Walton Hall & Gardens
The reliable default: gardens, a children's zoo, a big playground and plenty of room to run. Pay for parking, nothing else.
Bates Farm
- Cost
- Pumpkin patch £15 a car, pumpkins extra; Deck the Barn £10.50 a head
- Ages
- 1 to 12
- Where
- Warrington, Cheshire
- Weather
- Mostly outdoors
- Booking
- Booking only, timed slots via the farm's Ticket Tailor page; day or time can be changed up to 24 hours ahead
Bates Farm is a working farm on Warrington Road at Risley, just off the M62 near Birchwood, run by two sisters, Ali and Fi. Most of the year it is beef cattle and sheep, and the public only gets in for booked events. Think of it as a calendar rather than a venue: lambs in spring, pumpkins in October, a Christmas barn in November and December.
The pumpkin patch is the big one. The farm says it grows more than 50,000 pumpkins across seven acres, in over 40 varieties, with an undercover barn for when the field is too wet. Tickets are £15 a car for a 90-minute slot, which also gets you the pigs, sheep, calves and donkeys, and the pumpkins are extra at £1 to £15 depending on size. There is face painting, photo spots and a pink tractor raising money for Cancer Research, and the food court does wood-fired pizza and gyros from 12 to 4pm alongside the coffee and cinnamon buns. The farm's own advice is to come early in the season, when the field is fullest and drier underfoot.
Deck the Barn is the Christmas version: markets, live music, a farmer's corner with the pigs, donkeys and tractors, and a post box for letters to Santa. It runs for four weekends from 21 November, in two-hour slots at £10.50 a head with under 2s free, and several of the December Saturdays were already sold out in mid October. Meet the Lambs comes round in spring, with tickets on sale from late February 2027. The farm asks pregnant visitors to stay away during lambing, which is standard advice around ewes.
What it costs: Pumpkin patch: £15 per car for a 90-minute slot, covering the patch and the farm animals; pumpkins are paid for separately, £1 to £15 by size. Deck the Barn: £10.50 a person for a two-hour slot, under 2s free, food and drink extra. Meet the Lambs prices are not published yet; tickets go on sale in late February 2027.
Know before you go
- It is £15 a car, not a head, so it is one of the cheaper patches around if you fill the back seat.
- The weekend slots sell out. On 17 October the remaining half-term weekdays still had space; Saturdays and Sundays mostly did not.
- Wellies. The barn and food court are fine for pushchairs, but the farm says the patch itself is only pushchair-friendly in dry weather.
- Dogs on leads are welcome at the pumpkins and at Christmas, but not at Meet the Lambs.
On right now checked 17 October
- Pumpkin picking runs on remaining dates to 31 October, including half-term weekdays 26 to 28 October. On 17 October, 18, 24 and 25 October were sold out; the weekdays still had slots.
- Deck the Barn tickets are on sale for 21 November to mid December. Sat 5 and Sat 12 December were already sold out.
Seasonal: Events only: pumpkin picking in October, Deck the Barn on four weekends from 21 November, Meet the Lambs in spring. Check before travelling.
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