Filmed during the opening weekend in November 2017, this Roberts London visit records Hyde Park transformed by Winter Wonderland’s illuminated rides, ice rink, Christmas stalls and festive food.
For six weeks each winter, part of Hyde Park becomes a temporary town of lights, rides, market stalls and entertainment. The scale can be difficult to understand from outside: Winter Wonderland is not simply a Christmas market or a funfair, but a combination of both, expanded across a substantial part of the park.
This Roberts London film was published on 18 November 2017, during the event’s opening weekend. Winter Wonderland had opened the previous evening and was scheduled to continue until New Year’s Day 2018. Entry to the site was free, while the rides, ice rink and ticketed attractions were paid separately.
The film follows an evening walk through the event, moving between the Christmas market, brightly illuminated fairground rides, the bandstand ice rink and the food stalls that form an important part of the experience.
Arriving after dark
The visit begins after dark, when Winter Wonderland is at its most visually distinctive. Barry enters among small wooden stalls and the first clusters of fairground lights, wrapped for a cold November evening.
Hyde Park is still recognisable at the edges. Mature trees remain visible above the roofs and rides, but the ordinary openness of the park has been replaced by narrow routes between temporary buildings, attractions and crowds.
Almost immediately, the observation wheel appears beyond the market stalls. It serves as a useful landmark throughout the film, repeatedly reappearing between roofs and rides as the route turns across the site.
A Christmas market beside the fairground
The market area uses timber façades, strings of lights and traditional festive decorations. Some stalls sell gifts and sweets, while others serve hot drinks and food. The effect is closer to a temporary village than a single line of market huts.
The film pauses at a brightly lit sweet stall offering candy floss, popcorn, lollies and hot chocolate. Displays of this kind sit naturally between the market and the fairground: part seasonal shop, part amusement attraction.
That mixture defines much of Winter Wonderland. Visitors can walk through the site without using a ride, moving instead between the lights, food counters and themed buildings. At the same time, the fairground remains constantly visible and audible around them.
Rides on a European scale
The larger rides dominate the skyline. Illuminated towers, swinging attractions and roller coasters rise above the roofs, creating a very different silhouette from Hyde Park’s usual winter landscape.
Among them is Munich Looping, the portable roller coaster with five vertical loops that had joined Winter Wonderland in 2016. Its coloured track is especially effective at night, when each loop is picked out against the dark sky.
The film also records Wilde Maus XXL and a succession of other rides and funhouse façades. Their architecture is deliberately excessive: painted scenes, giant illuminated lettering and hundreds of bulbs compete for attention within a crowded visual field.
Ice skating around the bandstand
One of the quieter scenes comes at the ice rink built around Hyde Park’s Victorian bandstand.
Strings of small lights form a canopy above the ice, converging on the white bandstand at the centre. Skaters move at different speeds around it, some confidently and others holding hands or finding their balance near the edge.
The rink provides a clear connection between the event and the park itself. Unlike the larger mechanical rides, it incorporates a permanent Hyde Park structure and gives the familiar bandstand a temporary winter setting.
In 2017, the programme also included the Magical Ice Kingdom’s Deep Sea Adventure, Cinderella on Ice, circus performances and the Bavarian Village. The film does not attempt to enter every ticketed attraction. Instead, it records the experience of walking through the public areas and seeing how the separate parts connect.
Food, warmth and the closing walk
Food stalls appear throughout the evening. Their counters and signs add another layer of light, while the smell of cooking carries across the paths between attractions.
The final stop is for a hot filled roll beside an open fire. It is a practical ending to a cold walk and one of the most recognisable parts of a winter fairground visit: something hot to eat while the lights and rides continue nearby.
By the end of the film, Winter Wonderland feels less like an event placed inside Hyde Park than a temporary district with its own routes, landmarks and rhythm. The observation wheel, roller coasters, bandstand rink, food stalls and market roofs repeatedly overlap in the same views.
The 2017 edition was the eleventh Winter Wonderland. This archive film preserves its opening-weekend appearance from ground level: bright, noisy, cold and deliberately excessive, with central London’s largest park briefly transformed for Christmas.
Adapted from the Roberts London film: Hyde Park Winter Wonderland London at Christmas, first published on 18 November 2017.
