London’s loveliest Christmas tree displays

Coal Drops Yard is going for an Alpine theme this year, with a 47-foot tree adorned with ski accessories. And in a nice touch, the tree will be recycled at the end of the season, to make pine-scented candles. It's all part of a packed line-up of festive fun that includes a curling alley courtesy of Club Curling, a 'ski scene selfie moment', and an après ski bar serving up hot chocolates and toddies.

While real snow may be rare in the capital, Covent Garden’s installation offers a big dose of the white stuff. And it's back for 2022, with a 60-foot tree lighting up the centre of its piazza. At the West Piazza, Londoners will be dazzled by a Christmas display which incorporates almost 30,000 twinkling lights and a daily dose of fake snowfall. 

In the run-up to Christmas Liberty will give to me: Six floors of shopping. 12 hundred decorations. Windows piled with presents. And a GIANT padded Christmas treeeeee. 

Every year, St Pancras Station whips up a totally non-traditional tree to baffle and thrill commuters, and this year is no exception. It's an elegant grey pyramid made out of over 80 hand-illustrated London buildings, from ordinary terraced houses to concert venues and department stores. It's beautifully lit from within so its windows glow, and if you look more closely you'll see that it's adorned with the logo of Prince's Trust, as a way of raising awareness of this youth charity's valuable work.

Cutty Sark? More like cutting edge. Royal Museums Greenwich is getting into the Christmas spirit with a minimalistic twist on the classic Christmas tree. With strings of lights arranged to give the outline of a pine, the installation sits proudly on the mast of the world’s only surviving tea clipper to wish us all a very Cutty Sark Christmas.

Every year since 1947, Norway has gifted Londoners with a classic Norwegian spruce by way of thanking Britain for its support of Norway during the Second World War – and 2022 will be no different. Come December 1, the square will be decked out with vertical strings of light, with a tree that towers over the surrounding buildings. It’s little wonder the bedazzling tree is fondly described by Norwegians as ‘the queen of the forest’.

Equal parts impressive and terrifying, British fabric sculptor and designer Daniel Lismore has created an angel in his own image for the London Edition hotel. The towering figure is made from repurposed fabrics, including discarded Christmas humpers from a recycling factory, and topped with an impassive-looking golden mannequin head imprisoned in what looks like a mustard yellow pet cone. The tree will also have a life after Christmas with the repurposed fabrics given to fashion students when it's taken down. The angel lives on... 

Scenes don’t get much cosier than the Kimpton Fitzroy’s marbled lobby this December. Its 16ft fir oozes with traditional festive glamour thanks so it’s ruby red ribboned bows. It’s the kind of tree you can imagine Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole crooning a few carols in front of. 

Always ones to put an arty take on the traditional Christmas fir (we are in Central St Martins’ territory after all), Granary Square’s ‘tree’ is a luminous geometric wonder. Created by Berlin-based, experimental art and architecture practice, raumlabor, the 33-foot high structure looks more like a stage set left over from Glastonbury made of 19 neon yellow and orange poles. Bang in the middle of the square, it’s a pretty unmissable feature. 

Looking like something whittled in a Belgian chocolate factory, The Londoner’s pine is an all-white masterpiece crafted from off-cuts of cream moire fabric. It’s the brainchild of fashion designer Daniel w. Fletcher and took a team of five people, five full days to put up. Like an arboreal Emily Dickinson, the solitary white pine will be visible in the hotel window from Leicester Square.

Is it the Crystal Maze dome? Is it a dining igloo gone rogue? Nope, it’s Claridge’s evergreen effort. Each year, the hotel puts a chic spin on festive tradition by inviting a fashion-world luminary to design its tree. This year, it’s the turn of Sandra Choi for
Jimmy Choo, who has created ‘The Diamond’. It’s made of 69 shining, reflective mirrors, accented with 60 meters of sparkling lights that ‘pulse, undulate and reflect’ off 250 aluminium panels – all topped off with a Professor Umbridge-esque pink bow. 

Sketch, Mayfair’s visually spectacular multi-room homage to eating and drinking has forgone a fir and opted for a rearing Pegasus instead and the beguiling creature is pure bling, made from 2000 preserved and pearled roses and encrusted with Swarovski Crystals. It has an inviting presence despite not having any eyes. We love her.