Great Gardens for Kids
The gardens and grounds of our sites are wonderful places to explore with children. Whether they're budding historians, or they just need somewhere to run off some steam, we have some great gardens for you to enjoy exploring with the kids.
Go on an adventure
Many of our properties have gardens, grounds and outdoor spaces which are ideal for exploring with the family. Whether it's a ready-made trail to follow such as at Walmer Castle and Gardens, or simply enchanting surroundings to spark the imagination like the quarry gardens at Belsay Hall, Castle and Gardens, they're the perfect setting for creating a mini adventure.
At Walmer, young explorers will enjoy letting off steam as they discover the natural play trail along the woodland walk. They'll love climbing into hollow tree trunks and giant nests, crossing wobbly bridges, conquering climbing nets and gazing up through the trees on leaf-shaped sky seats.
While exploring, kids can even learn about wildlife by spotting sculptures of woodland birds dotted around the trail. Created by master designers Studio Hardie, the beautifully crafted play pieces complement the woodland landscape and encourage children take delight in the glorious outdoors.
Discover our top 5 play areasPack a picnic
With big open spaces and glorious surroundings, our garden sites make perfect places for picnics. One of our Members tells us that Wrest Park offers ‘so much green space to have picnics easily away from other groups’, which is why it’s proved so popular with our Members for a spot of al fresco dining.
Osborne on the Isle of Wight is another of our top recommendations. One Member’s children has loved ‘the walk to the beach’ and has ‘spent many afternoons [there]’ at Osborne – and we are sure plenty of others would agree that the palatial seaside home of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is the perfect place to spend some quality family time. Indeed, Queen Victoria herself spent many happy hours there with her family and Osborne is just as lavish and exciting to visit today as it would have been when she resided there.
Discover our top 5 picnic spotsRoot around in our Kitchen Gardens
Finding out how food makes its way from plot to plate is one of the easiest ways to nurture a child's interest in gardening and the great outdoors. Take the kids for a wander through one of our kitchen gardens to find out what's being harvested, and spot the different fruit growing in the orchards.
Audley End's kitchen garden is perhaps the best known of our properties, featuring in our popular video series 'The Victorian Way'. Take a moment to admire our glorious grape vines in our glasshouses and the delicious array of fruits and vegetables growing throughout the seasons.
At the Home of Charles Darwin – Down House, many of the vegetables grown in the kitchen garden today are Victorian varieties recorded by Darwin in his notebooks.
The kitchen garden at Walmer Castle and Gardens has grown produce for the castle for nearly 300 years. Step inside the adjacent greenhouses bursting with colour in all seasons. Nearby, the moat garden also provides a great safe space for children to explore.
Food for ThoughtFollow our children's trails
Young visitors to Osborne can follow the garden adventure trail from the Swiss Cottage to discover the royal Chihuahua or take the Rhododendron Walk down to the beach and spot the carved woodland creatures on their way.
At Kirby Hall, pick up a copy of our children’s trail and join Edmund the peacock on an adventure. Discover more about the courtyard and garden, spot some of Kirby’s quirky features and have a go at fun activities. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for our real peacocks who live on site.
Play Hide and Seek
When it comes to having something for everyone, it doesn't get much better than Boscobel House and the Royal Oak.
Built in about 1632, Boscobel House, originally a timber-framed farmhouse, was a famous hiding place of Charles II. An interactive tour brings this history to life with a hide and seek theme.
Boscobel’s 17th-century garden is complete with characteristic box hedging and plants such as peonies and artemisias, commonly found in parterre gardens at the time. Walk up the small mound, on top of which was a 'pretty arbour' where Charles is said to have spent a few hours reading in 1651.
Continuing the hide and seek theme, the play area is great for children visiting Boscobel House. Young visitors will have fun hiding in the replica priest holes and letting off steam exploring the climbing frame, slide and swing.
Boscobel's Victorian farmyard is a well-preserved example of a 19th-century small 'planned farm'. Young visitors can experience what life would have been like on a busy Victorian working farm, and meet the resident animals including Ryeland Sheep, Tamworth pigs and chickens, all cared for by stockperson, Kyra-Alice Povey.
Once you've discovered the house, garden and farm together, go on an adventure as you explore the grass maze and 28 metre-long willow tunnel which snakes through a field next to the garden. Planted in 2020, with the help of volunteers, the willow tunnel is a brilliant place for young visitors to play.
Book a Visit to Boscobel House and the Royal Oak
