farmstays for family in UK (no more than three hours travel from London)

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Can anyone recommend any farm stays - I'd love the kids to be able to collect eggs and feed animals and have the run of fields etc. In my ideal world there is also a swimming pool and bed and breakfast.

It's in Cornwall, Wadebridge near Newquay, so probably a couple of hours outside your remit for travel. however it completely fits your remit otherwise even down to the pool & B&B. Totally geared to the kids, and Lucy that runs it is absolutely lovely.

higherlankfarm.co.uk/

We stayed here - you can collect eggs and DD got to bottle feed lambs - but no pool and it's self-catering. You can get an Ocado delivery though.

www.warbornefarm.co.uk/

Poppinghole Farm in E Sussex and Gladwins Farm in Suffolk

Coombe Mill is lovely www.coombemill.com

This thread is perfect, we've been looking for a similar thing! We found longdownfarm.co.uk/ in the new forest which looks nice, but you can't stay over

It's slightly outside your time travel but I second Coombe mill in Cornwall. It's just fantastic and has other bits and pieces on site.

We didn't feel like we had to go out loads as there was so much to do.

My daughters bottle fed baby lambs and we used to go out every evening to feed our scraps to the pigs!

Combs mill does have a pool but it has an agreement with a holiday park 2 minutes up the road and you can use theirs (it did when we went anyway)

Featherdown farms is great but probably too much roughing it for you!

Look on farmstay.co.uk for b&bs on working farms. You won't be able to collect eggs/feed animals/run around anywhere on all of them, but will be able to at some.

@AngryAngie I hope you don't mind my asking, did you happen to travel from London or by train? Is Brockenhurst the nearest train station, and is the farm accessible by taxis? The farm looks so lovely, I'm very tempted.

Was there plenty to do for a toddler for a few days?

This is great. I will check them all out thank you!

@teddy50 we took the train from London Waterloo to Brockenhurst, then changed to go to Lymington station. It’s a 20-30 minute walk from that station depending on whether you can find the right path or not. I expect you can book a taxi.

If we had a car it would have made a great base to explore the New Forest from. Without a car you are restricted to the local, rural area. You can take walks and look at the animals on the farm but could run out of things to do. We couldn’t get mobile reception or internet either. I do recommend it in general, just with those caveats.

Are any of these particularly good for older children? Mine are 11 & 8. They love animals but some farm stays seem more geared to pre schoolers.

Second vote for Feather Down Farms. They're all over the country, more like glancing then camping.
Loved everyone I've been too, especially the one in Alton, Hampshire.