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.
Playtopia
Bolton, Greater Manchester
One of the newer big centres in the borough, and it is doing more than a frame and a ball pit: there is a sports court, a gym room and a sports lounge attached, which stretches the age range past the point where soft play usually stops working.
Prices are the honest sell. Off peak a child is £5.50 booked online, peak £7.95, and adults are a flat pound. That last bit matters more than people admit. Two parents at £3 each turns a cheap morning into a not-cheap morning, and this one does not do that.
Open 9.30am to 6pm on weekdays and from 9am at weekends and through the holidays. The cafe does proper cooked food rather than the usual beige, which is worth knowing by about hour two.
Know before you go
- Booking online saves a pound a child over walking in, and it takes about a minute.
- The baby and toddler area is walled off for under twos, so a crawler is not being run over by nine-year-olds.
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.
Party and Play Funhouse
An independent at Westhoughton with an outdoor play area as well as the indoor frame, go karts on top, and a baby sensory room for the under ones. Free parking.
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.