A giant redwood in northeast England was recently crowned the world’s tallest living Christmas tree. But to even qualify for the Guinness World Records, a small forestry team had to navigate a rather large festive challenge: decorating all 147 feet of it.
The operation required good weather, a cherry picker with a 167-foot crane, 1,320 multicolored bulbs attached to more than 2,600 feet of cable, two giant bows and three rechargeable battery packs.
Not required: a fear of heights.
The criteria outlined by the Guinness World Records for the “tallest bedded Christmas tree” stipulated that the tree must be dressed with at least two traditional decorations to qualify, and remain where it was planted (in other words, not cut down or moved). For the team tasked with dressing the towering conifer, the 150-year-old tree’s health was the top priority.
“We want to protect it,” Steve Howard, visitor operations manager at Cragside, the country estate where the tree is, said in an interview this month.
“We didn’t want to put too many decorations on it,” Howard said. Adding too much, he explained, “would cause stress to the branches and limbs of the tree.”
Staff at Cragside, which is managed by the British conservation charity National Trust, refer to the tree as “the giant” because of its size, Howard said. “It is massively impressive,” he added.
The team settled on pink, purple and blue lights and two oversize bows. Baubles felt unsuitable, because the north of England can be prone to high winds in winter, Howard said.
The LED lights took two days to hang and were strung vertically — not wrapped around the tree — so as not to damage the structure and as a nod to the property’s history. The Victorians also hung their lights this way, Howard said. Lord William Armstrong — who, alongside his wife, Margaret, created the Cragside house and estate — was a Victorian inventor, according to the National Trust.
The huge purple bows were specially made because the team could not readily source large enough ones off-the-shelf, Howard said. They were then carefully attached to avoid damage to the tree, he said, adding that they were placed lower down so visitors could see them.
“Putting bows up high, at 147 feet — they would look tiny,” Howard said, adding that he remained on the ground during the assembly operation, helping to prepare the lights and check that they were in sufficient condition.
The tree is lit only for a few hours each day to save electricity, he said. Keeping the lights to a minimum also “reduces disruption to wildlife,” he said.
In 2024, the tree was crowned the tallest living Christmas tree in the United Kingdom. The plan to work to have it crowned the world’s tallest living tree has been a year in the making, Howard said.
The world’s tallest cut Christmas tree was crowned at Seattle’s Northgate Shopping Center in 1950, a Douglas fir measuring nearly 212 feet. That tree was decorated with 3,600 lights and its branches removed and re-added once the tree was in position at the shopping center, according to the Guinness World Records.
While record-breaking, the tree is not the tallest tree at Cragside, but the team chose it for its “perfect shape,” Howard said, adding that the location of the tree — perched on the side of a road, near the estate’s house — made it the most “accessible” to visitors.
The Armstrongs planted an estimated 7 million trees and shrubs in the 1860s, some of which are now the tallest of their kind in the country, Howard said. Nestled among the green stands Cragside House, a 19th-century building with turrets and towers.
“You get this wonderful shot of the tree lit up with the magnificent Cragside House in the background,” Howard said.
The reaction to the tree since it was decorated has been “absolutely phenomenal,” Howard said, adding that some visitors had traveled hundreds of miles to see it. “We’re hoping people come and see it every year.”
When the festive period is over, the small team will gather once again to undress the tree. The operation is expected to take place in January, though the task is dependent on the weather, Howard said. Last year, because of high winds and storm damage, the lights on the tree did not come down until March.
According to Howard, the tree is a “teenager” relative to other, older trees in the grounds. He expressed hope it would live for another 150 years.
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