MNHQ needs your best "visitor attractions for children in the UK"

[AbbyMumsnet]

Afternoon all. We've got to pull together a piece for Sunday Telegraph v' quickly on the top ten visitor attractions for kids in the UK. (Hence the title of this thread.) Would love your help - and feel free to add a line or two about what makes your nomination worthy of inclusion! Thanks ever so.

Oh spamm, just read your post, it was just above mine. I used to go on the Watercress Line with my mum and big brother from Winchester to Alton to visit my Grandma when it was a real proper working railway line. Was in the late 60s. Feel very nostalgic! Next time I take my dcs to see my Mum in Winchester will def. take them on this trip. Thanks for the post.

Kittochside - visit the working farm, meet Blossom the calf, take a tractor ride, milk Daisy, the cutout cow, and have a bowl of hearty soup at the visitor centre...

www.nts.org.uk/Property/41/

Centre for Life in Newcastle. Makes science fun and they have fantastic events through the school holidays.
www.life.org.uk./

Fibernie has also recommended this one, Seven Stories. It is great!!!
www.sevenstories.org.uk/home/

The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum near Chichester in West Sussex - fabulous, safe place for children to run free. Lots of old houses with staff dressed up as Tudor or Medieval people. There are activities, food to try, lots of animals to feed and see, a lake, a great (and v healthy) cafe - we love it.

Also Haredown All Terrain Boarding Centre in East Dean near Chichester - so much fun, with special sledges and karts for younger children.

But my kids love Farmer Giles near Salisbury best of all. They never get tired of it! And the owners and staff are so lovely.

DaphneHarvey

Definitely do - it is great. Not cheap, but if you plan, you can make a day of it, stopping off half way at Ropley for a picnic and to see the engines in the yard.

They do loads of special events - look here

I hope you enjoy!

Our favourites are:

Landmark Forest theme park near Aviemore
Urquhart Castle, Loch Ness
Chessington
Alton Towers
Moors Valley
Splashdown, Poole (indoor waterslides)
Odds Farm Park
Science Museum
Natural History Museum
Museum of London
@Bristol
SSGreat Britain
Warwick Castle
The New Forest

Just took my boys to paradise park, and there was children aged 11, 9, 5, 4, 3 and 1 and they all loved it there, will definately being going back there, it was a bit cold, but there was places that you could go inside to warm up and grab a hot drink!

Wimpole Hall (NT), Farm and Gardens.
Great day out with a lovely NT restaurant.

Near Royston, Herts.

Another vote for Beckonscott. And Alice Holt Forest near Farnham is lovely too.

The thing about ALnwick Castle is I think those old landowners are ripping off the proles by charging a lot ofmoney to get into the castle and then charging you a whopping amount all over again to visit the gardens.

And then they buy teh most expensive velvet wallpaper to do up the dining room in original style for the duke's birthday.

My crossness at the injustice of past bufton tuftons taking land, splitting it up between them and then getting the plebs to pay them for the privilege of eking a living, marred my enjoyment slightly.

However, this is perhaps another thread.

Pointydog
I know that it is incredibly expensive and I was a bit that we had to pay extra for the gardens, but it was a fab day out and you really can spend the whole day there.

And tbh, I don't think that the gardens were cheap to construct.

Thanks for the link Spamm . We'll go in Easter hols.

They got a sizable lottery grant for that garden, if I remember right. The word in my head is 'fleece'.

Really, I should start a thread about this.

Another vote for the Landmark Trust place up near Aviemore somewhere - probably the best day out we have ever had, anywhere. The water slide is amazing and you also get to see red squirrels, do a tree top walk etc. Really really good and excellent value for money.

Chester Zoo is great, especially the bat house and the orangutans - but it's way better out of season than when you're rammed in with everybody else in the summer.

The Black Country museum is pretty good (near Tipton) with a chance to go down a mine, take part in a Victorian lesson etc.

The Galleries of Justice in Nottingham - all of us except dd1 loved this and would like to go back but she was terrified and won't contemplate it, even though it was about six years ago! You get to take part in a mock trial, see "prisoners" etc - great fun.

Colchester Zoo (so much less depressing than London Zoo)
Coram's Fields playground in central London - a great place to let off steam for kids if you're shopping in the centre of town.
Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood - perfect for a rainy day
Livesey Museum, Old Kent Rd. - this is a fabulous children's museum, completely hands on, although rather tiny.
Diana Memorial Park - great for a sunny day

I'll pick one that's been well voted for already and hope to get it in - Natural History/Pitt Rivers museums in Oxford. Mainly because they are FREE and truly great - I love the drawers full of things to handle and guess. And they are next to a park.

But do point out that it's only open to the public from 12 noon onwards, and that there is No Cafe or picnic area in the bulding. took me a very long time to remember both these things.

bedgebury pinetum in Kent has a wonderful outdoor adventure playground in the forest and great cycle trails,...£6 to park all day, and that's it!
also love
princess di playground
legoland!
Groombridge place
Scotney castle
bewl water

Oh yes - the shrunken heads are very cool!

We also like the V&A and the British Museums - plenty to look at but fewer people than the Natural History and Science Museums (love them but the crowds do my head in).

The Castle Museum in York is fab too - how did I forget that?

Thanks for all these. Don't worry, haven't forgotten Wales - already had that info as did a big half term round up of places for one of the papers. Good to see that all the things I think are good are getting such great reviews! Have all I need for now, but feel free to keep adding for future MN'er reference. I can only recommend things that are going to be open from this weekend, which rules out Alton Towers and a fair few other places that dont open until Easter - but have more than enough, although any N. Irish suggestions would be welcomed!

Well, I hope you mention just how costly Alnwick Castle is and insert the word 'fleece' in one form or another.

Were there shrunken heads? I remember the elongated skulls.

Oh pointy, you're obsessed! I guess all those other landowners/disney subsidiaries/private owners are all doin' it for free an all?

Alnwick is worth the hideous mindblowing expense!

shrunken, stretched, who cares. Sounds like good family fun.

free at this end --------- being fleeced over here

There's a happy ground