Down On The Farm
It's no secret that Bemused is a big fan of fluffy animals (see previous wildlife writeups). However, there are no children in the Bemused household, and thus we had lacked an excuse to go and visit Horton Park Children's Farm until this Sunday just past, when we were entertaining friends and their offspring. (Yes, possibly one could visit without children in tow -- but I suspect they might look at you a little strangely. Perhaps elderly relatives would do instead of children, at a pinch.)
Getting out of the house on a damp Sunday morning seemed like a good plan. Horton Park is just flirting with the boundary between Ewell and Chessington, and the Farm itself is well-signposted, even if a fair amount of new building in the area means that the roads no longer bear a lot of resemblance to the map we were using. We arrived, paid our fees, bought some animal food and wandered on through to see what was looking cute...
Horton Park boasts some of the world's most chilled rabbits. Even those currently resident at Bobtails are not this laid-back. You can get into the runs with some of them and make friends, and they seemed perfectly relaxed about being petted by a three-year-old. (She was treating the rabbits very, very carefully, as though they were made of bone china rather than flesh and fur. I approved.)
A pen marked "Incubating Eggs" proved to have moved a little further beyond that and to have chicks in it (one was just being removed to be the guest of honour at a birthday party being held in the play area, when we saw them). In other barns, there were very rambunctious kids of the goat variety (sadly the one who kept jumping on his mother's back absolutely refused to do so long enough for a photo), alpacas, a llama who reportedly enjoys polos, very noisy sheep, a couple of rather shaggy donkeys, and some damp-looking ducks. (Even damper than ducks usually look, that is.)
One should, perhaps, note that the "Mouse House" not only contains mice and hamsters but also some reptiles. I giggled as I watched a father trying to work out how to explain to his young son that the thing protruding from the snake's mouth was in fact a mouse it had been fed for dinner (I'm sure the mice couldn't see into the snake's enclosure... that really could be considered a bit cruel).
A quick run through the playground finished off the morning before we headed back for lunch. The three-year-old didn't want to leave, the ten-year-old seemed to enjoy it, and the four adults were also amused, so I think we'd have to count it a success.
We took around an hour and a half to look round; on a less rainy day that could probably have been extended quite a bit. There's also an option for the kids to go into the PlayBarn, which is a bigger indoor play area with ladders, slides, ball pits and the like -- we didn't really have time for that.
Entry (as at 16th March 2008) is £5.95 for each child and £1.50 for an adult accompanying a child (£5.95 for additional adults, so it cost us £26.80 altogether). The Farm is open from 10am - 5pm during the winter months, 10am - 6pm during the summer months, and they're open every day except Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Horton Park Children's Farm, Horton Lane, Epsom, KT19 8PT; 01372 743984; http://www.hortonpark.co.uk/
posted @ 19:30
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