National Trust - Your recommendations on where to go in the UK, with 3 year old

[mumma2cjh]

We went to Belton House today at GRantham and had a fantastic time. Walked around hte grounds, went on the adventure playground, on the little train, played Phoo sticks on a bridge, went around the gardens and greenhouse, ate in the restuarant - had a lovely family day, our 3 year old DS had a ball!!!!. Am now going to get NT membership.

anyone recommend any great/similar type places to visit within the uk?

If you are in that part of the UK generally, I'd really recommend Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire. It has the most fantastic home farm with rare breeds animals, loads of space to run about, woodland walks etc

In Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire you've got Calke Abbey, which is more for you as it is a "time capsule" house, whose last owner did nothing to the place at all for 40 years. Plus Clumber Park, which is a super parkland for walks, playing, picnicking and cycling

We are in SE London and have several lovely places near us in Kent and E Sussex. We use our NT membership a lot and you can buy your ds a "passport" for him to collect stamps and "postmarks" from each property you visit

Belton House is great. DD loved it last time we went (well the tea shop and the adventure playground, the house less so).

Second Clumber Park which is fantastic for cycling but unless you are a regular cyclist, I'd suggest hiring bikes for half a day and doing the round the lake path, handing the bikes back, going for lunch and then exploring on foot.

Sudbury Hall along the A50 has the Museum of Childhood, recently re-vamped. Not been for ages.

I gave up my NT membership this year because I didn't use it last year. I used to go far more when DD was pre-school than we do now.

Brimham rocks in Yorkshire is great - you can climb on the rocks.

We love our NT membership and have stayed in NT cottages too.

One of the main bonuses of the membership is that you can use their locations as a 'stop off'. They usually have at least a basic teashop, clean toilets and changing areas and lots of space for the kiddies to run around. It's a great opportunity to have a quick bite to eat and for the kiddies to release some energy, before continuing with your journey. Before our DS, we also used NT places as an excuse to get out of the car on long journeys and to have a snooze on a rug in the sunshine. Oh, those carefree days...!

Enjoy!

Culzean Castle in ayrshire is lovely. Plenty there for a whole day out

Funny I was going to say Culzean too, great park at the swan pond and loads of space to run around.