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.
Queen's Park
Bolton, Greater Manchester
A 22-acre Victorian park on the edge of Bolton town centre with a Green Flag and, more to the point, one of the better free playgrounds in the borough: swings, climbing frames, a miniature zip line and a sand area with a JCB digger toy that generates queues. It sits at the Spa Road end, over a small bridge across the River Croal from the free car park.
The cafe is within sight of the playground and has the public toilets, which is exactly where you want both. It does proper hot food, jacket potatoes and full breakfasts rather than just flapjack, plus ice creams. Expect the playground to be heaving on sunny weekends and bank holidays; term-time mornings are the quiet shift.
When the swings wear thin there is the promenade lined with stone statues, a sunken ornamental garden, an outdoor gym and the riverside walk. The junior parkrun on Sundays is a fixture.
Know before you go
- Park on Spa Road: the playground is just over the little bridge from the car park, so you are on the swings within two minutes of arriving.
- A junior parkrun sets off on Sunday mornings if you have a runner in the family.
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.
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.