In one of the biggest present production lines outside of Lapland, a group of elves have been hand-wrapping more than 25,000 festive gifts at Longleat.

The gigantic gift-wrapping exercise began back in October as staff at the Wiltshire attraction prepared to welcome thousands of excited children for the start of their Santa Express trains on Friday, November 15.

The resulting present mountain was so large it had to be stored in a separate warehouse before being transported out to Santa’s Grotto where each present was individually addressed to a specific child in readiness for their meeting with the great man himself.

Longleat’s Steve Mytton said: “Christmas really does come early here as we have to start the wrapping process in early October to ensure we have all the presents ready.

“Santa insists that each gift is categorised for a specific age group and gender to ensure all the children go away happy and it’s a huge undertaking.

“We wrap so many presents that we have to have an almost continuous conveyor belt of gifts leaving the warehouse and arriving at Santa’s woodland grotto.

“Generally the ages of children who meet Santa is from little babies to young teenagers, but we have had special requests for people up to the age of 70 to receive a gift from Father Christmas.

“Due to their popularity we estimate we will be running close to 400 trains over the festive period with Santa Claus even agreeing to stay on until early January to cope with demand,” he added.

The Santa Express is part of a series of Christmas events and activities taking place at Longleat over the festive period.

The Wiltshire estate is also home to the UK’s only giant singing Christmas tree which stands more than 50-feet-tall and features 300,000 lights.

Longleat House has been transformed into an enchanted world filled with fairy-tale characters and there is also a giant outdoor ice skating rink.

For full details of Christmas at Longleat visit www.longleat.co.uk/christmas or call 01985 844400.