Family days out

Wimpole Estate – National Trust

| Helen

Location – SG8 0BW

Cost- All the costs below include Gift aid (which is obviously optional), There are also family tickets available, for more info visit their site.

National Trust members – free

Wimpole Estate – Adults £18.95, Children £9.50, under 5s free

Farm and gardens – Adults £13.80, Children £6,85, under 5s free

Information – 

Wimpole Estate is a National Trust property located in Royston on the Cambridgeshire/Hertfordshire border. You can easily spend the whole day there are lots of bits to see once you get in. On the estate there is a playground, the house and gardens and a farm, We didn’t get to visit everything this time round as we spent most of our day on the farm but we plan to visit again soon so will have to update this with more information when I have it.

The farm has lots of animals including shire horses, sheep, cows and pigs. They have different animal sessions on through out the day (we saw the pig feeding which was something else!) and you can get fairly close to everything so its fun for younger kids. They have bits dotted around the farm that kids can enjoy such as dress up and mimicking milking a cow.

The park is pretty good (and large) with lots of nice wooden equipment. It includes slides and other standard playground bits but also has a wobble board, bug hotel and hanging rings so has a fair bit. The gardens are pretty with lots of room to run off some steam.

The house costs extra to visit, I really enjoyed looking around it (we visited in 2018) and there are plenty of different bits to learn about and enjoy but if your little ones get bored easily its not really worth paying the extra to see. It isn’t pushchair friendly and you have to wear over shoes and remove backpacks before looking around.

Out of all the National Trust properties we haven’t been here too much but actually really enjoyed it. The farm is great to visit with children and we plan to visit a lot more over the year.

 

Free Children’s Trail – Leighton Buzzard

| Helen

The children’s trail in Leighton Buzzard is a little hidden gem! It is free to take part in and takes you around some lovely parts of Leighton Buzzard so is a good way to spend a few hours. If you wanted to stop in the park and have a picnic and a play and go for a coffee along the route it could easily be spread out to a whole day thing so is a great idea for a cheap day out,

To take part you need to pick up a free activity sheet from the library. The sheet provides you with little clues to help you find hidden statues, writing and street art. This is used to fill in some missing letters from selected words on the sheet,

It is suitable for children of different ages. We went out with a group of children with ages ranging from 3-10 and they all enjoyed it. With older ones you can leave them more to it and younger ones will enjoy more guidance. It is all pushchair friendly and is a good way to get a bit of exercise without it being too much for younger ones.

Some of them were difficult to find with street art being a little faded with time but we managed to find them all within about 2 hours (including a park stop). The statues were really cute and the route was really pretty in places and the whole thing was a really pleasant afternoon out. It is was surprise how much we all enjoyed it.

Once you have finished you can take your completed sheet back to the library and the kids get a little prize.

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