Kenyon Hall Farm
A working fruit farm with a farm shop, cafe and a free play area, plus pick your own from June to August. The strawberry tickets sell out fast and the fruit costs more than the supermarket, but nobody is here for the economics.
Pumpkin patches and Halloween in the North West: what is actually confirmed for 2026
- Half term
- 24 Oct to 1 Nov
- Halloween
- Saturday 31 Oct
- Checked
- 25 Sept 2026
This page went up in the first week of August, when almost nobody had published a thing. I went back through every farm on it on 25 September 2026, against each farm's own website, and the picture has changed a lot. Most of the big patches now have dates and prices, one of them has already sold out every weekend and half term slot, and a handful are still saying nothing.
Same rule as before. Where a farm has confirmed something for 2026, I say so and give the price it gives. Where it has not, or its website would not let me in to check, I say that too rather than carry over last year's numbers. If you want the whole of Halloween rather than just the pumpkins, the Halloween in the North West guide sorts everything by age, and the October half term page lists what is on day by day.
Already sold out at half term
Kenyon Hall Farm at Croft opened its Pumpkin Festival on Saturday 26 September and is open every day through October. Entry to the patch is £3.95 a head and the pumpkins are extra, from £2 for the smallest to £10 and up for the big ones. The catch: every weekend and half term date was already fully booked when I checked. There was still good availability midweek, including after school slots, and a photo mini-shoot booking guarantees entry even on sold out days. The patch closes at 4.45pm and the site at 5pm.
Confirmed, with dates and prices
Farmer Ted's at Downholland outside Ormskirk runs its Pumpkin Festival from 2 October to 1 November 2026. Tickets start at £12 a head and a family of four starts at £41.50, which is online only, with under 1s free. Pumpkins are not included. New this year is a Pumpkin Village of pumpkin mountains, archways and more gourds than anyone needs, plus a Sorcery School twice a day. It still suits the under eights better than almost anywhere else here.
Walby Farm Park near Carlisle runs pumpkin picking every day from 3 to 31 October 2026. Adults are from £13.45, children from £14.95 and every paying child ticket includes a pumpkin, with under 1s free and a £2 booking fee per order. On 27 and 28 October the farm stays open until 7pm on the same ticket so you can pick at dusk, and it expects both to sell out. The after dark picking nights it advertises separately are adults only.
Smithills Open Farm at Bolton does pumpkin picking on 17 and 18 October and then every day from 24 to 31 October, at £6 a pumpkin. The farm puts an asterisk on that price without saying what it covers, so read the booking page before you assume entry is included. Its Halloween Special runs through half term within ordinary farm admission.
Reddish Vale Farm in Stockport runs its Halloween Pumpkin Festival from 10 to 31 October, with cheaper midweek days on 12 to 14 and 19 to 21 October and Moonlight Pumpkin Evenings on 17, 24 and 25 October from 5pm to 8pm.
Tatton Park opens its farm pumpkin patch on selected dates from 10 to 31 October. Pumpkins start at £2, but you need farm and parkland tickets to get to them.
Bates Farm at Risley, near Birchwood, grows more than 50,000 pumpkins on a seven-acre patch with an undercover barn. Entry is £15 a car for a 90-minute slot, with pumpkins extra at £1 to £15, and it is booking only. When I checked on 17 October, both weekends left were sold out, but the half-term weekdays from 26 to 28 October still had slots, and so did 31 October.
Pye Ash Farm at Bosley, between Macclesfield and Congleton, says its Pumpkin Maze opens on select dates through October, with more than fifty varieties grown on the farm, sheepdog demonstrations, marshmallow toasting and face painting. Pumpkins are bought separately at £1 to £15 depending on size.
Confirmed, dates still to come
Windmill Animal Farm at Burscough has changed its approach: this year's Great Pumpkin Adventure is entirely indoors, no mud, with one pumpkin per child included and Halloween characters about. The farm says it is almost here but had not put dates or prices on the page on 25 September.
Apple Jacks at Stretton is open this October as Spooky World's Fun By Day, the daytime version with no scare attractions, a free pumpkin for every paying customer and activities aimed at 4 to 12 year olds. The dates sit inside the booking calendar rather than on a page I could read. The evening event on the same site has scare attractions and is a separate ticket.
Not confirmed, or I could not check
Two farms on this page block the kind of automated check I use, and a third's website would not load at all on 25 September, so I have nothing new for them and will not guess. Claremont Farm above Bebington usually opens a pick your own patch, announced on its social feed about a fortnight ahead. Farmer Parr's at Fleetwood usually opens Parr's Patch. Cockfields Farm Park at Ashton-under-Lyne had 2026 tickets on sale in August at £14.95 a head with a pumpkin included, but its site was down when I rechecked. Check all three on their own pages or social accounts before you drive.
Paul's Farm at Leyland, Libby's Patch at Gawsworth and Roby Mill at Upholland were not rechecked this time. Treat what you find elsewhere about them with the usual suspicion.
How to tell a 2026 page from last year's
The trick that has now caught five wrong dates for this site, including one this week. Farms almost always write dates with the weekday attached, and weekdays shift by one each year. So if a page says Saturday 4th October and 4 October 2026 is a Sunday, you are reading a 2025 page. The same logic works on bare ranges: last year's half term ran 25 October to 2 November, this year's runs 24 October to 1 November, so a Halloween page quoting the first of those has not been updated yet.
Two other tells. A booking link that leads to an empty Eventbrite or a sold out page from last autumn. And a date range with no year at all, which usually means the page has been edited in place for three seasons running.
So, the plan. If you wanted a Kenyon Hall weekend, that has gone; go midweek or after school instead. If you want Walby's twilight evenings, book now. Everything else here can be sorted a week or so out, and the farms still quiet are worth a look on their Facebook pages, which is where their dates tend to appear first.
Questions people actually ask
When do pumpkin patches open in the North West in 2026?
Most run through October and finish on 31 October or 1 November. Kenyon Hall Farm opened on 26 September, Farmer Ted's opens on 2 October, Walby Farm Park on 3 October, and Reddish Vale Farm and Tatton Park on 10 October. Half term this year is 24 October to 1 November.
Do I need to book pumpkin picking, or can I just turn up?
Book. Every farm on this page that has published its 2026 details sells tickets in advance, and Kenyon Hall Farm had sold out all its weekend and half term dates by 25 September. The exception is buying a ready picked pumpkin: at Kenyon Hall you can do that in the farm shop without a ticket.
How much does pumpkin picking cost in the North West?
Two models. At a patch you pay entry plus the pumpkin: £3.95 a head at Kenyon Hall Farm with pumpkins from £2, £6 a pumpkin at Smithills Open Farm, £1 to £15 a pumpkin at Pye Ash Farm. At a farm park you buy a day ticket: children from £14.95 with a pumpkin included at Walby Farm Park, or from £12 a head at Farmer Ted's, where pumpkins are extra.
Which pumpkin patch is best for toddlers?
Windmill Animal Farm at Burscough, because this year its pumpkin picking is entirely indoors, so no mud and no pushchair battles. Farmer Ted's near Ormskirk is the other obvious pick, being built around the under eights all year. Avoid anything sold as after dark or as a scare event.
Are the North West Halloween events scary?
The daytime ones are not. Apple Jacks runs a daytime Fun By Day with no scare attractions and a separate evening event with them, so read the ticket name. Walby Farm Park's pumpkin picking after dark nights are adults only. The Halloween guide sorts the whole region's events by age.
Why do some farms on this page have no 2026 details?
Either they had not published anything on 25 September 2026, when every venue here was checked against its own website, or their site blocked the check. Copying last year's dates across would make the page look more complete and send people to closed fields, so the gaps stay until the farms fill them.
Every place in this guide
Farmer Ted's Adventure Farm
Built precisely for the under-9s: animal encounters, giant jumping pillows, tractor rides and a big indoor play barn that rescues wet days. Older siblings will tolerate it; little ones adore it.
Walby Farm Park
Cumbria's big family farm park: animal handling, giant jumping pillows, pedal go-karts and an indoor play barn big enough to lose a wet afternoon in. The far-north option when you are up that way.
Smithills Open Farm
A hands-on farm above Bolton: pets corner, meet-and-greet sessions, tractor and trailer rides, donkey rides and a zoo zone, with activities timetabled through the day. Open every day of the year bar three, and £45 for a family of four.
Reddish Vale Farm
A proper small farm park tucked into the Tame valley on Stockport's edge: cows, goats, shire horses and alpacas, zip wires outside and a play area under cover for when it rains. Book online, the gate price is higher.
Tatton Park
A thousand acres of deer park with a playground, plus a mansion, 50 acres of gardens and a rare-breeds farm bolted on. The trick is knowing the car fee covers the parkland and playground, and everything else is a separate ticket.
Windmill Animal Farm
A friendly hands-on farm whose star turn is the miniature railway running out across the fields. Animal handling sessions, indoor play for wet spells, and it never feels too big.
Apple Jacks Adventure Farm
An adventure farm off Stretton Road built for 4 to 12s: tractor trailer rides, zip wires, drop slides, jumping pillows, roller skating and a tent full of inflatables. Despite the name there are no animals to see, and in October it turns into Spooky World's daytime Fun-By-Day.
Claremont Farm
A working farm on the ridge above Bebington where the strawberry field is the whole attraction: you pay at the gate, walk into the rows, and the price includes the punnet you fill. June and July only.
Farmer Parr's Animal World
A proper hands-on farm park at the top of the Fylde coast: feeding, petting, pony and tractor rides, and enough indoor barns to survive the weather. Flat £10 a head from age 1, which is the only catch.
Bates Farm
A working beef and sheep farm at Risley, run by two sisters, that opens for booked events: a 7-acre pumpkin patch with 40-odd varieties in October, Deck the Barn at Christmas and lambing in spring. Pumpkin entry is £15 a car.