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.
Funtazia
Blackburn, Lancashire
Lancashire's biggest at 24,000 square feet, and it long ago stopped being a soft play centre in the normal sense. Go karts, bumper cars, laser tag and interactive football sit alongside three-storey climbing frames, ball pools and swings, which means it keeps eight and nine-year-olds interested rather than losing them at the door.
Prices split hard between peak and off peak. A term-time weekday is £8.95 for a child, weekends and school holidays £11.50, adults £2 throughout, and booking online takes 10% off. For a family of four in the holidays you are looking at about £27 before anyone mentions the cafe.
The cafe does halal food and outside food is not allowed, so plan for spending there. It shuts on Tuesdays. Sessions are timed slots rather than turn-up-and-stay, which is the detail most people miss.
Know before you go
- Closed on Tuesdays. It catches people out every half term.
- Sessions are fixed slots of 90 minutes to two hours, not all-day entry, so check which one you have booked before you plan lunch around it.
Looking for more soft play & indoor play near Blackburn?
Also in Blackburn
Corporation Park
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.
Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery
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.
Flip Out Blackburn
Trampolines, a ninja course and an inflatable obstacle run, with a foam-padded soft play area for the ones too small for all that. Shut on Tuesdays and Thursdays in term time.
Temple of Fun
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.