THE 'secret Victorian garden' at Spetchley Park, just outside Worcester, will burst into life next month - a rather unusual time of year for gardens. It will be the setting for what is likely to be one of the most unique displays of night-time illuminations ever seen in Britain.

Hundreds of theatre-style spotlights are set to transform the 30-acre garden into a living-theatre of colour, light and form.

Visitors will be able to enjoy a mile-long illuminated trail, which will wind its way through what has been described as one of England's most evocative garden landscapes.

The organisers of the event - Tony Russell and Matthew Haynes - created the first ever night-time illuminated trail in Britain back in 1996.

"We wanted to give people the chance to walk - after dark - through a landscape surrounded by trees and shrubs and show them just how stunning it could all look when lit by hundreds of carefully placed lights," said Tony.

The event was a major success and, since then, well over a quarter of a million people have enjoyed the experience.

Nine years on, however, Tony and Matthew felt it was time to make the event even more dramatic and, for the past six months, they have been scouring the country looking for a location which not only had beautiful trees and shrubs, but also gave them the opportunity to work with other features, such as water and architecture.

"When we walked into Spetchley Park we knew we had found the ideal location," Tony added.

"It is a delightful unspoilt Victorian secret garden with lakes, follies, statuary, Victorian conservatories, melon houses and a magical rustic summer-house, which looks like it has come straight out of Lord of the Rings.

"We met with the owners - the Berkeley family - in particular John Berkeley and his son Henry. Pretty soon after our meeting we had an agreement to stage the event this December.

"I am so excited about this event, it really does have tremendous potential," said Henry Berkeley.

"When Tony and Matthew came to see us, they were in some respects pushing against an open door, because I had already seen one of their previous illuminated trails and it had crossed my mind how well it could work at Spetchley. We had our first dress-rehearsal the other night and even with only a handful of lights in place the effect was simply magical, I cannot wait to see the whole illuminated trail installed."

Spetchley Park has been in the continual ownership of the Berkeley family since 1606. The landscape and deer park surrounding the house has altered little since then - except for the loss of magnificent avenues of elm trees, killed by Dutch elm disease in the 1970s - and there are magnificent views across herds of red and fallow deer and an ornamental lake to the Worcestershire countryside and the Malvern Hills beyond.

Within the park and virtually hidden from view, is one of Spetchley's best kept secrets, the beautiful 30-acre Victorian garden.

It was originally created on the site of an older garden towards the end of the 19th Century by Rose Berkeley and her sister Ellen Wilmott, the celebrated gardener and horticulturalist, who is perhaps best known for her penchant for secretly scattering eryngium seeds in gardens she visited.

Their metallic blue flowers would appear months, sometimes years after her visit and became known as Miss Wilmott's Ghost.

In more recent years John Berkeley has been the driving force behind the garden as it exists today, planting many new trees and shrubs to complement the Victorian originals.

As a result, Spetchley Park has a wonderful romantic atmosphere reminiscent of a bygone era.

Indeed, very little seems to have changed since Ellen Wilmott's day. It is a garden of contrasts; there are walled kitchen gardens, a melon yard, an original horse pool, a Victorian conservatory, a delightful Root House, statuary, fountains, architectural follies, a rose garden, superb herbaceous borders and magnificent specimen trees.

Its prowess was marked in 1924 when it was chosen as one of the first three gardens to open under the National Gardens Scheme and the park is recorded as a Grade II historic landscape.

The Secret Garden Illuminated Trail will run from December 9th until the 18th - every evening from 5.00pm (last entry is 8.30pm).