Nothing says autumn and Halloween quite like a visit to a Pumpkin Patch and a Halloween Maze, and we were luckily invited to attend the opening day of Picking Patch's new site, Bolesworth Castle.
Cost, Location & Children Suitability:
Cost
Entering the pumpkin patch is free of charge, you just pay for what you pick which is fantastic value as there are a number of options for measuring how big your pumpkins are before you get to the till so you have an idea of how much it will cost.
The maze is chargeable at £8.50 for 2+ years or £30 for a family of 4 (2 adults & 2 children), under 2's are free of charge and there is a reduced fee for a carer ticket.
Location
Bolesworth Castle is situated 8 miles south of Chester so if you are this way it would be incredibly convenient, we travelled from Manchester and it took us around 90 minutes (partly due to a closure on the motorway). Just be sure to use the postcode CH3 9JJ rather than searching for the castle itself as this brings you out at the exit and you have to drive back round the other side (don’t ask how we know this......)
If there hadn't have been a closure then it would have taken about an hour which is usually our limit for days out for travel.
Suitability
The site is suitable for all the family, the maze was a little tricky underfoot so I would imagine that getting a pram around would be difficult but the rest is just fields as you would expect. Dogs are welcome in the grounds however they are not permitted in the maze or the patch so worth leaving the 4 legged members of the family at home this time.
The maze was appropriate for most ages I would say, the younger kids may be scared of some of the items within the maze but for my 2 (who are 6 and 9) they loved it.
The Experience:
We arrived and grabbed a wheelbarrow on the way in, we wasn't sure whether we would do the maze first or the patch so just in case. We ended up going in the maze first but they have a handy little parking spot for wheelbarrows or prams just at the entrance, we scanned our tickets and was advised where to go.
We headed in, everything was sign posted really well and each of the markers had a little story that you followed through to the end. Our first spot was a brilliant scene with a skeleton in the shower, one taking selfies and a dressing table set up with potion bottles and all sorts which Alice loved sitting at.
We headed deeper into the maze and found a beautifully laid table waiting for the ghouls and was set with some fascinating blue corn on the cob!
Then we found the witches house, both kids loved this bit and Seb had his very own little serial killer moment rocking back and forth in a rocking chair (...should I be concerned? ha) We looked into the house, admired the GIANT spiders webs and brooms and noticed that there was a sign asking us to write our spell onto a ribbon and attach it to the web, unfortunately this wasn’t mentioned to us when we scanned our tickets and we didn’t have any ribbon which another family advised they had been given at the front desk. This was a shame as the spells were mentioned later on in the maze as we just had to ignore this part.
After we escaped the witch’s house we ran into a dragon! We had to run through his mouth to continue, kids loved this bit running through and hiding and trying to scare us!
Now that we were safe from the dragon we carried on exploring the maze and found a Pet Cemetery, we looked at all the pets names before carrying on to the exit. It took around 20 minutes to get through but we could have spent longer had we been able to follow the prompts around the spells and ribbons.
After we came out of the maze we picked up our wheelbarrow and headed into the patch which was massive! There were signs all the way through teaching you something about pumpkins, the kids loved reading each one and learning something new. The even got to measure themselves to see how big they were in pumpkins!
We looked for some smaller ones this time as it’s too early to carve them but we saw some GIANT ones, we took some photos near a little shed that had been decorated before finding some little pumpkins to bring home.
One thing I really liked about this patch was that the pumpkins were all still on their stems, they hadn’t just been put into a field but they actually grew there. This means that while they’re on the stems there still growing and I loved this. We made sure to only take ones off the stems that we were buying to preserve the rest for other people (if only everybody did this).
We then wheeled our pumpkins to the measuring station and the kids loved putting each one into the box to see how big they were. We ended up with 2 tiny and 4 small ones which totalled £18
After we had taken the pumpkins back to the car we decided to grab some food from the stall on site, we had 2 kids sausage and chips (with drink) for £5 each, Graham had a pulled pork sandwich for about £7.50, I had some chips which were about £3.50 and we both had a tea each that was £3 each. Not the cheapest but food places like this usually aren’t so we were expecting it! We ate our lunch on the onsite picnic area and then the kids had a play on the giant spiders and bees before we headed home.
Tips & Recommendations:
- Wear wellies, even though it was really sunny the ground is still muddy underfoot
- Use the right postcode, you don’t want to end up lost like we did
- Don’t pick pumpkins unless you are going to buy them
Overall:
It was a good way to spend a few hours getting into the Halloween spirit, the maze was good but we would have like to have experienced the whole thing instead of only part. The patch was brilliant however and prices are reasonable for each of the sizes, there are loads of events coming up at Bolesworth Castle too which look amazing!
~ Cost: 4/5 (great value in the patch and for the pumpkins, maze is an average price especially for a family ticket. Only marked down for the cost of eating on site really)
~ Kid Friendly: 5/5 (they loved it, facilities available for them was brilliant)
~ The Experience: 5/5
As always the kids pick the experience score and they said "We loved the maze especially the dragon and picking pumpkins was really fun"
Check out more details for Bolesworth here and more locations and details from The Picking Patch here
This post is a PR Trip, I was offered free tickets to attend but not asked for any posts or recomendations as compensation. All opinions are my own.