and much to my chagrin, we were duly charged £5.70 for parking. Look, I get it, people need to make a living, but the fact is the only reason you are in that particular spot is to specifically visit the Leonardslee Christmas Lights and Gardens and you have already paid handsomely to do so.

It very much feels like they’ve decided to charge you for parking “just because”. But of course, the children were excited as they could see the fairground area that gets set up for the winter lights so like a good parent, I gritted my teeth and paid my £5.70 through the handily extortionate parking app on my phone.

leonardsless lights with pink floodlights

That said, if you’ve never been to Leonardslee Gardens before, in the day or at night for their Winter Lights, you really should. I am firmly of an age now where spending the evening in a nightclub makes my bowels loosen in fear and the relative peace and calm of some landscaped gardens is a much more preferable option and Leonardslee is brilliant at this.

The history itself is equally great. The actual name Leonardslee derives from the “lea” (valley) of St Leonard’s Forest, one of the ancient forests of the High Weald.

The house and gardens went through the, by now, standard, rise and fall of being once owned by wealthy people who built an incredibly opulent manor house, followed by decline through the years before finally being restored and reopened in 2019.

What this history leaves you with, is an incredible Grade II listed main house, built in 19th-century Italianate style (and which you can book a stay in!), and a Grade I historic garden for you to enjoy.

A moon sphere illumination over the lake

Best of all, between about the 22 November and 30 December (dates vary each year) the lights are set up for you to enjoy their woodland gardens, complete with light, sound and colour.

Food, Drink and Entertainment at Leonardslee Lights

roasting marshmallows at leonardslee lights

Having grumpily paid for parking, we first explored the Christmas Fair area set up next to the main car park. The Welcome Area and a small Christmas market run from 15:30 – 22:00.

Here, they’d set up some gentle fairground rides (a merry-go-round and a swing ride) for a reasonable £3 per child, alongside some stalls selling Christmas food and drink. This included a local fish and chip van, a pizza parlour and a reasonably priced bar, so you can feed yourselves while you’re there if you wish – and I can certainly recommend the sausage and chips.

Duly fortified, we set off on the woodland trail, which takes you around the edge of the lakes at the bottom of the gardens. The trail itself is on gravel pathways through the gardens and is suitable for most all-terrain mobility scooters if you have any mobility issues.

There is one steep slope down into the valley and another gravel slope back up which is not suitable for wheelchairs, nor for small girls with tired legs, so be warned!

Now, I mentioned earlier that the name Leonardslee derives from the lea, or valley, of St Leonard’s Forest and it’s nights like this that the location really pays dividends. Once you descend down to the bottom, the valley is incredibly still and sheltered from the wind.

This makes for quite a magical light show and the sound effects carry easily around the valley. Once the initial scrum of people getting through the entrance gates calms down and people potter around at their own pace, it becomes a very relaxing light show.

And while I don’t want to spoil any surprises or enjoyment for anyone who wants to go, the combinations of light, sound and water around the lake really are rather spectacular.

a large moon illumination above the lake — The moon illuminations above the lake

Now, The Boy is not particularly enamoured with all things garden, and especially not gardens when he could be at home in his pyjamas killing things on his PS5, but such are the light effects, you could easily pretend you were in a science fiction film.

I was hoping we would recreate the magic of exploring fantastic undiscovered worlds from something like “Lost in Space”, but he decided that actually, he wanted to pretend he was on an alien world from the movie “Aliens” and proceeded to make shooting noises on anything he didn’t like the look of.

Lord alone knows what the helpful garden keepers made of the sight of The Boy pretending to machine gun their rhododendrons that were glowing in the night and throwing imaginary hand grenades at the camellias.

The Girls, for their money, were having a much more sedate walk around the displays, pausing to admire the illuminated artwork and exciting displays of magnolias and being charmed by the displays of fountains.

Mrs B, being a West Country girl was particularly taken with the 35ft Cornish Red Rhododendron planted in the 1800s in the Dell area, and for her money, my daughter was particularly impressed with the weather displays by the old Engine Shed at the other end of the valley.

After an hour of happy wandering, we made our way back up the valley where, of course, the exit was via the gift shop.

However, unlike many other gift shops, this one actually contains good quality – but pricey – gifts, gardening paraphernalia and much to my delight, free samples of the wine made with grapes grown on site.

Naturally, if you go with your kids, you’ll be striped up for a couple of bags of sweets, minimum.

Ultimately, it’s a good couple of hours’ worth of happy wandering, massively helped by the currently mild weather we’re having here and judging from the other happy families wandering around, it’s a great way to get into the Christmas mood.

I for one will be adding to my list of Christmas activities for next year’s run-up to Christmas, because frankly, it’s a great way of seeing Christmas lights without having to anywhere near my loft.