The first of more than 4,200 Diamond Jubilee beacons were lit across the globe in celebration of the Queen’s 60-year reign today.

A crowd of people sang God Save The Queen as a beacon was lit in the town of Blenheim in Marlborough, New Zealand.

In Tonga a group of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides took part in a ceremony to light their country’s beacon, while Australian prime minister Julia Gillard will have the honour at Parliament House in Canberra.

The Queen will light the final beacon from the concert stage where Stevie Wonder, JLS, Sir Elton John and a host of stars will perform in her honour.

Bruno Peek, pageantmaster of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee beacons, said the number of communities who had registered to hold celebration bonfires was “truly amazing” and easily surpassed the 2,012 they hoped to attract.

After the pop stars have paid a musical tribute to the monarch in the shadow of Buckingham Palace, the Queen will walk out in front of the crowds and set the national beacon ablaze.

She will carefully place a diamond, made from crystal glass, into a special pod at 10.30pm, triggering the lighting of the last beacon nearby in The Mall.

Mr Peek, who organised the Golden Jubilee beacons in 2002, said beacons would be lit during the evening throughout the United Kingdom, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, the Commonwealth and other overseas territories.

He said: “We set out to have 2,012 beacons, which would have been the most ever for this type of occasion. To have reached double that figure reflects the national and worldwide respect and affection for the Queen and the desire to celebrate her 60-year reign.”

The network of beacons that will criss-cross the UK will be placed on historic landmarks, hill-top vantage points and famous mountains.

On Hadrian’s Wall 60 beacons will be lit in sequence - one for each year of the Queen’s reign.

The highest peaks of the UK’s four nations will be lit up to mark the 60-year milestone by teams from four charities.

Forces charity Help for Heroes will conquer Ben Nevis in Scotland, Walking With The Wounded will climb Snowdon in Wales, Cancer Research UK plans to scale England’s Scafell Pike, while Field of Life take on Northern Ireland’s highest peak of Slieve Donard in the Mourne mountain range in County Down.

There will also be beacons on the battlements of the Tower of London, at St James’s Palace, Lambeth Palace, on the parapet of Windsor Castle, on the Long Walk in Windsor Great Park, at Sandringham, as well as at Balmoral, Edinburgh’s Palace of Holyroodhouse and at Killyleagh Castle in Northern Ireland.

The Treetops Hotel in the Aberdare national park in Kenya - where the Queen was told by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1952 her father George VI had died and she was now monarch - will also light a beacon.