A Grand Festive Tour at Waddesdon Manor

As winter descends across the English countryside, Waddesdon Manor awakens with a quiet magic. Light spills across snow-dusted lawns, shimmering against the gilded facades of the historic house. Inside, rooms are transformed into portals to Europe’s festive heart, where centuries-old traditions dance alongside modern creativity. From delicate papercraft to immersive digital installations, every corner tells a story, inviting visitors not just to observe, but to step into a living, breathing celebration of Christmas.

This year, the Breakfast Room offers a particularly striking spectacle: five large-scale paper Christmas trees, crafted to evoke the delicate beauty of snow-dusted pines. Two stand at 7ft 2in, while the other three reach 8ft tall. Each tree is made from Coloursource Ice White 270gsm stock, a choice intended to capture the crisp, glistening purity of freshly fallen snow. Nathan Ward, the London-based multi-award-winning paper artist behind the display, used around 140 sheets of paper to craft the trees, with each tree featuring 50 to 60 intricately cut branches.

“The bases are cut-and-welded metal pieces I commissioned and sprayed white,” Ward explains. “Five wooden dowels were cut to length and sprayed, sitting in the metal base tubes. I drilled holes at various points along the dowels for the paper branches which I attached with wire. The Breakfast Room focuses on Vienna and Austrian Christmas traditions, which often include papercraft elements, so this felt a very natural fit.”

This is the second time that Ward has been involved in Christmas at Waddesdon Manor. He was first commissioned in 2023, creating multiple elements for the theme Once Upon a Time. This year, he was invited back by Jane Le Bon, who has styled and curated Christmas at Waddesdon for over a decade.

“It all very much stems from Jane,” Ward continued. “Jane does some amazing work especially with historic properties, styling gift shops, she comes very much from a visual-merchandising point of view. She commissioned me back in 2023 to create a number of papercraft displays around a theme and she would have come up with the theme with the team at Waddesdon, because it’s often based around the collection that Waddesdon Manor holds within the National Trust, the objects and things they show, and how they link a story.”

Waddesdon is a Rothschild house, built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild in the late 19th century to showcase his extraordinary collection and to entertain guests in the style of a French château. Over generations, the Rothschilds created not just a home but a living celebration of art, culture, and European heritage. This year’s theme draws on that legacy, with each room representing a different European Christmas tradition, creating a Grand Tour through history, culture, and festive imagination.

“It all starts with a train with a carriage-style setup that makes it feel like a Grand Tour of Europe at Christmas, travelling from country to country in the spirit of festive discovery. When we reach Paris, you sense it immediately, with the golden glow of streetlights, windows of grand magasins twinkling with Christmas displays, and the scent of vin chaud and pastries drifting from cafés. Paris in December is not just a city; it is a living postcard of holiday magic.”

The trees themselves are feats of both craftsmanship and careful planning. “This project is quite different in terms of the equipment and software I use. I didn’t design this in 3D; I had to think quite physically about how I was going to make the pieces because they weren’t something I could render usefully. I wasn’t trying to create an origami net; it was all about the shape and the form, and making the tree look natural. You can only really do that by playing, moving things around, and doing it on-site. I worked everything out in Illustrator, all the different shapes of the branches. I wanted each one to look different moving up the tree. If you use one branch shape all the way up, it looks mass-produced, so I added elements of personalisation. Then it was about placing them in a conical shape and experimenting. I made one tree to a certain point and got sign-off from Jane before going further because of the amount of paper I was using. I tried to eliminate waste. Once I had the approved files, it became a cut-out job, lots of repetitive processing and each branch had to be prepared before I could use it.”

Coloursource Ice White is part of a wider portfolio of whites crafted by James Cropper, a business renowned for its ability to fine-tune tone, brightness, and opacity with exceptional precision. From warmer, more natural whites to cool blue-cast shades with elevated brilliance, the team can engineer subtle variations through careful control of papermaking chemistry. It’s this depth of capability that allows artists like Ward to achieve a snow-pure aesthetic that feels both crisp under light and richly tactile up close.

The effect, Ward says, is heightened by careful attention to light and shadow. “I think the colour really pops because of the shadow play. So much of Christmas is about lighting and warmth. Tom Le Bon, Jane’s son, organises the lighting, interior animation, projections and soundscapes at Waddesdon, and it’s incredible how lighting can change things. I created a few displays at Petworth, the National Trust house, last year, including a whole nativity scene, all life-size paper pieces. My work with the National Trust has been fun because they give you room to play and experiment. You’re not selling a product, just an experience. As an artist, that freedom is really valuable.”

Even in close quarters, the craftsmanship is remarkable. “When you go up close to the trees, you might not realise they’re paper, and then suddenly you do. Everything in the room needed to be a paper piece to support the idea of papercut traditions of Vienna. It worked really well. And that specific tone of white isn’t used anywhere else now, so it’s great that you can still get it.”

Ward notes that the displays also speak to a wider return to craft during the festive season. “I think at Christmas there’s a real return to craft. People are busy, but often busy with family, and things slow down. As you near Christmas you wind down your year, that period between Christmas and New Year, time almost stops. When you go into historic buildings and see displays like the trees at Waddesdon, it’s the warmth and Christmas spirit you take away, the slowness, stillness, and thoughtfulness that paper provides. So much of Christmas from a brand point of view is loud and sparkly, but there’s something in the stillness of places like Waddesdon, especially the Vienna-inspired Breakfast Room, that feels reflective and calm.”

Ward has since visited the Manor and experienced the displays in person. “It’s always nice to stand and hear comments as people pass. It’s fulfilling. They don’t know you’re in the room; artists are often removed from their work. People might know a name but not a face. It’s lovely to overhear the warmth in people’s reactions.”

The displays are part of a broader celebration of paper as both a medium and a storytelling device. “There’s definitely a renaissance in craft, not just in displays but in papers. There’s always been a strong association between paper and receiving gifts. Luxury papers like Coloursource fit so well into houses like Waddesdon with their heritage. When you talk about the heritage of Coloursource and James Cropper, UK-made, full of story, it feels right. When you look at a manor house, everything applied to it needs to carry that through. Having paper that carries a story is important. I’m really pleased to have used Coloursource in the displays.”

For Nathan Ward, the magic of Waddesdon Manor is not just in the craft, but in the experience, it offers to visitors, a chance to step into another era, another country, and another kind of Christmas altogether. Much like the papers produced by James Cropper, which carry stories of heritage, quality, and craftsmanship, Ward’s installations transform simple materials into an immersive narrative, where every fold, cut, and shadow speaks to a history and tradition that can be felt as much as it is seen.