‘Britain’s worst Christmas tree’ replaced with traditional spruce

Camborne spruces up its act after previous Yuletide centrepiece attracted derision and vandalism

(Camborne Town / Instagram)

A town in Cornwall has plumped for a traditional Christmas tree this year after a fake one put on display in 2017 was branded “the worst in Britain”.

Camborne’s 2017 tree - a modern conical structure lampooned as an “upside-down Cornetto” - did not even make it to Christmas Day after it was repeatedly vandalised and had its star stolen.

This year, hundreds of residents gathered to watch the lights being switched on for the town’s “beautiful” 25-foot traditional spruce in the town square.

Organiser Sharron Lipscombe-Manley, told the BBC this year’s “wonderful real tree” was a fitting centrepiece for Camborne’s festive celebrations.

Fellow residents said the vandalism of last year’s tree - which was damaged at least 10 times by climbers, and ended up being left with electric wires trailing from it - “had its benefits”, as the experience prevented those in charge from repeating last year’s mistakes.

Camborne resident Chris Gilkes said: “It's a real tree and it will give more spirit to this place than last year.”

Competition for the title of worst Christmas tree can be stiff.

Last year, a skeletal contender in Devon’s Ottery St Mary saw locals asking whether the council had tried to resurrect the tree from the year before.

In Southend, Essex, locals complained their town’s centrepiece was “all base and no tree”, after the unfortunate evergreen was positioned within an outsized wooden structure apparently meant to deter people from attempting to climb it.

In 2015 in Stockport, a small tree earned the nickname “the twig” from unimpressed residents, who suggested it had been found on a tip.

Perhaps the most famous of all terrible Christmas trees was US artist Paul McCarthy’s 2014 controversial “butt plug” tree which was erected in the middle of Paris’s elegant Place Vendôme.

Paul McCarthy’s inflatable Tree artwork in Place Vendôme, Paris (AFP)

It was rapidly destroyed by vandals.