Pensthorpe In May 2024!
Pensthorpe has been one of our favourite places to visit ever since Florence was a baby. It gifts the perfect day out with something g for everyone and Iver the years I’ve seen their offerings just get better and better. The play areas, for a prime example, have transformed in the last 14 years making Pensthorpe potentially one of the most brilliant places to take children in the UK.
Be it an indoor romp in Hootz House, while the rain hammers down on the beautiful grounds outside, in a place you can take advantage of messy play (included in the ticket price) mid week, term time, and run wild in a booked time slot at busier periods, or whether outside in Wild Rootz, (a sympathetic to the vista playground with a stream running all the way through it for ducks and children to enjoy together), there’s enough of a play invitation to visit for this alone. However, there’s a lot more to Pensthorpe than play areas!
We enjoy taking a walk around the lake where little prescriptions for play are dotted about as you stroll. Hop scotch, interesting facts, a bridge most perfect for Pooh Sticks… Trees to climb and art nestled in the scenery make the walk delightful. A bird watched can stop in a bird hide, children can scramble through “otter houses” and discover nature at every turn. When we visited yesterday we stopped at all our favourite points along the walk and then took a picnic on the field at the end, after skimming stones in our special stone skimming place.
We have visited Pensthorpe so many times we know it like the back of my hand and yet we never tire of it. Ever changing, always evolving, nature bestowing a new vista from week to week. The millennium Garden is just beginning to bloom for summer and though the park is gorgeous all year round, it is nearly time for the explosion of colour which is the crowning glory on the year’s work by gardeners. Absolutely stunning to see!
Next on our list yesterday had to be a trip to the “famambingoes” as Posie calls them. Gertrude, their 70 year old flamingo, made the news recently whe she mated for the first time and played an egg. Not fertilised sadly but an egg all the same and with Gertie’s age, having never mated before, this shows how happy the flamingoes at Pensthorpe must be! We stopped a while to watch them, before heading to the play areas to put the cherry on the cake of our day out!
We didn’t even find time to do the trails?! “Power of Pollination” is running all week, a special for the holiday and yet we couldnt tear ourselves away from everything else! Too much talking, laughing, playing… Another visit perhaps?! We have been annual members for years so we are often there. Our passes have just run out but we will, of course, be re-newing them!
FYI:
If it rains for one consecutive hour or more while you visit, Penthorpe will give you a ticket to re-visit for FREE!
IN NEW NEWS:
Just in case you hadn’t heard, Pensthorpe are offering camping and glamping this summer with entry to the park as an add on for the former and included with the latter. The camp site will open in early July and be available throughout the summer until the end of August. Take your own tents (as we will be doing) or book a luxurious stay in a bell tent with proper beds. There will be solar panelled showers, food trucks on site, and as well as the gloriously chilled countryside there is, of course, all that’s on offer in the reserve for you during your stay which will begin on either a Tuesday, or a Friday and be for two nights with options to add a third. We will let you know more once we’ve had a taster of the camp in July!
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