If you think of a tree house, you would probably think a small boxy wooden abomination dangerously secured high up in the only large tree in the garden. If you wanted to get creative, you could give it a door, maybe some carpet, perhaps a TV even? But since it will probably just get trashed by the kids and abandoned, why bother?
So how about spending 3.5 million pounds on one? Just think about how many rope ladders and cup-and-string phones you could buy for that! Well how about spending that money on a giant, five storey, elevated mansion suspended across 16 lime trees. Well someone DID think about that, that someone is the Duchess of Northumberland. She commissioned the leviathan to be built in the grounds of Alnwick Gardens, used to film Harry Potter.
It is spread across 6,000 sq ft with over 4,000 sq ft of walkways and bridges suspended 56 feet above the ground. It features a 120-seat restaurant as well as three conference rooms, classrooms, cafes and turrets. It even has an open fireplace… safety first huh?
The entire structure is bolted, roped and joined together in what appears to be a deliberately messy configuration of shingles, beams and of course, branches. It was built as part of the largest garden projects Britain has ever seen.
The whole thing is pretty much wheelchair accessible and open to all ages. The duchess, a mother of four who, as a child, was an inveterate tree-climber and says “There was a survey last year which found that a third of children aren’t allowed to climb trees, we want to provide that missing challenge, including an element of risk. And why shouldn’t the less able-bodied, of all ages, see life from the trees?”
The garden project has created 300 new jobs and attracted over half a million visitors in the last year making it the north-east’s top paid attraction. It is now the third most popular garden in the country. Just under 50% of the funding for the project was from the public sector which will be repaid with over 150 million pounds contribution to the local economy over the next 10 years. Alnwick’s next big attraction will be the artificial mist-shrouded Poison Garden, which opens in April.
In constructing the treehouse, the builders used imported materials from timber suppliers and hardwood suppliers around the world and used woods from Canadian Pine to Scandanavian Redwood.