Hushed tones no more: Petworth House wants Christmas fun and laughter

She and the team want the House to be filled with conversation and laughter. And that’s one of the things that makes Christmas at Petworth House so special. Visitors are so much more relaxed, Sue says.

It's all part of the changing face of the National Trust – a face which has changed so much that for the past three years December has overtaken August as Petworth House’s busiest month.

Over its five-and-a-half week Christmas season last year, Petworth House had the remarkable figures of just under 35,000 visitors. And Sue is delighted to say there is the capacity to increase that number this year with the House promising its most spectacular Christmas ever

Running until Sunday, January 5, Petworth House’s Christmas season will delight with a genuine a festive wonderland, combining paper-crafted installations, showstopping trees, mischievous mice and the warmest of welcomes.

“I have worked here for 20 years and when I first started we opened five days a week between March and October! It has all changed so much. It is all much more friendly. The organisation has changed. The National Trust started to question whether the rules we had were still relevant, whether it was reasonable that you could not take photos in a digital age. The National Trust started think to what is the fear of someone taking a picture. And so a lot of the rules were relaxed, particularly questionning why do we shut at Christmas. We used to close for the winter to undertake a proper clean. And we still do the clean, but it is a small team. There are only six of them and they can only work in one room at a time. And so we realised that we could let people in. In the winter we do have a small number of rooms that are closed but we do that on rotation so there is always three-quarters of the House open. Really we just started to question the rules and question whether they still applied.

“It was about 2012 when we started winter opening, opening for weekends leading up to Christmas and then in 2013 we went what they call 363, open every day apart from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We are open on Boxing Day and it's a really important day. People have gone a bit stir crazy over Christmas and they want to get out of the House, to go for walks and to meet up with friends. Boxing Day is always super busy for us. It's like that opening scene in Love Actually! People are getting out of their cars and meeting up with friends and embracing each other in the car park.

“So really Christmas quickly became a big thing for us. We realised quite soon that if you are going to open in the festive period people are going to be looking for a festive experience. We have gone through a few editions of Christmas at Petworth but three years ago we found what we still think worked best for visitors. We do like a Christmas version of Petworth. Petworth is a House which is really grand and impressive with big state rooms, and we decorate the place as a place of entertainment for people to gather. You can still see the Turners and the art but we also give everything a Christmas feel.

“And people do have a different experience. I think Christmas makes people feel more at ease and more comfortable. Sometimes when it’s really quiet in the House you feel that people are walking around in slightly hushed tones. But we want to fill the House with noise! And I think at Christmas people seem to feel that they have more permission to chat and to laugh – and that's what we want them to do. The days of people walking around in hushed reverence have gone.

“Our Christmas offering opens at the end of November and runs until early January. Until three years ago August was our busiest month but that has changed. December is now our busiest month and the great thing is that we offer people flexibility. Sometimes people want to go to things at Christmas and find that they're fully booked but with us there is no booking required required. It's flexible here and it is relaxed.

“We start decorating the House from November 1. We take four weeks to decorate and we have around 30 trees in the House. The majority are real trees and we've got five that are 15 foot tall. But the great thing about Petworth, and I'm sure for many other National Trust properties, is it is a really close-knit team. It is hard work but it's great fun and colleagues from all different departments help to put the trees up. It is a time to come together and we build relationships with our colleagues when we are doing something a little bit out of the ordinary day-to-day work.”

A Christmas Spectacular at Petworth is open until Sunday, January 5 2025, 10.30am-4.30pm, last entry 4pm. Closed December 24 and 25. The garden and main car park are open from 10am-5pm. No advanced booking needed, but visitors are required to purchase a ticket to the site to enter; free for National Trust members. For more details visit the Petworth House and Park website.