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.
Party and Play Funhouse
Bolton, Greater Manchester
Westhoughton rather than Bolton proper, on an industrial estate off the A6, and the useful thing about it is the outdoor play area. Most soft play is a windowless box you enter and leave; this one lets everybody outside when the weather holds, which changes the arithmetic on a borderline day.
Inside there is a multi-level frame with slides for over fours, a separate toddler section, and a sensory room aimed at babies under a year. Go karts cost extra. Parking is free, the cafe has a five star hygiene rating, and prices only appear once you go into the booking system.
It is family run and it shows, in the good way and occasionally the other way: the website has never quite been finished. Ring them if you need to be certain about opening hours.
Know before you go
- The go karts are charged separately from entry, so decide that one before anybody sees them.
- The role play room only runs weekdays in term time, which is the opposite of when most families turn up.
Looking for more soft play & indoor play 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.
Moss Bank Park
Bolton's big free family park: two decent playgrounds, a miniature railway, a seasonal funfair and The Hive, a Wildlife Trust nature-play garden that charges £2.50 a head and is worth it for under-sevens.
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.
Playtopia
Bolton's biggest recent soft play opening, with a sports court and a gym room alongside the frame. Adults are a pound, which is the number that decides where you go on a wet Tuesday.
That Fun Place at Jump Xtreme
The soft play bolted onto Bolton's big trampoline park, so the four-year-old and the eleven-year-old can both be occupied in the same building. Over 115 trampolines next door.