Cliffords Tower, York, North Yorkshire

Clifford's Tower in York is the keep of the old York Castle. It has a very long history and has been used for a variety of things, including a debtors prison. It is now owned by English Heritage and is one of Yorkshire's most popular tourist attractions, mainly for the stunning views of York it affords.

The first thing you will notice about Clifford's Tower is that it's not very pram friendly. This attraction is not very good for babies and toddlers. 

My two older girls (aged 8 and 5) went for the St George's Day celebrations with their Grandma. She is an English Heritage pass holder which means not only does she get in free, but she can take up to six children with her too. Sorted.

They went on a treasure hunt to find miniature dragons which had letters on them. The letters spelt out a phrase. It kept the girls busy for a while. They really enjoyed it.

They looked at a model of how the castle used to be.

They had a bit of a look out of the windows over York.

And then they borrowed some things from the gift shop to recreate the tale of St George and the dragon. The things you can get away with when you go out with grandparents!

Then they climbed the steps all the way back down again, and fed the geese and their young goslings in the River Ouse.

All in all, they had a great day out, and I got to catch up on some of my own work. Win!

Info -  There is limited parking at the Tower (pay and display) but it gets very full. You are better off parking in one of the nearby public car parks and walking over. 

Tickets are £4.20 for adults with concessions, or free with an English Heritage pass. It is open from 10am with different closing times depending on the year.

Top tip - there are no toilets on site (damn those Norman invaders and their lack of planning), so go before you go.

You can get more information from the English Heritage website.


Written by Joanne Brady

Elsham Hall Gardens and Country Park, Brigg, Lincolnshire

Elsham Hall Gardens and Country Park is a great outdoorsy place in North Lincolnshire just off the M180 motorway.

We visited on a glorious bank holiday Monday, and it seemed that plenty of other people thought it was a good idea too. It opened at 11 o clock, just as we were arriving and the cars were cramming in, and there was already a queue (not too long though) at the entrance desk.

Elsham Hall Gardens is all outdoors and probably wouldn't be as pleasant in inclement weather, but today, on a sunny spring day, it was absolutely gorgeous.

First of all, we walked up to the lake and fed the fish (you can buy fish food from the shop - 3 bags for £2). The fish are huge and you could clearly see them coming to the surface. A lot of the paths you need to follow are close to water, so it's not entirely toddler friendly - especially with the twins who just love running in opposite directions. 

Then we had some snacks in one of the estate's many picnic areas. (There is a cafe in the main courtyard but we didn't try it out apart from the cups of tea). There are loads of places to sit and eat throughout the park.

Then we had a look round the old cottage which was built as part of a heritage project. The girls were fascinated with the yellow daub and the spinning wheel.

The walled garden is simply beautiful and contains lots of flowerbeds, sculptures, peacocks, a row of aviaries, and enclosures containing goats and sheep.

The guinea pig pen was empty, which was disappointing, but there was a great big hill (when you're two) to climb up and roll down. Win!

A short walk through to the lake-side where we had our main picnic, then on to the butterfly walk, which didn't contain too many butterflies but had some excellent insect sculptures.

A short walk later and we were at the children's playground. It truly is a fantastic playground with something to suit all ages and abilities. Again though, some of it could be a little too challenging for toddlers but with supervision, it's all good fun. Chickens and turkeys run free here, and you can have a little break and watch the sheep if it all gets a bit too much effort.

This was my children's favourite park of the grounds. We played for about an hour in here, and then came back a bit later too.

Then on to the animals. There are guinea pigs (hurrah!), rabbits, chickens, and some very hairy, noisy pigs called Ant and Dec. We were allowed in to the rabbit enclosure (under keeper Rachel's supervision) to stroke a very friendly rabbit called Honey.

As we went on Bank Holiday Monday, we went back to the main courtyard, where there was a children's entertainer. He was pretty good and kept the children occupied for a good half hour. We had some ice lollies from the nearby gift shop while we watched. Then a quick look round the forge shop, and the craft shop, and we went back to the playground and the animals again.

Overall we spent five hours here, from 11am to 4pm, which is about as long as it opens daily. There are toilets all over the place, with basic but adequate baby changing facilities. The paths through the park were a bit narrow in places for our double buggy but we got everywhere we needed to be. Would be fine for single buggies. There were lots of people with babies in prams (under 2s are free) on the day of our visit.

The walks round the lake, through the arboretum, and the woods are gorgeous. This would be a great place to go without children too. There really is something for everyone here.

The only bad point was that you enter and exit the park through the gift shop. Having to battle a double buggy through the already narrow shop and past the ever-growing queue for the ice-cream counter was not fun. We did find a passage slightly further back we could have used, but it was not signposted. This was really our only sticky point, and it certainly didn't spoil our enjoyment of the day.

Entry £5.50 per adult with concessions, £4.50 per child. Children under 2 are free.

For more information please visit their website at www.elshamhall.co.uk

Disclosure - we were given complimentary entry in order to do this review

Written by Joanne Brady

Carnglaze Caverns, Liskeard, Cornwall

Located just outside of Liskeard in Cornwall, Carnglaze Caverns is an old slate mine open to the public for a small price: £6 per adult, £4 per child (up to 15 years old).

The caves themselves are brilliant – it doesn’t take long to walk through, perhaps 30-45 minutes depending on how long you can get the kids to stand still for whilst you read various information sheets, but it is a fantastic experience. 

The price of a ticket also includes entry to the surrounding gardens and woodlands, so you can make an afternoon of your trip easily. We were there for about 3 ½ hours in total. The gardens are beautiful, and are filled with little fairy and dragon statues to occupy little boys and girls.

There is also a hobbit house where children are invited to write down their wishes on a piece of paper (so make sure you take pens and paper!) and leave it on the table inside for the fairies to collect at night.

There are two or three souvenir shops in the grounds also, selling all sorts of things from sparkly rocks to fairies for your own gardens. 

Getting there was a bit of a nightmare. We got a bus from Liskeard town centre which took about 30 minutes but the buses don’t run past 2pm and the nearest bus stop to the caves is a 1-mile walk. However, once we got there, the lady who was running the whole show informed us that it was only a 10 minute drive back to the train station so returning was a whole lot easier. Easier still if you drive, though. 

Obviously the caves are not a good idea if you have prams or wheelchairs; lots of very uneven stairs down into the caves and even in the gardens mean you’re really going to struggle. Don’t worry if you have lots of bags with you though – we’d been camping the night before and the lady was more than happy to store our bags in the ticket office for us so that we could enjoy ourselves without being weighed down by sleeping bags, changes of clothes etc. 

The only downfall is that it is right out in the sticks and they do not have a café or restaurant, so take a picnic with you!! They do have a couple of vending machines that sell things like soup, crisps and chocolate though if you forget. 

For more information on Carnglaze Caverns, you can visit their website.

Hayley is favourite aunty to Joshua, aged 4. You can visit her photography website here.

Exploring Beverley with our Spy Mission Treasure Trail

We have been sent a Spy Mission from Treasuretrails.co.uk. There are several trails available, customised to towns and cities throughout the UK. We were sent the one for our local market town, Beverley in East Yorkshire, so we thought we'd go out today and give it a try.

We set off with our binoculors, pen, map and notepad (just incase).

The trail has a story - the evil genius, Baron Ivor Grudge is planning to blow up the bells of St Mary's and it is our mission to crack the code to stop him. We follow clues, write the answers in a grid, and then use the letters and numbers to create a four-digit combination. You can input the code in to their website and are entered into a draw to win £1,000.

The girls didn't buy in to the whole evil genius story, but their competitive spirit drove them on.

We started at the town's railway station (as per the map) and followed the directions to the first clue.

Excited!!

There are twenty clues in total, and you have to find the answers on a variety of local objects from street signs, to stone etchings, blue plaques, and drain covers. Once you find the object, it's pretty obvious what the answer is, although you do have to pay attention to some very fine detail in places.

Filling in the answer grid

Look high and low for the answers to the clues.

Inspecting the engravings at Beverley Minster

The whole trail took about two hours (which the map said it would). The directions on the map were very good. We are local and familiar with the place, but even if we weren't, it would have been straightforward enough. The clues were obvious once we found them but there were a few my 8-year old struggled with. This is definitely a family activity rather than just for children. To be honest, adults without children would enjoy this, especially as a good way of getting to know a new place.

Overall, I was very impressed with the treasure trail. We entered our 4-digit code on return to HQ (after having some juice and biscuits) and were pleased to see it worked! We were then given a link where we printed out a certificate each for the girls to fill in.

I am very impressed especially with the text feature - if you're stuck on a clue you can text a code to TreasureTrails and you get the answer. Brilliant if you are really struggling. (you can have up to three free ones per trail, which was ample for us).We had to use it once where the gardens we had to enter were locked and we couldn't see what we were supposed to be finding. The text answer arrived quickly and enabled us to move on. BUT then, we saw it - a gap in the fence. So we made like proper secret agents and shimmied our way in! Win. 

Yeah! Jack Bauer, eat your heart out.

We had a lovely walk around our home town, and saw a lot of details we had never seen before on one of our many trips there. We had a lovely half hour in Beverley's Coronation Gardens where we had a picnic, and saw many of Beverley's lovely buildings.

Treasure Trails are available to buy from http://www.treasuretrails.co.uk/. There are more than 1000 trails available. They start at £6.99 each, and personalised ones are available for £12.99 (correct at the time of publishing).

Disclosure - we were sent a complimentary Treasure Trail to complete this review

Written by Joanne Brady

Tanfield Railway, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear

Discovered I harboured an inner trainspotter when we made our first trip on the Tanfield Railway – the oldest in the world no less! The children were amazed to find a train that actually went chugga chugga choo choo and it really was like stepping back in time.

We parked in the main car park at Andrews House and took the train from the station all the way along the route, which is quite short (about three miles each way.) Sitting in the “buffet” car we were even able to munch our picnic in between the obligatory waving at passers by and hanging our heads out of the window. 

There are lots of short stops along the way and we got out at Causey Arch, where we only had chance for a short walk over the bridge (again a record breaker as it is the world’s oldest railway bridge), but where you can stop for longer and enjoy lots of woodland walks before getting the train back again.

We then walked down to Europe’s oldest working engine shed at Marley Hill, where volunteers are busy on restoration projects and where the geek in me really did emerge and I was fascinated by the old engines, some by Robert Stephenson and the children loved climbing in and out of the old Victorian carriages. It really brings home what feats of engineering have taken place in the region.

There is a cafe at Andrews House for refreshments as well as toilet facilities and picnic benches.

The passenger service runs every Sunday. A family ticket (2 adults and 2 children) is £23 and under 5s are free. It may seem pricey, but when you remember all this is only possible because of dedicated volunteers, it is well worth it. For more information visit http://www.tanfield-railway.co.uk/

This is a guest post from Liz - a mum of two girls aged four and two, living in Northumberland, who blogs about their favourite places to go with kids in the North East of England. 

You can follow her on Twitter as @northeastmum and her blog is at http://northeastwithkids.wordpress.com/

Pearson Park, Hull, East Yorkshire

Pearson Park is a Victorian park situated about 2 miles north of the city centre in the leafy Avenues area of Hull. It is popular with university students, and local families.

This week we have had some visitors over from New Zealand and they were keen to see some squirrels so we went to Pearson Park to see if any were willing to show themselves off.

First of all, we tried feeding the ducks on the pond but they weren't hungry. The pigeons decided they would eat the bread instead.

Then we visited the Victorian conservatory, which is home to tropical fish and a few reptiles. 

 

The keeper team were on duty so we got to hold a bearded dragon or two.

Then we had a little run around on one of the many grassy bits.

 

We had ice lollies at the ice-cream kiosk near the duck pond.

Then on to the play area where....... we peeped around the little rock maze (which I remember from my own childhood)........

....had a little play on some of the numerous play equipment.....

....and sped down the zip wire.....

....finishing off with a trip across the wooden bridge.

Sadly, we didn't see any squirrels although they are usually in abundance. Next time we shall remember to take some nuts.

Pearson Park is accessible off Beverley Road (go down Pearson Avenue). There is lots of parking available on the perimeter road. Toilets are behind the ice-cream kiosk and in the play area.

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Written by Joanne Brady