
Witton Country Park
Blackburn's biggest green space: 480 acres with adventure playgrounds, woodland trails and a visitor centre in the old Victorian stables. Free in, free to park, and it absorbs a whole afternoon without anyone asking for money.
Blackburn, Lancashire

In the Soccerdome on Haslingden Road, and it is a trampoline park first: ninja wipeout, an inflatable obstacle course, foam pits, the lot. The soft play is a genuine separate offer rather than a corner of the car park, with a toddler area, a kids arena and a junior section, everything padded.
It suits a family straddling the age where trampolines start being allowed. The small one gets the padded end, the older one gets the ninja course, and nobody spends the afternoon watching from a bench.
Opening hours in term time are the catch. Closed Tuesdays and Thursdays, a late 3.30pm start on Mondays, and full days only at weekends and in the holidays. Prices sit behind the booking system.
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Blackburn's biggest green space: 480 acres with adventure playgrounds, woodland trails and a visitor centre in the old Victorian stables. Free in, free to park, and it absorbs a whole afternoon without anyone asking for money.

Blackburn's showpiece Victorian park: a triumphal arch at the gate, two lakes with swans, a playground right beside them and a lime-tree avenue climbing the hill. Free, and less than a mile from the town centre.

A proper old-fashioned free museum in the town centre: Egyptian gallery, natural history cases and paintings upstairs, all doable in an hour. Closed Sundays and Mondays, which catches people out.

24,000 square feet in the middle of Blackburn, with go karts, bumper cars and laser tag alongside the climbing frames. Not really soft play any more, more an indoor funfair.

Darwen's independent play centre with a sensory room, open five days a week in term time and every day in the holidays. Somewhere to sit that is not a plastic bench.

Eighty five acres of steep wooded valley on the edge of Darwen, with a brook, footbridges, carved wooden animals hidden along the paths and a 1912 tea kiosk that still sells ice cream. Free, and Green Flag rated.
One email a week: what is on this weekend within a sensible drive, and the places worth booking before they go.