Smithills Open Farm
A proper hands-on farm day: bottle feeding, donkey rides, a tractor trailer tour and small animal handling, with enough under cover to survive drizzle. Built for the under-9s.
Moss Bank Park
Bolton, Greater Manchester
An 85-acre council park on the north-west edge of Bolton that covers most of the bases for nothing. The lower playground has a large sandpit, swings and play towers for the small ones; the upper one steps it up with a log trail, climbing wall, nets and a rotating seesaw. A miniature railway run by the local model railway society does laps, and a funfair sets up from spring to autumn.
The Hive is the clever bit. The Wildlife Trust took over the old Animal World site and turned it into a nature-play garden for pre-schoolers and under-sevens: mud kitchen, water play, den building, bug hunting, willow tunnels. It runs Thursday to Saturday from April to the end of October and a day pass is £2.50 each, which buys a lot of mud.
Animal World itself, the free children's zoo older Boltonians remember, closed in 2013 and is not coming back. The cafe near its old entrance survived, and the Japanese garden nearby is a quiet corner when everyone needs winding down.
Know before you go
- The Hive only opens Thursday to Saturday, April to October, 10am to 3pm with last entry at 2pm - do not promise it to a toddler on a Sunday.
- The main car park off Moss Lane fills quickly at weekends; there is a second one half a mile further along Moss Lane.
Looking for more parks & outdoors near Bolton?
Also in Bolton
Bolton Museum
A free town museum hiding one of Britain's best Egyptian collections, including a full recreation of Thutmose III's tomb, plus an aquarium in the basement. Genuinely free, genuinely good.
Queen's Park
Bolton's restored Victorian park: a proper playground with a mini zip line and a sand pit with a toy digger, a cafe with public toilets in sight of it, and the River Croal running through. Free, including the Spa Road car park.