Castlefield Viaduct to transform into 'magical grotto' as it launches after-hours light trail

Just days after it was hinted that Manchester’s popular sky park could become a garden bridge - connecting Pomona to the city centre - Castlefield Viaduct’s winter programme has been confirmed.

Encouraging visitors to step out of the busy city streets and into a ‘winter wonderland of nature and peace’, this year’s festivities will include lantern-lit wanders, a chill out space and festive plant tours. The viaduct will also be open all the way through the winter holidays until Saturday, January 2.

The viaduct only opened to visitors in July 2022 as a year-long pilot, but has become a hit with residents and day trippers. The National Trust - which runs the free-entry site - extended the pilot scheme to autumn 2024 last summer and have recently employed landscape architects BDP to come up with plans on how it could look in the future, with plans for a 1 km-long ‘garden bridge’ in the works.

READ MORE: Castlefield Viaduct could become 1km-long 'garden bridge' linking Pomona to city centre

READ MORE: The festive light trails in and around Greater Manchester this Christmas 2023

For the festive season, the National Trust has brought back the ‘Lantern Lates’ As the nights draw in Castlefield Viaduct will be transformed into a ‘magical and sparkling’ grotto.

From 3.30pm to 5pm every day, visitors can drop by to wander along the light trail and visit the garden in the sky in a different way. While Lantern Lates was launched last year, it was only open to bookings, whereas this winter, it’s part of our usual free, walk-up opening times.

In two new firsts for the Viaduct, their festive season will also include The Winter Garden Tour on selected dates throughout December. Nature has long associations with this time of the