Lakeland Maze Farm Park
A working farm on the edge of the Lakes with a giant maize maze cut fresh each summer, go-karts, trampolines and animal handling. The maze opens mid-July once the corn is tall enough.
Levens Hall & Gardens
Kendal, Cumbria
Levens Hall makes a claim that sounds like marketing and turns out to be true: these are the oldest topiary gardens in the world, laid out in the 1690s and still clipped into the same absurd shapes. For a child that reads as a garden full of giant green chess pieces, and the effect holds for longer than you would expect. It is five miles south of Kendal, right at the edge of the National Park.
The ticketing is sensibly split. Gardens only costs 11.36 for an adult and 4.14 for a child aged 5 to 16, with a family ticket at 28.27 covering two adults and up to three children. Add the Elizabethan house and it climbs to 15.12, 5.03 and 37.36.
Levens Kitchen and the gift shop sit outside the ticket line, so you can drop in for lunch without paying to get in. The kitchen opens at 9.30am, half an hour before anything else does.
Timings differ between the two halves of the site. Gardens run 10am to 5pm with last entry at 4pm, the house only 11am to 3.30pm with last entry at 3pm. Do the indoor bit first if you want both. The season is 27 March to 8 November 2026, seven days a week, with one early close on Sunday 19 July.
Know before you go
- Buy the gardens-only ticket unless someone genuinely wants the Elizabethan interior. It saves nearly four pounds a head and the topiary is what children remember.
- The house closes at 3.30pm while the gardens run to 5pm, so do the indoor bit first if you want both.
- It runs 27 March to 8 November only. Outside that window there is nothing open, so it is a spring and autumn option, not a winter one.
Seasonal: 27 Mar to 8 Nov 2026, seven days a week. Check before travelling.
Looking for more parks & outdoors near Kendal?
Also in Kendal
Sizergh Castle & Garden
A medieval tower house with proper gardens and a wild play trail in the woods just off the car park - climbing wall, rope swing, stepping stones. For National Trust members it is the easiest Lakes stop off the M6; for everyone else the garden ticket is the sensible buy.
Lakeland Wildlife Oasis
A small zoo five minutes off M6 junction 35 with over 100 species and, crucially, a lot of it under glass: tropical hall, butterfly house, aquarium and small mammals inside, dik-diks and hornbills out. Compact enough that little legs see everything, open every day from 10am.
Kendal Castle
A free 12th-century ruin on a grassy hill above Kendal, open all the time, with walls to circle, arches to charge through and the whole town and fells spread out below. Ten minutes of steep pull to get up, then let them loose.
Low Sizergh Barn Farm Trail
Turn up at half three and you can watch the herd being milked through a gallery window in the cafe, drink in hand. It is a working dairy farm outside Kendal and the trail round it is free.