Christmas at...

A behind-the-scenes look at life in Highclere Castle - the setting of the popular television series and film Downton Abbey - as they deck their halls and prepare to celebrate Christmas in their own unique way. The programme follows the small team of dedicated staff who are tasked with creating seasonal cheer in the castle, as they race to get everything prepared in time to welcome small groups of guests for guided tours and tea, as well as a virtual gin cocktail party hosted by the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon.

In the second programme following life at Warwick Castle during the festive period, 27-year-old historian Melissa Perry helps decorate the castle's historic Daisy sleigh and keeps spirits up with tales of Christmas past, while operations director Liam Bartlett prepares the castle's ice rink, hoping the 93,000 litres of water the local fire brigade pump into the ice rink will freeze in time for the grand December opening.

Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, where creative director Charlotte Lloyd-Webber and her team are decorating the interior on a Narnia theme, while owner Nicholas Howard is hands on with photographing the annual Christmas card. However, when the tree arrives late and proves too big too fit, it requires emergency surgery with a chainsaw.

The second of three programmes going behind the scenes of English stately homes during Christmas. The aftermath of the pandemic finds the estate of Chatsworth House keen to win back visitors, while also marking the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire's 20th anniversary. The year's festive theme brings together the best installations of Christmases past. However, before the installation can get started, painstaking care has to be taken to move and protect the Duke's contemporary ceramic art collection. The season gets off to a poor start when massive bonfire celebrations have to be cancelled due to high winds. A bird invasion in the state rooms provides an additional challenge.

A visit to the East Anglian Palladian pile, situated on the north Norfolk coast, as creative director Lady Polly Leicester leads a team of friends, staff and volunteers to transform the state dining rooms and galleries into a candlelight experience, while the marble hallway entrance becomes a workshop full of decorations and artefacts pilfered from cellars and barns. It's all about teamwork and improvisation, as Lady L's team rushes to transform this great hall with sweet-scented pine trees, greenery, sparkling decorations and twinkling lights.

Life at the Oxfordshire mansion, a 300-year-old Baroque property set in 2,000 acres of Capability Brown-designed parkland, boasting the most extensive collections of portraits, furniture, sculpture and tapestries in Europe. For the first time cameras have been given unprecedented access to its most important season - Christmas. Around 250,000 visitors are expected to flock to marvel at the breathtaking state rooms and sprawling grounds transformed into an unrecognisable winter wonderland. The palace's army of staff, volunteers and specialist teams have under three weeks to install seasonal cheer on a colossal scale.

Life at the Yorkshire mansion, one of England's finest Treasure Houses, which was built in the 1700s by Edwin Lascelles, First Baron of Harewood, designed by Robert Adam and landscaped by `Capability" Brown. More than just a visitor attraction, it is now run as a museum dedicated to fine art. David Lascelles, the current eighth Earl of Harewood, and his family sit on the board of the charitable trust and this Christmas have ambitious plans to transform all the grand state rooms with installations from 11 cutting-edge artists in a seasonal showcase entitled `Long Live the Christmas Tree".

Seasonal preparations at Palladian stately home Holkham Hall, which is surrounded by a walled park, a 25,000-acre estate and 11 miles of north Norfolk coastline. This year, the Countess of Leicester, announces there is no theme to Christmas and, instead, each state room will boast its own eclectic identity, though the great drawing room becomes a tribute to the late Queen with a Jubilee-inspired red, white and blue tree of gifts. Lady Leicester leads a design team in a frenetic rush to decorate a quarter of a mile of grand saloons, dining rooms and marble halls to pull off a festive stately experience like no other.