THE magical light installation Peeping In went live on Saturday, December 12 at the Manor House in Ilkley.

Peeping In is a Winter and Christmas themed visual installation designed to be viewed by peeping through the Manor House ground floor 16th century windows revealing two magical scenes.

In the main house room we see a classic scene from Christmas night. The seats are unoccupied, but the fire is still alight. It’s late and everyone has gone to bed. Candles glow and a decorated tree stands to one side. A cold blue light enters the space revealing the silhouettes of some strange and sinister visitors present in the darkness. Who are they? What are they doing here? The lights begin to reveal the visitors are a friendly rag-tag bunch of Santa’s helpers delivering presents. Inspired by Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas and modelled by local students, the characters will have a quirky familiarity to them.

Moving on to peep through the windows of the heritage room will reveal a magical snowscape made of hundreds of paper snowflakes, lit and gently moving to give the impression of falling snow. As we peep through the windows the lighting changes transforming the snowscape from bright and cold to magically glowing. Hidden within the snowscape the eagle-eyed viewer may spot one of the characters from the Christmas night scene. The snowscape can be viewed from three sides with one of the windows revealing the Manor House within the Manor House. A scale model of the Manor House itself, lit-up within the snowscape scene.

Peeping In was created as part of Bradford’s LiT project, a winter programme of light in unusual places across the Bradford District. “We are so thrilled to have been granted one of the LiT awards from Bradford Council to allow us to create the first light installation in the Manor House,” said Sarah Thomas, Chair of the Ilkley Manor House Trust.

The official switch-on was at 4pm on Saturday 12th December and attended by Cllr Mark Stidworthy, Mayor of Ilkley. Peeping In is free and runs from 4pm -10pm every day from now until January 3.

A visitor to the opening night commented: “It is wonderful to see the house being used for such an event – one that we can all enjoy.”

A QR code is included in the courtyard so if you want to make a donation to the Manor House you can by using this code on your phone.

The Ilkley based creative team, all of whom have given their time for free, was Mark Carey, Head of Cinematography at the Northern Film School in Leeds and his daughters, Erin (18) who is a student at Leeds Art University and Saoirse (15) who is at Ilkley Grammar School who have created the lighting design and the scenes in the main room and artist Joanne Tinker, who has created the snowflake room and mini Manor House. They have all done an amazing job.

“The challenge was to create an imaginative immersive Christmas experience that can work for all ages in these strange times when visitors can’t actually be inside the Manor House,” said Mark Carey.

“Remembering a childhood memory of experiencing snow for the first time and my fascination with multiples and repetition in my artwork, when the opportunity came to help with the light installation at the iconic Manor House I thought how magical it would be to create a larger-than-life ‘snow globe,” says Joanne Tinker, artist. “I now can look out of my studio window in the Manor House courtyard and admire the combined beauty of this historic building and the snowflakes within.”

Thanks also go out to Ilkley Toy Museum who have generously loaned some of their wonderful traditional toys to be part of the installation, Richard Speight from Ilkley Playhouse who has worked with Mark on the lighting and to Tony Brigg who has brought his creative eye to the installation as well.

Sarah Thomas, Chair of Ilkley Manor House Trust added: “We are also running a competition to see who can guess how many snowflakes are in the heritage room. The winner will receive a £20 voucher from either The Art Shop or Games Crusade, both independent shops in Ilkley. The winner will be announced in early January 2021. Details of how you can post your answer can be found on our website and on all our social media posts about Peeping In.

“The Manor House is beautiful at any time of the year but it has been made quite magical by the light installation - so make sure you don’t miss it. We hope it will lift everyone’s spirits over the festive season and bring in a better New Year.”