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.
Low Sizergh Barn Farm Trail
Kendal, Cumbria
This is a proper working dairy farm with a shop and cafe bolted on, not a farm park charging at a gate. The trail is free, runs just under two miles in total, and passes cows in the fields, the vegetable plots at Growing Well and an orchard. Twelve interpretation boards line the route and a shorter half-mile spur runs to the pond. The genuinely good bit is the viewing gallery. The cafe has windows over the milking parlour and milking starts at 3.30pm daily, so you can sit down with a drink and let the children watch a herd get milked. That is a better deal than most paid farm attractions manage.
Practicalities: shop 9am to 5.30pm, cafe 9am to 5pm with last hot food at 4.30pm, open every day except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day. Dogs are fine outside but not in the shop or cafe. The cafe does not take reservations. Sizergh Castle is a few minutes up the road if you want to make a longer day of it.
Know before you go
- Time the visit for 3.30pm. That is when milking starts and you can watch it from a seat in the cafe with a drink, which is a rare combination.
- Do the half-mile pond section with under-fives, not the full two miles. The twelve character boards are all on that stretch and it is the part that holds them. Prices are not published for the shop or cafe, so budget loosely; the trail itself genuinely costs nothing.
Looking for more farms & animals 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.
Levens Hall & Gardens
The oldest topiary gardens in the world, laid out in the 1690s five miles south of Kendal and still clipped into the same absurd shapes. In child terms, acres of giant green chess pieces to run between.