By Terry Miller
According to a press release, acclaimed drama “Downton Abbey” on Masterpiece on PBS will get a special treat on New Year’s Day when a new float celebrating the show debuts in the 127th Rose Parade® on Jan. 1, 2016.
The Crawley family estate has been painstakingly recreated for the float, complete with a magnificent landscape depicting English rose gardens and rolling green lawns and a 1919 Bentley driven by the family chauffeur.
The float, themed “The Final Adventure” (a nod and a wink to the Rose Parade’s theme of “Find Your Adventure”), celebrates the final season “Downton Abbey” on PBS beginning Jan. 3, 2016, at 9 p.m. eastern time.
The float will feature more than 60,000 roses in 20 different varieties, including velvety Roseberry and Cherry O; fragile pink Titanic and Priceless; and English garden roses, rarely seen on Rose Parade floats. Oriental lilies, snapdragons, hypericum, and a variety of orchids will provide accents throughout the garden.
A custom-made elevator lift was created for “Downton Abbey’s” central tower. This lift allows the tower to drop straight down into the center of the castle so that it can pass under power lines and bridges. The float is 18 feet wide by 24 feet high and weighs approximately 15 tons. The float, designed by Charles Meier from Paradiso Parade Floats, took approximately 2,000 hours to construct and will take about 6,000 hours to decorate.
“Paradiso is honored and delighted to collaborate with PBS on their Tournament of Roses float debut,” said Charles Meier, creative director of Paradiso Parade Floats. “I was hooked on ‘Downton Abbey’ from the first episode and have been a devoted fan ever since.”
