AS part of nationwide festivities next week for the Queen’s birthday celebrations, Okehampton Hamlets Parish Council will be lighting up a beacon for everyone to admire.

To celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday, The Prince of Wales will invite The Queen to light the principal beacon on April 21 at Windsor Castle.

This will be followed by the lighting of a number of beacons along the Long Walk, Windsor Great Park and then more than 1,000 beacons will be lit throughout the United Kingdom, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, UK overseas territories and a Commonwealth country to celebrate the landmark birthday.

The Hamlets parish council will light a beacon at Blackdown, behind Okehampton Camp on Thursday, April 21 which will be lit at 8pm. There will be good views of it from the east of the town and the ring road car park will also be a good vantage point. There is limited car parking and people will need to walk to get closer to the beacon.

Chair of Okehampton Hamlets parish Council Derek Webber said: ‘This is a momentus occasion and the parish council thought we should definitely take part. The beacon will be on Blackdown, at the back of the camp so it should be visible from the whole of Okehampton.

There will be plenty of vantage points or people can walk up to it. We wanted to get it as high as possible so people all over the town can see it.

‘It’s one of these occasions that probably won’t happen again.’

Bruno Peek, pageantmaster for the Queen’s 90th Birthday Beacons, said: ‘It has been an enormous privilege to be able to organise this amazing community event to celebrate the 90th birthday of Her Majesty The Queen. I am delighted to see so many organisations playing their part.’