A Day Out at Capel Manor Garden Halloween Festival

We have been out to several pumpkin farms at this point, but were still looking for Halloween related events to get the kids to for the October term. Capel Manor Garden is a local, huge, historical garden that we’ve always wanted to go too, and they have a Halloween Festival, so it felt like perfect timing. Capel Manor Garden is a huge location, with over 30 gardens, a zoo, various activity buildings and so much more on offer.

When we got there, we checked in and went through a building with decorations that were made of balloons. None of us had seen balloon art like this before, so it was pretty neat to see how these balloons were twisted and used. This little walk put us outside the main building, where many of the different activities’ were. It is worth noting that in the ticket price you get free entry to roam around, complete a spooky walk, visit a maze, and check out the zoo. But, for an additional cost, you can also visit a bounce house, carve your own pumpkins, and get your face painted. The first thing that everyone wanted to do was the bounce house, so we made our way and purchased tickets for that. The bounce house is a smaller one, but the kids loved the slide and jumping around it!

From there, we started walking around the spooky trails. We had a map which had blanks in for letters, that were dotted around the large grounds, encouraging us to explore literally everywhere. We followed some spooky, themed areas into beautiful gardens, that then became Halloween themed once again when a letter was near by. The decorations were really fun – one garden home was actually turned into an eye spy game at the back, which had Kai and Amelia solving riddles and then Robin counting up all of the creatures that answered the riddle. This was just a fun idea! More of the decorations, including some really fun topiary, really made the place feel quite festive to the season.

We went into Capel’s Creatures, which is a decent sized zoo on the grounds, and took a look at the owls, wild cats, meerkats, snakes, crocodiles, and more that they had in the area. Many of the animals had spooky facts near them, to tell you something a bit more Halloween in theme. We really had fun checking out the animals, and Robin and Amelia felt it was their favorite bit, even over the bounce house, which is a big plus. Included in the ticket price, there are animal talks that happen in a small room in the middle of Capel’s Creatures, where the children all get to pet some bugs and creatures that others might be afraid of, and learn all about it. The creatures we ended up touching were a large roach, a huge snail and some rats. They also got up close with a tarantula and locusts. The information on these different creatures was very interesting, though the building itself was quite small for the number of people who wanted to come in!

There is plenty of space to pack a lunch and eat it within the grounds, as well as a cafe if you are looking for something to purchase there. Next to that building, there was even a craft area, where the kids were able to do a few different crafts like creating spiders out of pipe cleaners, coloring, and making a rainbow scratch off creature. They seemed to really like the break from walking around and quite enjoyed their works of art.

We then made our way to the haunted holly bush maze, which is a new type of maze for all of us. Completely made out of holly bushes, decorated with Halloween decorations, we were able to find our way to the look out tower in the middle. This maze had jokes and facts throughout, which seemed to be an indication that you were heading in the right direction, which was a good touch – though the kids were able to cut through a gap and make their way to the tower. Another area that was well loved in the gardens was the fairy forest – where Robin loved point out the fairy statues and having us read the facts and signs about witches.

Capel Manor Garden did a really good job of setting up the area for Halloween, and provided a really full on day out. We were there for hours, and still didn’t have time to properly explore all of the grounds. At the end of our time there, we had found the word, and the kids got to collect some candy as a reward, which they were delighted about. Everyone had a really fun day.

This post is apart of our Blogtober series, all with a Halloween or Autumn theme.