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.
Sizergh Castle & Garden
Kendal, Cumbria
Sizergh has been the Strickland family's home for around 800 years and still feels lived-in rather than roped-off, but the reason it works for families is outside. A wild play trail runs through the woodland by the car park - climbing wall, balance beams, rope swing, stepping stones - pitched at ages three and up, and it costs nothing beyond parking.
It sits just off the A591 a few minutes from M6 junction 36, which makes it the least effortful National Trust place in the south Lakes. Gardens, cafe and estate open daily 10am to 5pm in season; the house keeps shorter afternoon hours, Tuesday to Sunday. Non-members pay £15 an adult for house and garden or £11 for garden only, and the estate paths through orchards and limestone pasture are free to walk.
The cafe cooks with produce from the kitchen garden, and the limestone rock garden is one of the Trust's biggest, which means nothing to a seven-year-old but does mean plenty of paths to charge along.
Know before you go
- The wild play trail is in the woodland just off the car park, so you can do it without paying garden admission - follow the clues to the climbing wall, balance beams, rope swing and stepping stones.
- The house only opens from midday and not on Mondays, so garden first, house after lunch if the kids have anything left.
Looking for more parks & outdoors near Kendal?
Also in Kendal
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.