In pictures: Botanic Lights 2024 at Cambridge University Botanic Garden is simply stunning
Phoebe Taplin visit the stunning trail at Cambridge University Botanic Lights.
Lasers dance in time to stirring classical music. Glowing lilies float on the lake near the light-edged rock garden, shifting swiftly through a range of colours. An avenue of neon triangles pulses through the darkness.
After its debut season in December 2023, Cambridge Botanic Lights is back for a second year and is even bigger and more intricate.
The garden’s director, Professor Beverley Glover said: “What a joy it is to be able to open the gates to the garden at night” and hopes the event “will become part of Cambridge’s winter calendar”.
Cambridge University’s first Botanic Garden was founded in 1762 in the middle of the city. The current site, spanning 40 varied acres and 8,000 species of plants, is one of the world’s biggest university-owned botanic gardens. It has historic glasshouses, a lakeside rockery and a 21st-century laboratory.
Along this latest illuminated trail, dramatic lighting picks out the best seasonal and permanent features of the garden: towering bare trees and glossy evergreens, sculptural seed heads and clumps of feathery grasses. Floodlit branches are reflected in the lake, the fountain bubbles multicoloured light and there are fairies glimmering in the twinkling wooded walkways.
Botanic Lights makes a virtue of the early winter sunsets with an after-dark amble round a well-signed, mile-long route.
Through the walls of the glasshouse, palm trees and succulents are lit scarlet and magenta.
The layered shrubs of the Winter Garden are picked out in different colours. Flashing DNA spirals twirl to a musical soundtrack while spotlights slice through the misty air.
A dynamic projection on the walls of the Cory Lodge is inspired by historic letters between Charles Darwin and his mentor John Henslow, a Victorian Botany Professor who first moved the garden to its current larger site with room for scientific research in the mid 19th-century.
Another original installation draws on the idea of Linnaeus’ Floral Clock, reflecting plants that open and close their flowers at particular times of the day. The tunnel of fairy lights and the floating lilies have reappeared in the garden alongside new light displays that showcase different areas of the garden.
The way into the light trail is through the Brookside gate at the far end of Bateman Street. It’s roughly 15 minutes’ walk from Cambridge railway station, which is half an hour on the train from Stortford. There are plenty of places to eat nearby and the garden cafe is open, selling cakes and hot drinks including apple punch, mulled wine, and loaded hot chocolate.
On the far side of the garden, there’s a pop-up cafe that does fresh waffles. Book ahead and wrap up warm.
Cambridge Botanic Lights runs Thursday to Sunday until Saturday 21 December. Tickets are available for timed slots from 5pm to 8pm with the garden closing at 9.30pm. Visit botanic.cam.ac.uk/whats-on/cambridge-botanic-lights-2024 for tickets.
