Six months ago Lady Leicester and Catherine Zoll of Holkham Estate asked to meet with me to discuss a sustainable Christmas display for part of their candlelight tours. Every year the estate spends a month decorating the corridors and rooms with Christmas props that they have collected over the years. They invite creators to manage spaces and mine was going to be The Old Kitchen.

We first met here - a wonderful Victorian kitchen with black walls, copper pots and pans and incredibly high ceilings. It was a dream space and we bounced ideas of what to do with it back and forth like lightening. I showed an image from a dried composition I’d made earlier in the year that I thought would offset the copper - orange, yellow and lime green. It was an unusual choice for Christmas but I was thrilled when we agreed on it. In fact the whole process was seamless - we just clicked about the vision.

We also discussed our sustainability goals - no plastic, everything made locally and no imported or dyed dried flowers. I’d coordinated a sustainable Norfolk wedding shot previously and knew of a ceramist Eleanor Torbati and an eco fabric dyer The Way of Tea, who I suggested for the table scape. We agreed that if we could source the flowers from the walled gardens, this would be the most eco friendly option. So joy oh joy - we booked in a day for Lady Leicester, Catherine and myself to have a tour of the gardens with the head gardeners and see what we could cut. Usually I grow flowers for my own weddings - I know the hard graft that goes into getting beautiful produce and I often feel a bit sad to see it go. This was a dream scenario - I got to cut bucket loads of the most wonderful flowers and foliage without having to put in the hard work AND I got to hold onto them for drying and later using. Walking around the walled gardens (I went back once a month for three months) was an utter privilege. My flower field has only been going for two years and was a total blank canvas so having established shrubs to cut from - I felt like a child in a sweet shop.

Once everything was loaded up in the van, we took it back to the hall to be dried in the cellars, specifically the Old Bakery. It was very hot down there and almost completely dark - the absolute perfect conditions for drying. Seeing everything hung up was in itself a piece of art and the colours looked amazing against the black metal of the old ovens. I knew one thing - the colours were spot on… marigolds, hydrangeas, strawflowers, dahlias, alliums, drumstick scabious, lobster claws, alchemilla mollis, fennel, herbs - the list is endless. Nothing went mouldy - an absolute dream (it takes weeks for things to dry in my damp stone cottage).

The cellar with everything hanging up to dry.

In November, I returned for a week long stay at the Hall for a completely immersive experience. I live over an hour away and the drive times two, five days a week would’ve taken it out of me on top of working long hours so I was pretty chuffed to be allowed to stay on site. Also, between you and me, I was totally petrified about the scale of the project. I figured I would start at sunrise and work into the night like a true Christmas elf to get it finished. Added to the pressure was the fact the whole thing was being filmed. Creeping back to my room at night, through the marble hall and along the corridors, was an experience in itself and embarrassingly the camera crew filmed me doing this one night.

On day one, all of the dried materials were laid out on the floors. I took a slow and steady tour of what I had to play with, logging all the ingredients. I didn’t think we had enough. The timber frame, constructed by the estate’s porters, was a lot larger at the bottom than the design we had initially mapped out and I wanted to be sick.

The best thing to do was start. I wrapped the timber frame with chicken wire. This was going to hold the flowers in place. The frame was five feet above the table and I spent several hours with my shoes off, walking up and down the table, twisting and turning to get everything secured. It was quite surreal imagining all the pies that made been made where my feet were treading! Then I started filling the frame with the bulky bits - like alchemilla mollis and hydrangea - and then architectural, translucent seed pods that caught in the light streaming through the high windows.

I could tell that the team at Holkham were nervous too - at the end of day one, the flowery frame looked a bit rubbish - I had a plan to cover the mechanics first but this stage was pretty uninspiring. One of the porters who had built the frame looked at it and said, ‘I just cant see it. I just can’t see it.’

I wanted to die, on the spot. I was a fraud. It was a disaster. What was I thinking? But I kept calm outwardly and said, ‘keep coming back and let me know when you do see it.’

One thing was certain - the design needed adapting - there was not enough of the small stuff to completely cover the legs of the frame. Luckily, Catherine suggested I paint the legs black - what a stroke of genius that was. I think you’ll agree.

Day two was easier - the bulk was done and now I could get fancy. The people who walked through the room were starting to look less dubious and more uplifted. I worked into the night tying in dried herbs and marigolds to the base of the frame. The smell was incredible and I couldn’t help thinking again of the cooks who used these ingredients from the garden. What would they think about the woman on their table using their produce to decorate instead of cook with?

Day three and the frame was finished. Now it was time to clear the table and start working on the finer details. I had two volunteers - Jenny and Tish - from the Fakenham Flower Ladies who constructed collars for the hurricane lamps.

I set to work climbing the shelves to make allium garlands wrapped in fairy lights. We couldn’t finish the table until the fabric runner arrived so I turned my attention to a dried Christmas tree. I had no real plan for this, just some ideas from a marquee wedding I’d done in the summer, and actually, I think the tree is my favourite piece.

Day four I was going to run out of stuff. Definitely. So I nipped around the estate in my van looking for things that had already dried in situ - good thing it was November. The walled gardens, now closed to etc public, were full of seed pods, hydrangea heads and I found a fallen down oak behind The Hall. This was a real moment for me. There was no one in the garden, not even gardeners, and I felt absolutely buzzing with creativity and my magpie eyes were on. Using what I grow for weddings, this is not unheard for me. I’m also running up the hill to sip something extra for a bouquet so although this sounds stressful I was in my element.

Day five and the fabric runner was in place and I could finish off all the little details like napkin ties. The relief was incredible. I could finally unclench my jaw and my whole body ached but my soul was soothed. The head gardener dropped by and was totally bowled over. It was a moment for him too to see his walled garden brought inside the hall. The porter also came to see me. He said - ‘I just want you to know this is incredible. Absolutely wonderful. Im astounded.’

I may have shed a happy tear on the way home.

Now the joy will come from seeing all the lights turned on, the candles lit and the table laid. Fingers crossed all my swears and frustrations will have been wiped from the TV show!