There were so many lovely Easter Trails this year, and we tried to go to as many as we could! One of the shorter trails were at Bourne Mill – a small Elizabethan mill from the 19th century. This building is right near a beautiful pond, full of birds and wildlife. At the moment, the mill itself isn’t currently open to the public, but you can stick your head in and watch it turn with the water, moving as you walk around the grounds. There is plenty for a good short day out, and for Easter, they put on a pretty fun trail! Even without the trail, Bourn Mill is one of our favorite National Trust sites in Essex.
The trail gave each child a bag, with a National Trust pencil and a trail booklet to fill out. Unlike other trails that we have done, this trail was full of numbers, which then corresponded with the numbers on the sheet. There were tasks to do at each number – from hopping like a bunny to drawing pictures of the pond, to planning out your own bee hotel! All of these tasks have a lot to do with nature and do a good job of keeping kids moving.
The grounds are small and you can sort of see the numbers from each other, but there are little signs around that give you a bit more information on the trees, pond, and otherwise wildlife. The walk is interesting – there are picnic tables perfect for a little lunch (which is what we did), there are a lot of trees, a beautiful pond that you can walk around, and a small amount of swamp-ish land with a big walkway over it. Bourne Mill has some nice bee hotels and a few areas where you can look into the house. It’s worth mentioning that there isn’t really parking at Bourne Mill – there is parking spaces for maybe 3 cars, if you are lucky, but there is some on-street parking nearby. Once we finished our hunt, we handed them in for some chocolate eggs, which the children enjoyed.
Having a mix of activities that were more like tasks to do and drawing, instead of the usual trivia, was a lot of fun for everyone! The day itself was short and sweet, and we had a good time milling around the grounds and taking in the scenes. Bourne Mill is apart of the National Trust, and well worth taking a look at if, especially if you have a membership!
The activities does sound a lot more interesting then doing trivia. The National Trust do have some great places to visit
Yes, and these were so creative.
Wow……this is a cool activity to do with family. You can also learned new things and gain new knowledge. Thank you for sharing your experience.
It was a really fun one!